Creeking More in the ATL (with your host Nate Creekmore) Episode #73

I'm not from Atlanta, but I live here, and (because I live here) people who don't live here ask me, "Creek, what's Atlanta really like?"  I don't know what Atlanta is really like, but if you'd like to know what it's like for me I invite you to sit back and enjoy another episode of "CREEKING MORE IN THE ATL (with your host Nate Creekmore)"!!!

[now in French with English subtitles]

In the city of Atlanta, one may bear witness to things inexplicable, such as the sudden appearance of a Ferris Wheel downtown near Centennial Olympic Park.

Or the freezing of that weird sculpture/fountain (the one that sits on Peachtree and 15th across the street from the High Museum) in the wintertime.

Or (during Dragon Con weekend) Captain Jean Luc Picard sitting across from you on the train.

But sometimes one bears witness to moments that are beyond whimsical.  Some moments are poignant in a way that is difficult to express with words or pictures (or any combination thereof), so you'll excuse me if I fail entirely to adequately describe the immensity and the simplicity of a scene that unfolded before me in Doraville on New Peachtree Road behind the Buford Highway Farmer's Market (near the Doraville MARTA station).

An old, that is to say elderly, couple was walking along the sidewalk co-carrying a plastic grocery bag.

The bag only held a few vegetables and couldn't have been heavy at all.  The man and woman were old enough that their pace was closer to a shuffle than a proper walk, but neither of them was too weak to carry the bag alone.

Yet there they were, he holding one strap, she holding the other.

I watched them.  They made no conversation, no knowing looks or smiles back and forth, they just walked along as if they were one person; a single unit that'd been through this and that and who knows what.

Understand, I said nothing to them and asked them no questions, so all of my assumptions are purely speculative.  Maybe what they appeared to be and what they actually were were not the same, and if that's the case, their facsimile of love personified in a walk and a silence and a co-carried plastic grocery bag was enough to fool me completely.

I watched them wait at a crosswalk, then I watched them cross, and then they disappeared from my field of vision.

I've seen many things in the city of Atlanta, but I've never seen anything quite like that.


There you have it folks, another exciting episode of "Creeking More in the ATL (with your host Nate Creekmore)"!  Be sure and come back for the next installment wherein I receive several hateful emails from folks who'd like me to know that Captain Picard never flew in anything called a "Millenial Falcon".