BY: Ed Szezesniak; Owner, Georgian Landscape Design
A long time ago, on a planet far, far away (OK – maybe not a planet – but a town pretty far from here) the parents of SuwaneeMan (formerly known as Stanley), placed him in a space ship (shaped exactly like a ’63 Chevy Nova) and sent him off in order to save him from certain doom as their planet ‘Gowanda’ was about to blow up! (The neighbors claimed that Fred and Margaret just wanted to get rid of the kid as he was a royal pain and ate a lot- and it wasn’t a planet anyway – just a crappy little town in upstate New York that was going downhill). After many light years of traveling the galaxies (yeah right – more like the interstates, sleeping in cheap motels, and eating a lot of Mickey D’s) young Stanley landed in a far away land called ‘Suwanee’ – (No, not the song one that’s spelled Swanee and he really didn’t ‘land’ here…
He just had a flat tire on Buford Dam Road and just sort of stuck around after it got fixed).
Soon after ‘landing’ in this new land, Stanley discovered that he had acquired amazing (well sort of “OK”) superpowers far beyond those of mortal men and/or women. (Stanley was nothing, if not politically correct, even at a young age). He was able to ‘leap’ to the front of the buffet line at any business gathering, ‘bend’ up to 4 competitor’s brochures in his bare hands, ‘stop’ a speeding speaker from taking up time at a business meeting, and most importantly, Stanley could eat up to 26 ‘free’ chicken wings at local business meetings.
Well, it didn’t take long for our little superhero to find himself surrounded by other superheroes on this new planet ‘Suwanee’. They too had some amazing powers. The power of ‘friendliness’, the power of ‘sharing’, the power of ‘not taking themselves too seriously’, and most importantly, the power of ‘helping each other’.
Stanley soon donned tights and a cape (seemed he had a thing for that silky feeling – but we won’t go into that), and he began going to monthly meetings with these other superheroes. This ‘Legion’ of superheroes formed a tightly knit group of evil fighters (actually they never really fought any evil, just kind of met and ate free food, drank free beer, laughed and talked a lot, but that doesn’t sound as romantic) and they called themselves the “Suwanee Business Alliance” (as the Legion of Doom and The Avengers were already taken).
Now, many years later (17 to be exact) this group of superheroes has grown to over 200 strong (well – some of them are strong, a lot of them are just kinda normal, and many of them are very pretty). They meet at least once a month, but always at different locations around planet Suwanee so that the bad guys can’t track them (actually it’s so that they get to sample different foods at new businesses around town…but let’s just let them live their little fantasy). They seem to find new superheroes appearing every month – kind of “Guest Superheroes” if you will – and they always seem to have some new superpowers that the group can use.
If you would like to discover your superpowers you can test your skills at the next superhero gathering – for free. You may even get to meet SuwaneeMan there! Just visit their secret website at Suwanee.org.
