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April 2006
Is there life in Lawrenceville, Outside the Perimeter?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
True confession: I used to believe in the divine principle of Thou Cannot Live Outside the Perimeter and Survive. I was guilty of fear and loathing in living OTP.
This was during the time I lived in DeKalb County in the 1990s. Years packed with unexplained random losses of cable and electricity and birthdays ruined by outrageous ad valorem rates. And to think they call this kind of living divine.
That was before I considered life in Lawrenceville. Back when Gwinnett, instead of Forsyth, was prime suburbia and farmland-fresh horse manure still enveloped the air
Back when International House of Pancakes was the only international business on Jimmy Carter Boulevard and gang violence was limited to Scarface on VHS rented at the Blockbuster across the street from that same IHOP.
Back when Spaghetti Junction was not the home of the tractor-trailer jackknife maneuver and blasphemous drivers jumping into the sacred HOV lane with only one occupant.
Back when the Mall of Georgia was presumably being built at the edge of the South Carolina state line hours away from proper civilization. Back when I lived in my Decatur apartment unable to fathom living beyond Interstate 285.
This belief died for me when I began shopping for the true meaning of life just after the Y2K scare. I wanted a four-bedroom home, ITP please.
Mortgage lender: You can’t afford it.
Realtor: Too many potholes, too few sidewalks.
Thus, two years and two mortgage points paid later, I ended up in Lawrenceville, land of crape myrtles and cul-de-sacs. And at the end of every workday, I race up Interstate 85 at 25 mph to my lovely four-bedroom home that’s a skip away from the Mall of Georgia. Oh, the irony of me now owning their frequent shopper card.
The last time some non-Gwinnettians visited me, they wandered off toward Buford after not taking the 316 merge to my house. I got panicked cell calls from the wrong end of Sugarloaf Parkway. Then came their dramatizations about the 85/316 split being a horrific nightmare like they had been asked to part the Red Sea right there on the highway. Fear and loathing is still in its prime.
But really, isn’t suburban life in Lawrenceville worth tolerating all the fear and loathing and hyperventilating by those inside 285 who don’t know how good living is on the outside?
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Jacqueline Bullard
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jacqueline Bullard has fond memories of Miami in the 1980s: Graduating with a B.S. in Communications from the University of Miami (her majors were journalism and English); her first job at South Florida magazine; and watching first-run episodes of “Miami Vice.”
After one too many hurricane threats, she moved on to Georgia in 1991. (It may have been ESP since Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992.)
Since then she’s worked in advertising and corporate communications, and is currently in journalism education.
She has been a Lawrenceville resident since 2002. Besides spending enormous amounts of time commuting to the local university where she works, she’s raising two sons, ages 10 and 17.
Her only “free” time, usually around 5 a.m., is devoted to working on her first novel.
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Lawrenceville residents: What’s your name?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
People who live in Gwinnett are called Gwinnettians.
People who live in Atlanta are called Atlantans.
Mars residents are called Martians.
What should people from Lawrenceville be called?
Lawrencevillans? Lawrencevilleites? Lawrencevillagers?
Got any better ideas? Send them here and we’ll post them online.
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