Georgia: What Rhymes with McDonough?

McDonough.

It doesn’t rhyme with Done.  

It rhymes with McDonald.  

McDonough.
Internal rhyme.  Get it?

One of the souvenirs you can take home with you from any trip is a casket of correct pronunciations.  It’s information you can’t get from a map.  You can only get it in the field. How?  My preferred way is by talking to the locals (in a market where the old movie theatre sign may be on display).  As a backup, I tune into the local news on radio or television.  Articulacy (speaking well) is one of the most important skills of communication, and correct pronunciation is a component of articulacy – and of geography.  In fact, anyone who deals with place names needs to learn how to pronounce them like the locals. When you do, you have erased a barrier between ‘come heres' and 'born heres,' between 'outsiders' and 'insiders.'  And all travelers, in their heart of hearts, really want to be insiders.  

Another souvenir you can take home with you from any trip is a haircut.  In fact, it’s yet another way to go from outsider to insider: You start looking like the locals when you go their barbers.  Whenever, I need my ears lowered, I try to find a barbershop in a new place, preferably far from home.  On this trip, it must have been fate that drew me to the town’s senior barber (and local historian).  Out of town I was heading on the road south.  I had enjoyed looking around McDonough’s square, but when my half-hour of time on the meter was up, I left.  Soon, I hit the ‘new suburbs,’ not on the edge of town, but down the road a piece.  The sign caught my eye: Wayne’s Barber Shop. One U-turn later I was parking outside a typical suburban shopping center and sizing up the place.  I could see two barbers and one customer.  I was in luck: no waiting time. It was as if I had a reservation. Into the chair I popped, and the conversation never stopped.  I got a geography lesson about shifting business patterns (just because I asked who the street, Zack Hinton Parkway, was named after), the decline of cotton (there had been a gin in town, now a CVS if I got the story right), and a lifetime of barbering (Wayne is semi-retired, but his son has the next chair over). Through one of the windows I could see Russia from here.  Actually, the window was a TV and Sochi was showing.  That provided a few minutes of reminiscing about the ‘96 Olympics in nearby Atlanta. Through the other windows I could see the ridge that had at once been covered with pecan groves, and that provided a few minutes of reflecting on the tastes of the South.

Lessons learned: First, when traveling, depend on serendipity to deliver the best results.  Second, don’t reject the suburbs when you are looking for local color.  Third, always be prepared to make a U-turn.