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“I hear this is the other main spot to be at night during
Oktoberfest,” 1 venture. “Besides the Festhall."
“On a busy night I’ll pour nearly twice the draft beer
they do over there,” Sid says. It is a festive atmosphere
here, and only $3 to get into the beer garden. At the
Festhall it’s seven.
The Wurst Haus band especially prides themselves on
their version of the chicken dance — the official dance of
Oktoberfest in which drunks move like choreographed
chickens in time to an Oompah beat. But now they are
playing “Margaritaville.” This is not the last time we will
hear that song tonight. Yes, I’ll go ahead and tell you now:
It is going to be a two Margaritaville night.
Sid got here in 1974 and owns the oldest continuously
operating restaurant in town. He chews on his cigar, telling
us about the oid days. John Kollock is a good friend of his.
But it is Pete Hodgkins"*n, he tells us, who really made thi *.
town. Pete became the chief promoter of Helen once the
new direction for the town was decided upon. “Pete could
sell anything to anybody,” says Sid. “He’d invite the deep
pockets up from Atlanta. He’d have one of those five-gallon
gas cans full of Bloody Marys and put ’em up at the hotel.
Then they’d wake up the next morning owning a piece of
property in Helen."
Pete was also known for his passion of hot-air balloon
flying. He founded the Helen to Atlanta hot-air balloon race.
“I used to go on balloon rides with him,” Sid says. “I still
have a scar from the time he landed us right in the middle
of an oak tree.” (Pete Hodgkinson in fact met his untimely
death in a bizarre hot air balloon accident, before he saw
his plans for Helen come to full fruition.)
Helen and Oktoberfest mean a pleasant life for Sid. His
business is thriving, he owns a house nearby on land bor
dering the Chattahoochee National Forest. “One thing
about being up here. I don’t have to hurry,” he says. “1 hate
going to Atlanta.”
“What do you think about all this?" I ask, gesturing
broadly. “What’s it like living in a place like Disneyland?”
Come on, man, help me out. “I like it,” he says. “Hell, I’ve
been here 24 years... When I first got here, I felt I’d come to
some place entirely different. But look around. It’s a nice
place, we’re surrounded by natural beauty. There are no
lighted signs.” McDonald’s tried to move in, Sid tells us;
/.rnutti
Santa Claus and Southern Storm
they even offered to shrink the golden arches. But the arch
es constitute a lighted sign, and there are ordinances
against that. “We’ve kept the place nice,” says Sid. “It’s not
getting tacky like Gatlinburg.”
Before we leave I chat briefly with David, a waiter at the
Wurst Haus who came here after he dropped out of UGA.
Helen Is a unique place, he says, but “the old timers say it
was better before. If you were drunk you’d get a ride home
from the cops instead of going to jail.” David wishes the
town would grow up a little bit. “In Gatlinburg,” he says,
“there’s always something going on, 24 hours a day." But
Helen can work on that. “Tell all those party people in
Athens to come on up to Helen,” says David. Okay, so 1 will.
Come on up to Helen.
At World of Magnets I pay a quarter to “Check Your Life
Span Expectancy.” It comes out “Average.” We walk by the
Yogurt Haus and peer in, but everything’s normal here, a
frozen yogurt shop, although the couple at the back of the
line wear matching Tyrolean hats. Nearby you can have
your name engraved on a grain of rice. My brother and I
wait in line to pose for a photo of our heads behind the
wooden bodies of a Bavarian couple. Somewhere in there
is another pitcher of beer.
m
e are heading down to the Festhall when my wife
ksays, “Did I just hear someone speaking
German?” We’re not sure, but just in case we fol
low the three suspects. They are women in their mid-thir
ties, mostly blonde.
“Excuse me," ! tap one on the shoulder. “Were you
speaking German?”
“Yes.”
“Are you German?"
“Yes," she say in perfect EngUsh, “1 am.”
“You’re really a German? You’re not kidding me?” I ask.
“Because it’s hard to tell about things like that around
here."
“I’m telling the truth," she insists. “I’m really a German.”
Then she says something to her two friends in that unmis
takable German gruff, and they respond in German. “Okay,”
I say, convinced. “Do you mind if I ask you a few ques
tions?”
The three women are enthusiastic tourists. Babsi, my
friend, does most of the talking. They’ve been living in
America for a few years — two of them in Mississippi, one
in Augusta — but this is their first trip to Helen. So far they
have eaten Bratwurst and walked around a lot. “It’s cute,"
says Babsi. “But nothing like the real Oktoberfest.” They
have all three been to the real Oktoberfest, the one in
Munich, at one time or another.
What about this whole Bava* la-in-America thing. I want
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