![[Cant Get There from Here]](cgtfh.jpg)
Cant Get There from Here
The title is a stereotyped response
of rural folks when asked for directions to someplace they don't
know. [Ron Henry]
"Philomath they know the lowdown"
"Philomath is located between
Lexington and Crawfordville and used to have its own post office."
That would be Lexington and Crawfordville, Georgia, just down
the road from the town of Athens, Georgia. [m.rankin; the quote is from the liner notes of
Eponymous.] * It's in Georgia,
in Oglethorpe County, southeast of Athens. [Lin Wright] * A philomath
is also one who is learned in many disciplines. [Ron Henry]
"Tris is sure to shirr the deers
out."
Tris doesn't mean anything, but
may be short for Tristram. To "shirr", according to
the American Heritage Dictionary, means "To gather (cloth)
into decorative rows by parallel stitching" or "To
cook (unshelled eggs) by baking until set." (How these two
things got filed under the same word is beyond me.) The plural
of "deer" is, of course, "deer", not deers.
[Chris Piuma] * Someone offered a colloquial definition of "shirring
deer" as meaning flushing them out of hiding for those who
are hunting them. [Ron Henry]
"Hands down, Calechee bound"
Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged
Dictionary of the English Language: "caliche [kuh-LEE-chee]:
n. Geol. 1. a surface deposit consisting of sand or clay impregnated
with crystalline salts, such as sodium nitrate or sodium chloride.
2. a zone of calcium or mixed carbonates in soils of semiarid
regions." Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology (Tarbuck
& Lutgens): "caliche -- a hard layer, rich in calcium
carbonate, that forms beneath the B horizon in soils of arid
regions." According to my geology professor, caliche is
mostly found in Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. The closest place
to Athens with any caliche is Texas. Michael Stipe lived in Texas
as a child, but I don't know if he lived in an area with caliche.
This is from RS 625 March 5, 1992, "The Rolling Stone Interview:
Michael Stipe". RS: "What inspired you to enroll as
an art student at the University of Georgia?" Stipe: "I
was an art student just because it seemed so simple. I didn't
want to get bogged down with books, so I didn't pick English.
I didn't want to go into philosophy, because I thought it was
a pile of dog shit. I was interested in geology; I could just
as easily have taken that. I just happened to pick art because
the building was walking distance from downtown Athens, just
off Jackson Street." [mfine]
"Land locked, kiss the ground"
A land locked region is one that
has no access to the ocean. Kissing the ground is a traditional
way to honor a place you have never been before. [Ron Henry]
* Kissing the ground also represents a symbolic way of expressing
joy at returning to your native land after a long absence. [Joshua Hall-Bachner]