Is America great or what?

You can tell you are in the land of God, Guns and Trump when you run across an ad in the local newspaper for the 3rd Annual North Georgia Men’s Conference sponsored by the North Georgia Baptist Men and the Georgia Baptist Men’s Ministry which features shotguns as door prizes. Even though I am not Baptist I’m tempted to attend to hear the “inspiring music” and “message of hope” and maybe win a shotgun.

I’ll say one thing— the North Georgia Baptist Men and the Georgia Baptist Men’s Ministry certainly know their target audience. Most men in these parts think that the Second Amendment is one of the Ten Commandments. Odds are you will not find any pantywaist MoveOn.org members at the conference, and it’s for damn sure that neither George Soros or Michael Bloomberg are guest speakers.

Boy, I love this place.

On an entirely different subject, I drove Meredith to the Chattanooga Airport the other day so she could fly to Camp Lejeune, N.C., to bring Mike’s truck back here while he is on his overseas deployment. The drive to Chattanooga from here is picturesque to say the least. We go north on Georgia State Road 60 and pick up U.S. Highway 64 West near Ducktown, Tenn. U.S. 64 is mostly two lane, and it winds through the Ocoee National Forest along the Ocoee River past the Ocoee Whitewater Center, the site of the whitewater kayaking events during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

On the way I noticed a sign in Polk County, Tenn., proudly claiming that it was the birthplace of Nancy Ward. I googled the name and discovered that Nancy Ward was a famous “Beloved Woman” of the Cherokee. Among her accomplishments, she introduced the Cherokee to loom weaving, farming and dairy production which helped transform Cherokee society from a communal agricultural society into a society very similar to that of their European-American neighbors.

She is also credited with introducing chattel slavery to the Cherokee and was one of the first Cherokees to own African slaves. Oops. I guess if you haven’t got anything better to boast about then you have to go with what you got.

That made me wonder whether there are other towns and counties in the country that have to claim credit for some infamous person or event for lack of anything better to brag about. Is there a sign in West Allis, Wisc, saying that it’s the birthplace of Jeffrey Dahmer? Does Henning, Tenn, have a sign proudly boasting that it’s the home of the Fort Pillow Massacre where 277 Federal black troops were killed by Confederate soldiers after surrendering? 

This got me thinking about how towns and counties struggle to find some attribute or historical fact to set themselves off from other towns and counties. For instance, Fannin County, Ga., where I live, doesn’t have any famous or infamous person to boast about so it touts itself as the trout capital of Georgia.

The slogan of Cherokee County which is just north of Atlanta is “Where metro meets the mountains.” Pickens County, which is just north of Cherokee County, calls itself the marble capital of Georgia for the obvious reason that they mine a lot of good quality marble there. If it weren’t for that I imagine that Pickens County’s slogan might have been “Even further from Atlanta and closer to the mountains than Cherokee County.”

I couldn’t find a list of county slogans on the internet but I did find a list of city slogans. Some pretty silly. I’m pretty sure some of these slogans are not official ones adopted by the city fathers or the local chamber of commerce.

Here’s my analysis:

Cities that do not sound very interesting. There are a lot of these.

Albany, Ore. - Grass Seed Capital of the World.

Albertville, Ala. - Fire Hydrant Capital of the World.

Anchorage, Alaska – Hanging Basket Capital of the World.

Artesia, Miss. - Johnston Grass Capital of the World.

Austin, Minn. - Spamtown

Bakersfield, Cal. - The Armpit of California

Bertram, Tex. - Home of the Oatmeal Festival

Berrien Springs, Mich. - Christmas Pickle Capital of the World

Cheshire, Conn. - Bedding Plant Capital of Connecticut

Concord, N.H. - The City In A Coma

DeKalb, Ill. - Barbed Wire Capital of the World

Dove Creek, Col. - Pinto Bean Capital of the World

Forestville, Cal. - Poison Oak Capital of the World

Fort Payne, Ala. - Sock Capital of the World

Gordo, Ala. - Fat City

Hastings, Neb. - Birthplace of Kool-Aid

Rumney, N.H. - Crutch Capital of the World

Warsaw, Ind. - Orthopedic Capital of the World

Cities I want to visit just to say I’ve been there.

Beaver, Okla. - Cow Chip Capital of the World

Bishop, Cal. - Mule Packer Capital of the World

Brunswick, Mo. - Home of the World’s Largest Pecan

Cawker City, Kan. - Home of the World's Largest Ball of Twine

Chester, Ill. - The Home of Popeye

Cut Bank, Mont. - Coldest Spot in the Nation

Cities I want to visit to find out what it’s all about:

Dumas, Ark. - Home of the Ding Dong Daddy

Freewater, Ore. - Muddy Frogwater Country

Fruita, Col. - Home of Mike the Headless Chicken

Nederland, Col. - Home of the Frozen Dead Guy

Severance, Col, - Where the Geese Fly And the Bulls Cry

Merseilles, Ill. - Best Little City By A Dam Site

Cities I want to avoid.

Fayetteville, N.C. - Torture Town

Gallup, N.M. - Drunk Driving Capital of America

Huntsville, Tex - Execution Capital of the World

Santa Monica, Cal. - Home of the Homeless

Cities that sound like fun.

Elgin, S.C. - Home of the Catfish Stomp

Genoa, Nev. - Home of the Candy Dance

Gonzales, La. - Jambalaya Capital of the World

Cities that are on the top of my list to visit.

Muskegon, Mich. - The Beer Tent Capital of the World

Peoria, Ill. – Whiskeytown

Roselawn, Ind. - Naked City

Totally politically incorrect cities.

Lake Oswego, Ore. - Lake No-Negro

Medfield, Mass. - The Whitest Town On Earth

All I can say is: Is America great or what?

Mike Comes for a Visit

Pardon the delay in getting out this post but I was spending the last eight days with my son, Mike. Mike, as many of you know, is a Marine, and this is the last time he will be able to visit us for at least eight months because is he being deployed on the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (24th MEU) at the end of this month.

By way of explanation, an MEU is the smallest Marine air-ground task force in the United States Fleet Marine Force. Each MEU is an expeditionary quick reaction force. It is normally composed of a reinforced Marine infantry battalion (designated as a Battalion Landing Team) plus some other elements. Troop strength is about 2,200, and it is deployed from amphibious assault ships. So he will be spending much of the next eight months crammed into a Navy ship with a bunch of Marines or, as Mike describes them, creatures.

His ultimate destination is the Persian Gulf. On the way there the MEU will stop at other places. One of them is the country of Djibouti. Djibouti is pronounced Jeh-booty. I had never heard of the place, and when Mike first told us that he was going to Je-booty my initial reaction was “Jeh my ass.” My second reaction was that maybe it was in South Florida around Miami.

Once he convinced me that Djibouti is a real place, I did a little research. What a shit hole. Djibouti is a small country on the east coast of Africa between Ethiopia, Sudan and Eritrea and across the Gulf of Aden in the Red Sea from Yemen. Not exactly prime real estate in my book and probably in the estimation of any rational human being on the planet. It may not be the asshole of the world but it is certainly on the left butt cheek and within striking distance.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Djibouti is a poor, predominantly urban country, characterized by high rates of illiteracy, unemployment, and childhood malnutrition. The official unemployment rate is nearly 50 percent. Just for good measure, Djibouti is a transit, source, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking

The total area of Djibouti is about 9,000 square miles which makes it slightly larger the Vermont. Its population is just under 850,000, and 94 percent of them are Muslims. About 40% of population is under age 15, and only 15% is over age 40. In fact, less than 4 percent of the population is over 64. One reason for that may be the “nearly universal practice of female genital cutting” which is “a major contributor to obstetrical complications and its high rates of maternal and infant mortality.” (CIA World Factbook.) It truly is no country for old men (or women). I presume that Djibouti doesn’t have a problem with Medicare—no one lives that long.

Djibouti has one TV station and two radio stations. Mean daily maximum temperatures range from 90 to 106 °F. Less than one percent of the land is forested; the rest looks like an atomic bomb test site in the Nevada desert. The slogan of the National Tourism Office of Djibouti is “Djibeauty.” Really? Hearing that, it wouldn’t surprise me if the country’s national anthem was written by K.C. and the Sunshine Band.

To the ancient Egyptians, Djibouti was known as the Land of Punt as in punt if you ever have the opportunity to go there. The photograph at the top of this post shows Queen Ati of Punt as depicted in a wall carving on some obscure pharaoh’s tomb. I guess arm fat and thunder thighs were quite the vogue in Punt.

So, you might ask, why in the hell are 2,200 Marines going to Djibouti? It might have something to do with Camp Lemonnier, a United States Naval Expeditionary Base, located at Djibouti's international airport. It is home to the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa of the U.S. Africa Command and is the only permanent US military base in Africa. In addition, France’s largest military foreign presence, a demi-brigade of the French Foreign Legion, is based there, and it is also the site Japan’s only foreign military base. To top it all off, China is building its first overseas base ever in the country. From an international military perspective Djibouti is a happening place. I guess the real estate prices were reasonable.

Mike doesn’t think his particular unit (a light armored recon company) will actually disembark in Djibouti which makes me a happy camper though I was looking forward to getting a t-shirt from the place. I can think of a lot of clever things you could put on a t-shirt from Djibouti ranging from “Shake Djibouti” to “My son visited Djibouti and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”

It’s just as well that he will not disembark in Djibouti. Meredith and I have been considering visiting him if he gets any leave time overseas but we were thinking of places like Spain, Italy or Greece. You know, places that don’t feature genital mutilation, sex trafficking and malnutrition. Much as I want to see Mike there is no way I am setting foot in Djibouti.

Anyway, it was great to spend eight days with Mike before his deployment. I imagine he will have some good stories when he comes back.