In 2004, I, first time, flew to Atlanta to join a group for a coach tour that would eventually take us to Florida after short jaunts in Georgia.

 

Beep!!!!
The alarm set off when I was going through the body scanner in the airport. “Uh-oh! What was that for?” I panicked a little bit.
 

“Step aside”, one of the inspectors approached and asked me the usual request for the body search position. “Aha, The suspenders! I only know you and Larry King wear suspenders. You may go”. Wow, the veteran CNN anchor the inspector was referring to I recalled and left there willingly.
 

Soon after leaving the airport, coincidently, I and my group headed for CNN which was quite exciting as I had always been curious about. It was noticeably scintillating starting from the lobby area where was full of people and facilities. That certainly showed that it had started as entertainment media industry based on 24 hours non-stop news.
 

Olympics Centennial Park, the city's permanent memorial to the 1996 Olympics was welcoming us as soon as we walked out of CNN. It was a bonus to see it but a reminder of the blemish in that a car park bombing. Otherwise, it would’ve been one of the greatest Olympics.
 

While touring the city, I noticed that most of the street names were beginning with Peach wherever we turned. Peach this Peach that… I wondered how many streets could’ve been identified by Peach. That certainly could give the postmen/ women a headache in delivery as I felt so sorry for them.
 

When entered a leafy suburb, the guide pointed at one enormous house and said, “That’s Elton John’s house”. Wow, he is surely that rich owing many houses like that here and there in many parts of the world. Then I remembered, “uhhh! He was born and bred in the small town where I now live”!!! Suddenly, I felt a kindred spirit(?) with him in a different time and place.
 

The coach stopped by a red brick church. It was Ebenezer Baptist church where Martin Luther J King was co-pastor until his assassination. The church wasn’t that big but solidly built and looked quite archaic with a style. Besides, it had a painful past in 1960’s in particular with the loss of a prominent civil right activist.
 

We had a chance to walk around the city centre and I noticed that there were lots of street beggars. A man in suits was passing by shouted at them “You Pan-handlers” which made me curious what he meant by. I asked my hotel manager later about it and he explained. “The map of Florida resembles a Pan-handle and the beggars in Atlanta are mainly from Florida. So, Pan-handlers is a kind of a nick name for Floridians”, I was told. It was a comical and well suited nick name for them I thought but unfortunate that was used as a derogatory term.
 

The highlight of our short tour was exploring(?) Stone mountain. It looked like that a massive dome was laid gracefully in the middle of the field. Although, it’s plain shape didn’t impress much, is nearly twice as high as Seoul Namsan and, apparently, the largest exposed piece of granite in the world. After short ride on the cable car, I stepped on the summit and felt conquered the world in a mystique feeling. Some school children were around with their teachers. They seem to be on a school excursion. However, they were behaving so well in accordance with their teacher that was very impressive.
 

Above all, Atlanta is the threshold of Dixie land. Once, this city was engulfed by the bloody Civil war and that produced one of the finest novels, ‘Gone with the wind’. And it was the hometown of Margaret Mitchell, the author who won Pulitzer prize with her only novel.
 

And, it is now the home of Atlanta Korean Literature Society which has nested nobly and been establishing splendidly in this historical city. I am so proud of being part of it, introduced by the 6th of 2021 literature competition and willing to contribute my humble writings to the continuous progress of AKLS.