Olde Town Conyers is one of my favorite cities in the world because it’s home. There are many cities that I have had the opportunity to visit during my life that I have found wonderful in some special way, but Conyers, well Conyers is here its home it’s a part of me. If I had to choose another special city it would have to be New Orleans. What a place! I was nine the first time I went to New Orleans. Mama loved New Orleans, she would go twice a year October and April. It was in New Orleans, where I learned to love Jazz, real Jazz, Preservation Hall Jazz and street Jazz. New Orleans is where I learned to appreciate food, good food. New Orleans was a place that the past and the present merged. Where being Southern is an honor.

So two cities…a tale of two cities. In my entire life I would have never thought my town Conyers and wonderful exciting New Orleans would have anything in common, but yes sir they do! For periods of time Conyers is transformed into New Orleans. Amazing. Center and Commercial streets become St. Ann and Dauphine, general stores become Voodoo shops, really in Conyers. Unfortunately Conyers does not have Café Démodé but we have Beasley’s and the coffee is good, not the same, but very good and folks at Beasley’s know your name. We also have other very fine shops and restaurants that we should be proud of and are an important asset to our community.

Which brings me to business. When Conyers is turned into New Orleans for some reason it scares off local citizens. The argument is parking is a problem or there are too many people in town too hard to get around. Really, excuses. When we travel and go to cities like New Orleans we park our cars and walk everywhere and to do what? We shop and we eat. In a city like New Orleans do you think for one minute stores close because of traffic? Why would our stores close? For example, my friends that own Nature Scene, just because they are filming on the street, why would they close the shop. Heck, if anything, it would make shopping more exciting and you might even get yourself on TV! Look, cities all over Georgia are adapting to this great filming boom, we should too. We should be excited that a company would want to compare and make our little town New Orleans. We should value our local merchants enough to put up with a little traffic and really it would not hurt a one of us to walk a little bit. So come on people celebrate our town, whether it is Conyers or some days New Orleans!