Ahhh, the Fourth of July in Atlanta. Love it!
It was the afternoon of July 2, 1967, that I stepped off a Greyhound bus at the station located on what is now International Drive at Spring Street. I went to a pay phone to call my dad (who was working at Lockheed) to come pick me up. I hung up, turned around, and some guy named Maynard Jackson shoved a brochure into my hand asking for my vote on something. Forgot what he was running for. He didn’t win.
Two days later I went downtown to watch my first WSB-TV Salute to America Parade! Jean Hendrix was running the show then, and I’m certain it was narrated on Channel 2 by Chuck Dowdle — at that time sporting his own hair. I don’t remember who the grand marshal was, but back then I’m certain it was someone you have actually heard of, like John Wayne, not some new urban yodeling sensation or soap opera star.
There was no Peachtree Road Race in 1967. This Jackson guy was blocking Peachtree handing out political brochures. I had to wait until 1970 for the first race from the Sears parking lot at the Peachtree-Roswell Road split to Central City Park near Five Points. I didn’t participate, though about 110 folks did.
They started handing out T-shirts in 1971, and I’m pretty sure the cheaters turned up the very next year. The cheaters? Just do this: On Monday, go watch the race from somewhere around Peachtree Battle Shopping Center. As the runners near the Peachtree-Peachtree Battle intersection, you will notice people getting out of their cars wearing running gear and sporting race numbers. They will brazenly join the throng and, of course, collect their T-shirt at the finish line. Later that day they’ll wear that T-shirt to lunch at Houston’s to demonstrate their athletic prowess, if not their sense of honor.
There’s a way to stop the cheaters. Little transponders can be worn on the shoes to register the time you cross both the starting and finish lines. If you didn’t cross both lines and finish in the required time — no T-shirt for you. They aren’t going to do this, either. We don’t need a riot in Piedmont Park — except, of course, on Screen on the Green evenings.
Monday would be my 41st Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race — 41 years without competing. It’s the heat. The weather is a lot more comfortable during the Disney Marathon in January. (I’ll go half the distance in race-walking mode.) There are no cheaters in the Disney marathon. They use those little transponders.
I am, though, a dedicated Peachtree Road Race observer. So, some observations: Note, please, that among the first few hundred runners you won’t notice any women who are — how shall I say this — voluptuous. Pretty much skinny and without curves. OK, so I’m a pig. All men are pigs. No exceptions. I’m not there to watch sweaty men. Well, there is one sweaty man I do like to see go by, and that would be Clark Howard. He’s walking this year. Look for him in the back just before the street sweepers come by. Also, the farther back in the pack, the more the runners smile.
Then there are the fireworks. Isn’t it interesting that the powers-that-be have decided that we are not free in Georgia to shoot off fireworks to celebrate being free? Freedom: Yeah, right.
Why do I love all of this? Because I’m a right-winger, that’s why. A recent report from Harvard (I’m not kidding here) says “Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation’s political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party.” Seriously, Harvard says that the right has “appropriated American patriotism and its symbols.” Like the Fourth.
Great! Make ’em register to vote before they get their T-shirts, cheaters or not.
Listen to Neal Boortz live from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. weekdays on AM 750 and 95.5FM News/Talk WSB.
His column appears every Saturday. For more Boortz, go to boortz.com
