Photo by Rochelle Hartman
Helen is a faux Alpine village in North Georgia (USA, not the breakaway Soviet state). Originally, it was a logging town, but by the late sixties, all the logs had dried up, and the economy was in shambles. The local businessmen met in secret to brainstorm ideas for reviving the economy. Someone (I suspect Hunter S. Thompson) suggested that they turn the downtown area into a German-style village to attract tourists. Nothing will attract people to a town like the promise of Germany. The idea caught on and a plan was hatched. Painters were dispatched, and soon every roof was dark red (I think women call it “maroon”) and every wall was white. Carpenters were soon putting Hänsel und Gretel ornamentation on every building. Within a year, a cartoon rendering of a German village was born. Tourists from everywhere began flocking to the stadt, anxious to experience Germany for themselves. This is where our story gets messed up.
The Drive
I thought that the Sunday before Labor Day would be the perfect time to drive up to Helen. In theory, the Christians would be in church, and I would have the road to myself, except for the stray Jew or Muslim. For the first half of the drive, I was right. I was making great time, passing boiled peanut stand after boiled peanut stand (in the Souf, we luv dem thar biled p’nuts). I also passed a place that offered both boiled peanuts AND “24/7 daycare.” I guess the theory was that you could drop the kids off at the peanut stand, enjoy debauchery in Helen, and pick the kids up when your trip was over. I’m not sure who that peanut stand owner was, but next time, I’m stopping by for an interview.
Another unique practice in the South is naming roads after local people. I’m not talking about noble road names like Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. I’m talking one-lane, pot-holed, dirt roads with names like Kenneth L. Burr Drive or Mary Butz Street. Usually, there will also be a giant “Private Property” notice at the entrance, spray-painted on a weathered piece of plywood. This always makes me wonder what spawned the erection of the “Private Property” sign. I suspect that some Yankees saw the road, and just had to see what was at the end. When they got to the end, they found Jimmy standing by his meth lab, dumbfounded. Jimmy was probably thinking to himself, “I have gots to gets me one o’ dem der privacy signs. Tragically, due to my socio-economic status and the failed policies of George Bush, I cannot afford one. Therefore, I will construct my own made of the finest materials I can find lying on the ground.”
Five miles from Helen, I began to worry. Traffic was backed up for as far as the eye could see, mile after mile of pickup trucks, minivans, and motorcycles. Slowly, I drove over a hill into the city. When you first see Helen from on top of the hill, it’s an impressive sight. Having been to Germany, my first thought was “Wow, this looks just like Nuremberg, but with chubbier people.”
My first stop was Hofer’s, a German restaurant located across from a biker bar. I only mention the biker bar due to my irritation with the motorcyclists there. While I realize “pipes save lives,” there’s no excuse for loud motorcycles in a Bavarian village; it’s unsettling to be walking along the bürgersteig, then to be passed by a roaring motorcycle, piloted by a chubby guy in a mid-life crisis, gripped tightly by a dicke frau desperate to hold on to her crisis. By “chubby,” I mean chubbier than me, and if you saw me in real life, you’d swear you were talking to the Pillsbury Dough Boy. So in relation, these people were giants. Where the hell am I going with this? These were meaty individuals bent on being heard and seen. Personally, if I were them, I would ditch the motorrad and switch to a 10-speed fahrrad. Their hearts will thank them, plus I won’t feel the need to shove rebar through their spokes while they’re driving past me.
Back to Hofer’s - I knew when I saw the redneck wearing the Confederate flag as a jimmy cap on his bald head that I was in for a wonderful dining experience. You can tell a lot about the place by scoping it out before walking in - plastic plants, lack of Germans, copious rednecks - these are things you don’t look for in a German restaurant. Barring the lack of presentable customers, and the atmosphere of a high school lunchroom, the food itself wasn’t bad. While I was eating, the flag-capped redneck would eye me occasionally, I wasn’t sure if he was in love with me or my sausage, or if he wanted to pick a fight with me. Either choice wasn’t acceptable, so I avoided eye contact. I kept my head down and I ate my brätwurst, just like I learned in prison.
The highlight of the restaurant was my urinating in the bathroom. The side of the commode was placed against the wall, which made standing in front of it impossible unless you were tiny, like an Olsen twin. I assumed a 90-degree position relative to the front of commode and did what I had to do. God help me had I needed to sit down. I assume Germans deal with this kind of hardship on a daily basis. As I walked out of the restroom, I took my gingerbread man out of my pocket, bit off his head, and I was out the door.
Photo by CloudSoup
My primary motivation for going to Helen was to visit the tarantula museum. I have no idea why someone would open a tarantula museum in a Bavarian village, but whoever it was must have been an interesting character, and I had to meet him. The first thing that greeted me when I walked in was a dachshund. I love wiener dogs; I always picture them sitting in a bun, barking “Eat me…eat me.” After paying my four dollars, I walked into the center of the room and looked around. There were about fifteen aquariums filled with various spiders, along with some lizards, a pit viper, and a Gila Monster. Had I paid more than four dollars, I would have been irritated, but it seemed a reasonable price to pay to view rare species of tarantulas.
The hostess Maartje popped in a VHS tape and pressed play - it was an introductory spider video called “Tarantulas and You.” It was narrated by the National Geographic guy. As I was sitting there, a thin, Crocodile Dundee-esque man entered the room, wearing a cowboy hat and camouflage pants. He was spraying something out of an aerosol canister. I learned later that it was a spider-calming chemical. Without it, the spiders would go nuts and kill everyone within jumping distance. He introduced himself as Želimir. He was a former Latvian Special Forces operative with a fondness for spiders. This guy knew everything one would care to know about spiders. Here’s what I learned:
- The Vietnamese use killer tarantulas as weapons. They’ll drop a bucket of spiders in an enemy village, the spiders will attack, and the entire village will be decimated in a day.
- In 1977, a cargo plane carrying bananas from Brazil crashed in Texas, releasing deadly tarantula stowaways into a small town. The town’s sheriff discovered that the spiders were responsible for several deaths, much like the Kennedys. The deadly spiders were rendered motionless by the recorded sound of buzzing killer bees. Angry townspeople eagerly stomped the spiders to death.
- Not all tarantulas are killers. The only way to tell is to let one bite you.
Return of The King
After the tarantula museum, I made my way to the dream catcher store, after which, I decided that I had seen enough. I walked back past the wedding chapel (”24/7 - No Waiting”), past the inner tubing store (”Look for the pink tubes!”), and past the dinner theater (”…featuring Elvis”). I hopped into Lil’ Pepe, and slowly cruised back home. I had been fantasizing about North Georgia apples all day (more so than brätwurst), so I decided to stop by one of the hot-boiled peanuts stands to buy some apples. Apples, bongs, bibles - you name it - they sell it roadside.
I also stopped at a convenience store on the outskirts of town. The store was surrounded by hundreds of concrete statuary, mainly of gargoyles, Jesus, and frogs. A little billy goat wondered over to inspect me. The clerk explained that he was a midget, and that his name was Johnnie Boy, but that they called him John Boy. In my opinion, if you’re going to the trouble of shortening your goat’s name, you should give him a cooler name not derived from his God-given one - something like Clavio or Spence. I walked inside for a bottle of cider, while John Boy decided to nip at the rooster in the suspended cage. Why was the rooster suspended? Why was Clavio so anxious to eat the rooster? Where were my pants? These questions puzzled me as I drove home. Maybe next time I’ll get the answers.
Conclusion?
If you’ve never been to Helen, you owe it to yourself, at least once in your life. You will never experience anything as surreal as a German village in the heart of the Southern US, overrun by redneck bikers. I would recommend going on a weekday, unless you have the fortitude of a warrior, as I do. Otherwise, you’ll run screaming from the town.
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