CARLTON FLETCHER: Sometimes it feels good to spread a little south Georgia sunshine

Don’t worry, be happy.

— Bobby McFerrin

Maybe it’s always been this way and I just didn’t pay close enough attention, but it seems that today our world is filled — to the brim — with doom and gloom.

Everyone — self included — seems to want to talk about the bad things in life, the worst among us. And when we’re not glorifying the truly bad people who have wormed their way into our consciousness through horrible deeds, evil proclamations and political stupidity (Hello, Marjorie Greene!), we tend to respond to most everything with snark and sarcasm.

It appears that kindness and congeniality have become things of the past.

I was thinking about these things driving in to work this morning, and one thing hit me and stayed foremost in my mind: I am a happy person. I mean, when I started to give the person in the car that cut me off my usual mean-guy glare (which always makes my wife laugh), it dawned on me that this really was no big deal. And as I drove a little piece farther down the road, the Happy Me kept popping into my thoughts.

“Look,” HM finally said, “you’ve been granted an extra 20 years and counting of life after coding out in the hospital while recovering from Stage 4 cancer surgery. Maybe you ought to be a little more grateful.”

And Happy Me was absolutely right. I spent so much of my life as the underdog — the skinny kid who was taunted in school even by heartless teachers, the guy whose family couldn’t afford to let him go to Spring Break and other rights-of-passage events, the one whose screwed-up perspective wouldn’t allow himself to just enjoy time with friends rather than always looking for ulterior motives — I’ve found myself typically feeling bitter and overly put-upon by people who, I always assumed, were out to get me.

But today, rather than talking about curmudgeonly things, I thought I’d take a look around — a little rose-smelling, if you will — and talk about good things in this city that about 80,000 or so of us call home:

— Our great shared history. After decades of lording it over others with our “capitol of southwest Georgia” egotism, we’ve become more of an afterthought when it comes to state- and nationwide significance. But a little digging reveals a proud history: the Albany Movement, the quail-hunting plantations, the Radium Springs Casino, the trade route along the Flint River, Chehaw, Procter & Gamble, Ray Charles, Ray Knight, Ray Stevens. … That’s just top-of-my-head stuff. A little research offers pride-boosting tidbits.

— The best of urban and rural worlds. How many large-ish cities that are home to Fortune 500 companies and boast pretty much any kind of shopping/dining experience imaginable have such lauded hunting, farming and fishing opportunities within spitting distance?

— Yes, there are things to do here. No, Albany is not Atlanta or Tallahassee. But there are entertainment events here on the regular, local groups are always offering some kind of fun excursion, and we have attractions like Chehaw, the Flint RiverQuarium, Albany Civil Rights Museum, Albany Museum of Art, Thronateeska Heritage Museum and Planetarium, Radium Springs, the River Walk and Riverfront Park … and let’s not forget Putt-Putt.

— Albany State and Albany Tech. Dollars and cents generated by these institutions do not do them justice. They offer educational and career opportunities that are life-altering.

— We’re not just chain city. Yes, there is pretty much any chain restaurant or business in existence here, but you’ve got places like the world-famous Jimmie’s Hot Dogs, Harvest Moon, The Flint, Big Chris’, Mi Casa, the Rib Shack, BJ’s, the Catch, Bianca’s, Albany Fish Market, House of China …

— We can get there from here. Atlanta’s a couple of hours away — an easy drive, though — and we’re just a hop and a skip from the Gulf beaches. But there are a plethora of day-trip opportunities within an hour or so’s driving distance: Plains, the Little Grand Canyon, the ABAC Ag Museum, Lake Blackshear, Wild Adventures Theme Park, Andersonville Civil War Museum, White Oak Pasture, Swamp Gravy, Mark’s Melon Patch, the SAM Shortline Excursion Train, Pebble Hill Plantation …

— The people. Sure, we have our share of partisan-politics-inspired chuckleheads, greedy wouldn’t-help-another-under-any circumstances louts, never-work-and-take-whatever-anyone-will-give-me bottom-feeders, and show-off-my-ridiculous-loud-muffler-by-speeding-through-residential-sections overcompensators, but all-in-all, the people of southwest Georgia are the best people in the world. This, people, is Southern hospitality at its best. And it’s why I am putting away my crankiness — at least for this day — and celebrating life rather than griping about it. 

Hey, maybe you can give it a try, too.