George's Restaurant in Baton Rouge: gotta go there when you are in So La

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The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar has a blog: An online journal in which members of The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar document their noble efforts. They have a book, and, "Ten percent of our royalties goes to support The National Brain Tumor Society."


Louisiana and the Louisiana Book Festival: When GMR and I arrived in Louisiana, we stopped at the fairly new Louisiana Welcome Center (it's really well done). When we opened our car door, we were about blown back by the heat . . . yup, we forget about Louisiana's heat. And October is a "cooler" month - meaning, the oppressive humidity isn't as thick and you don't feel as if you are in a steamroom at the gym: I'm not exaggerating either--it is truly that thick, wet, and hot. So, going "whew, it's hot . . . dang . . . I forgot how hot it gets here . . . phew . . . " we headed on in to Baton Rouge where we'd stay our first two nights at the Hampton Inn off College Drive. Which reminds me, I'm all in a dither because I forgot to leave a tip for housekeeping. I just completely forgot and everyone says I need to just let it go, but I can't. I am thinking I should call, find out who our housekeeper was, and send her the money via mail, then I can stop thinking about it.


Hampton Inn is right on the interstate, so yeah, when I opened my car door again, not only did the heat slap me upside my head, but the noise entered my ears, wrapped itself around my brain, and set up a roaring that near about sent me scrambling back to my mountain cove at Killian Knob. lawd! But, I wasn't gonna do that, since I wanted: friends, book fest, a shrimp poboy or some other Louisiana food, and a gander at the hundred-year-old oaks with their spanish moss all mysterious and beautiful.

The next morning, we were hit with a surprise . . . SURPRISE! the weather changed. Turned chilly on us. Well, dang me. Good thang I brought warmer clothes - - in fact, good thang it changed to cooler weather since like a dumb-arse, most of what I brought were warmer clothes, having come from cooler fall weather on the mountain and forgetting about Louisiana's heat. Haw!


But I get ahead of myself. The very first night we arrived there, the first thing we did after we put up our luggage, etc, was to say, "Let's go to George's and get something to eat!" Of course. Can't be in Louisiana more than a minute without thinking about food, needing that food, wanting that food, requiring that food. I called up Phyllis, a childhood (or teenhood) friend, and said, "Meet GMR and me at George's!"


The (Original) George's I love is under the interstate, a little squat building that looks like you'd not want to go in there and eat, but you do - yes, you do want to go in there. There's dollar bills all over the ceiling, some so old they're yellowed and barely hanging on... people write on the dollar bills and then attach them. Some are along the wall now, and I included my own: "Buy my book . . ." and signed my name. Only problem was, I had no pen that would deface that American Dollar Bill and had to use my lipstain. Alas, you can barely read my words, but I got a dollar bill at George's now. haw!

We ordered our food, which wouldn't be on any healthy eating menu I am telling you what. A couple beers and a coke, a big arse plate of onion rings, and GMR, Phyllis, and I ate, drank, talked, and had a good ole time; talked about when we were teens, talked about what we were up to at this point in our lives. Ate, talked, talked ate. There was football on the television, there were people hunkered at the bar, there were people at other tables eating poboys or gumbo or huge plates of fried shrimp or oysters, or both - - don't wear your fancy clothes there, come as you are -- in fact the slogan for Louisiana is: Come as you are, Leave Different.


We left George's with our bellies full of Louisiana food. Said goodbye to my friend, and GMR and I drove in the traffic back to Hampton Inn. The traffic is a whole other entity in Louisiana, like the food is.


More later. Here's the first part about our trip, below :-) including a link to a new blogger y'all can give a "hi" to - like I said, we all know what it's like to have a new blog and need bloggy love.

Also, our Kim Richardson author of The Unbreakable Child has an interview over at Behind the Books. Go check it out!