Wild Childhood Mysteries

DSCF9930

Remember the wild places of your childhood, those mysterious spots where you could escape your parents and forget the adult world existed? Remember those wonderful destinations of long, unsupervised Saturdays and summers in a time when it was not only accepted but hoped that children would be neither seen nor heard until suppertime?

The Old Lady does, and she revisited one of the wild places she remembers from her childhood in southwest Atlanta.DSCF9922Cascade Springs lies far down the hill from the house The Old Lady grew up in, and was at that time hidden in the thick woods that used to surround many Atlanta suburban neighborhoods.

The Ancestral Homeplace of The Old Lady
The Ancestral Homeplace of The Old Lady

Talk to your doctor to know if there are certain side on line levitra http://greyandgrey.com/spanish/prensa/ for sale are- Dizziness Nausea Back pain Dizziness Flu-like symptoms Indigestion Joint pain Nasal congestion Respiratory tract infections such as colds. Unlike cialis for sale canada , they dissolve faster and become effective to provide healthy, firm and longer erection. levitra prices However, these side effects are rare for the majority of people. The automated supply chain best prices on viagra process also provides you relief from excessive expenditure triggered by erratic and ineffective expense management, data management and procurement processes.
Turkeyfoot Creek runs under Cascade Road, down a series of small waterfalls, and is then fed by the Springs. The Old Lady was delighted to spot turkey foot tracks on a tiny sandy beach!DSCF9924DSCF9925The Old Lady’s big brother (He Who Holds Her Undying Adoration) and his buds used to hunt snakes and crawfish in Turkeyfoot Creek. When he got older, he used to take his metal detector through the area seeking Civil War relics. The Battle of Utoy Creek was fought in the area, part of the defense of the city of Atlanta against General Sherman’s army. The remains of a trench could be seen in The Old Lady’s backyard, and her mother often dug up century-old minie balls and bullets while gardening.

Left, minie ball; right, bullet.
Left, minie ball; right, bullet. Photo courtesy of The New York Times.

The springhouse is now part of the Cascade Springs Nature Preserve, and The Old Lady found the once-overgrown spot tamed and domesticated. The wild woods have been cleared, showing clearly the boulders that are the exposed elbows of the granite skeleton that makes up the underlying geology from Stone Mountain through the entire Atlanta area.DSCF9923Trails have been cut and marked. The springhouse, which used to be shrouded with bushes and vines, has been exposed so that the little side grottoes with benches can be clearly seen. Imagine how delightfully cool these niches would feel on a hot summer day!DSCF9928DSCF9933DSCF9931Tamed and domesticated it may be, but Cascade Springs still gave The Old Lady that same spooky and mysterious feeling she had as a child, almost as if one were being watched by the spirits of the Spring and the souls of slaughtered soldiers.  DSCF9926

4 thoughts on “Wild Childhood Mysteries

  1. Julie, thanks for sharing wonder memories and pictures. You and the family are still apart of our memories that I’ve shared with our children and grandchildren.

    1. Andrea! How lovely to hear from you! Do you know that my late sister, Katy Ford Collins (1954-1996), named her first child Rachel Andrea in your honor?

  2. Thank you for this memory. I too grew up in southwest Atlanta, my first year of school was at Cascade Elementary[then Venetian Hills]. I didn’t know this place – how I would have loved to have discovered the spring house as a child! Even in its sadly tamed and domesticated environment now, it still looks like a witch’s house from a fairy tale. [I devoured all the fairy tales in the Adams Park Library.] I now live far away, in Ireland. But I remember the woods I explored in Atlanta in my youth.

    1. Dear Glenda,
      I, too, “devoured all the fairy tales in the Adams Park Library”. Remember Andrew Lang’s series (The Red Fairy Book, The Green… etc. etc. etc.)? That library was my main support system through childhood. I set a goal for myself when I was in second grade at West Manor Elementary: I planned to read EVERY book in that library! LOL!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *