From The Georgetown Independent
By Meredith Ponder


As a Southern girl who's never lived any farther north than D.C., I'm constantly looking for reminders of home while I'm here on the Hilltop, even going so far as to make my own sweet tea twice a week or more. However, while reading Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore, I was transported back to my childhood, no cooking necessary.

Dairy Queen chronicles the coming of age of Catherine Grace Cline, a girl growing up in Ringgold, Georgia in the early 1970s. Catherine Grace wants nothing more than to leave her town and move to the "big city," Atlanta. She spends her adolescence coming up with ways to save money, such as canning her own strawberry jam and selling it at the local Dollar General, so that she can afford bus fare to Atlanta when she turns eighteen. Every Saturday, she goes to the Dairy Queen, buys a Dilly Bar, and eats it while planning her getaway. Catherine Grace does manage to make it to Atlanta, but events at home force her to make a choice between her big-city dreams and her small-town roots.

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