Okefenokee Swamp

I left Macon, in Central Georgia; pastures and pines; hungry for sweet potato cakes and grits.

Neon-colored billboards on the I-75 featured fresh pecans and adult erotica superstores. Somewhere between Macon and Valdosta, I stopped off to get a bite to eat. The restaurants were closed, so I dropped by the quik-mart.

A set of jars with a yellow-green liquid sat on a hotdog stand. Bottled inside were the grimy feet of pigs - pickled pig's feet. A whole refrigerated display of Vanilla Coca cola, Frit-o-lay chips, Nut'N'Butter, Squeeze-Cheese. There were some refrigerator magnets and maps of Georgia. I was hungry, but I couldn't eat like this. I picked up a package of Lunchables and shook it. I put it down, and left.

The next morning, I woke in the Gator Motel and left my hotel fee under the lamp, in dollar bills. Across the street at the market, I relented to three packages of Lunchables, several gallons of water, and a beer.

"It's Sunday," the clerk said. "No beer on Sunday."

I found that ridiculous. A twenty-four ounce of Pabst is the perfect nightcap after long hours on the swamp. Eyes peered at me from every corner of the market, as if I had done something wrong. An Atlanta woman heard the exchange and said, "Ain't from Jawjuh are ya?" I knew she had faked her accent; the sounds of Atlanta mimic the sound of America.

I told her that I thought this was the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. She told me her life story. We parted ways.

There is nothing in the bible that says you shouldn't have a beer on Sunday. Jesus worshipped with wine. Beer was around for thousands of years before Jesus. A Sumerian goddess with a beautiful name, Ninkasi, was even named the goddess of beer.

At the time, Egypt was the major exporter of beer; and it flowed all through the Mediterranean. Some people believe that when the Bible refers to Jesus' praises of wine, he is actually referring to beer. At the time, grains were the dominant crop of the Mediterranean, not grapes. And grapes were the luxury of the Roman elite. Jesus' friends were the commoners, and they would naturally have drunk beer.

The correct Aramaic to English translation from the earliest bibles for the phrase 'turned water into wine', after all, is actually '...water into strong drink.' The bible also refers to 'wine and strong drink.' Were we to take the bible literally, we may imply that Jesus' turning water into a strong drink implied he was a brewmeister.