Moonshine Fest in Dawsonville, Ga

Moonshine Festival

Another festival. This one was different from the other festivals. It was celebrating the law breakers that were in the moonshine business back “then”.

Dawsonville, Georgia, at the gateway of the north Georgia mountains , was known as the moonshine capital. I guess it was woodsy enough to get far back away from the mainstream of civilization as not be detected making the stuff yet close enough to market points such as Atlanta, Marietta, etc.

I know a few people who hauled moonshine back then. You know who you are.

The people who hauled the moonshine had to be good and fast drivers. Thus southern auto racing was born with already experienced drivers.

Fast kind of bootlegging cars and fast racing cars were on display throughout the huge festival. I think there were over a hundred booths and tents of people selling their home made art stuff and whatever else.

In the late 1950s the movie THUNDER ROAD , starring Robert Mitchum and his son came out. It romanticized, glamorized, and adventurized* the moonshine shipping business. I remember coming out of the theater and wanting to get in my car and speed around at high speeds. The THUNDER ROAD theme song didn’t help much.. it even hyped me up more. Fortunately, for me, I think more than I act. I don’t know if THUNDER ROAD had Dawsonville in mind when they filmed it or not.

In the 1950s Lockheed bought some land in Dawsonville and the talk was they were to have a plant there too. Our family drove up one Sunday and checked out the place, maybe buy a house before their housing market boomed. My parents were hesitant and it was a good thing. Lockheed never developed anything there as far as I know.

About the video: I edited it with a program that came with the computer, Windows Live Movie Maker. It was the first time I used it. I got to label things that would be on the screen and to other tricky stuff as well.

On the drive up to festival I think was about 60 miles, not very far at all. I was pleased to see a segment of Highway 400 named after an old friend. In the Cumming area the highway is the Judge Richard Stanley Gault Highway. Stanley Gault was a co-Little League player on Southern Discount’s team. Stanley was a little more in demand on the field than I was. My place was the bench. Stanley became a circuit judge in North Georgia. He died a few years ago.


*I know, I know, there is no such word. I made it up.

Hog Heaven

Some pigs recently sacraficed their lives for our enjoyment. There is just nothing like old fashion barbecue.


In the parking lot of White Water Recreation Park yesterday was the WHOLE HAWG HAPPENIN’ BBQ & MUSIC FEST.

I think there were at least five, maybe six, BBQ shacks or booths that represented larger restaurants in the area; there was a stage for bands to play, but during our two hour stay I don’t think we heard live music. I’m not complaining, just commenting.
There were also about thirty or so crafts and arts booths-tents.

And also a whole section was for big blow up rides for kids to bounce on, slide down, and whatever else. They all resemble castles, monsters caves, cliffs, and other high adventurous things that could have an air puncture any time. Thar she blows!

Four of the five barbecue shacks we have frequented their restaurants often.

Anna and I had bbq at Dave Poe’s booth. I had ribs. They were very tasty. Also they were not very plentiful. There were only two or three ribs, which I suppose is about right for lunch.

As I mentioned above, this was held in the White Water Amusement Park parking lot. Across North Cobb Parkway, aka, the 41, aka The 4-Lane, is Richard Street. I lived on Richard Street for about 7 or 8 years with my parents.

As an early teenager Gene Brown, Milton Martin, Don Lawson, and I would hang out in what would be White Water Amusement Park. Then it was a closed rock quarry in the middle of the woods. Sometimes we camped out there and other times we slept in the hut we built.

One night in my late teenage years my friend Larry Holcombe (1942-2000) was carrying me home from Varner’s. He had just bought a car, 55 black Chevrolet, from our friend Bobby. Back then very little traffic traveled on the 4-Lane late at night unless it was a big truck traveling intrastate. At the foot of the hill, in front of what would be the drive into White Water on the right, on the left was Richard Street. Larry slowed down to make a left-hand turned. His car went dead. We turned out the lights and started pushing, trying to get the black Chevvy off the road.

While we were pushing we heard a truck way up at the top of the hill. We tried pushing harder to get the car off the road. It was bearing down on us quickly. We quickly decided to quit pushing and get the hell out of the way of the soon-to- be flying debris.

Just as we jumped back I thought the tail lights. If the taillights were on the truck driver would see the car in time to pull dodge. It and avoid a disaster.

As you know, I’m not very bright. I jumped back into the car and put my foot on the brake pedal…. Just as the truck’s headlights were blasting in the back window.

The he swerved and I heard a horrible groan, screeching, and skidding noises. He rumbled by us and almost turned over but kept on going.

It wasn’t my turn. Butvery recently it was the turn of the star hogs at the festival. I thought of that near-death happening yesterday when thought of the all the hogs slaughtered because of our love for bbq. They died for a cause. Then I came up with the name for this post: HOG HEAVEN.

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BBQ & Music - Both With Spice

We went to a barbecue cook-off and a blue grass festival, sort of, in nearby Kennesaw yesterday evening.

The parking was difficult. We finally parked in a Dollar Store / Brewster’s Ice Cream parking lot…. And so did a lot of other people. Each store might as well closed for the evening.

I felt, until I got used to it, at the cook-off, we were the cookees. The sun was bright and the heat was blaring hot. All we needed was an apple in our mouths and a dry-rub.

I suppose there were twenty or more tents or camps,. There were different contraptions of smokers with teams of people at each preparing what they think is the best with their secret ingredients…. But more than that, I think it is a social thing. They see their friends and competitors at the different cook offs and they develop their own little community with their own cliques and their elites, and their own bragging rights.

Along with them comes the carnival atmosphere of venders selling things like cotton candy, funnel cakes, polish sausages, steak on a stick, and games such asthrow balls and win prizes… suckers get in line here… then you have booths of things like Verizon, Comcast, and other companies trying to get to know you better – to register for a prize… and every time you will probably win something that someone wants to drop by your house and deliver and introduce to you a new vacuum cleaner or something.

We ran into a couple that we have known through the years. It seems lately we have ran into several times, mostly at concerts. We talked about several movies we have seen and this and that. Our friendship is sort of based on cultural self-back-patting. They told us they walked out of several plays in downtown Marietta’s Theater of the Square because of “weird stuff” and “gay stuff”. I said I enjoyed watching it all. They looked at me blankly for a second and then went back with our cultural pat-on-the-back talk.

We had barbecue sandwiches from the commercial venues and nibbled samples from some of the contestants that were proud to hand out samples.


I think all the tents and booths that sold barbecue none had seating for their customers to sit. Way out of the way where the music was being performed were seats but they were not close by. At one time we were tired and wanted to sit and also wanted something to eat. We bought one bbq pork sandwich from a booth named Beer Duty BBQ Catering out of Atlanta, mostly Sandy Springs, they told us. We wanted to split one sandwich. They graciously provided us with two paper plates and cut it into for us. Not only did they do that but they also brought two seats from the back for us to sit in. How is that for service? The meat they piled on that one sandwich was enough for 3 normal bbq sandwiches. The pulled meat had just enough fat in it to enhance the flavor and it was delicious! Click here for their website.



We also went to their live music area. The group that was on stage had a mixture of rock and bluegrass. They were pretty good. The main one had a voice like Elvis and face like Elvis if he was alive today… winkles on a sagging face. The audience was sort of small. Only three rows of folding seats were being used. The first row has a few sitting on it. One the first row was an alert looking man to look to be about age 35 to 40. He had a full beard and a bright blue shirt. I noticed he clapped the loudest and seemed to be the most attentive. He was sitting alone. One time he hollered out to the main singer asking did they ever play in Knoxville. The main guy said yeah, they had a gig lined up the week before Thanksgiving in Knoxville and told him where at.

He stood and socked the air and said, “By God! I’ll be there!”

Good Lord! Were they that good? Did I miss something?

The fan was a big man. He was stout and big. In just about any fight I think he would be the winner in most cases.

In one of the songs the key singer, the old Elvis-sound-alike, walked out in the audience singing and strumming his guitar. His main fan was tickled pink. He stood about 4 feet from him and followed him with his camera-cell phone. I think the big brute of a fan had a crush on the old man.

I noticed the also had a CD he had bought from the table down front. He kept looking at it.

After the group’s time on stage they packed up their musical instrument to make way for the next group “Hurrican” Somebody with his backups the Singing Cowboys or some such name the star struck fan came up to the edge of the stage and was talking to the old Elvis. Suddenly the big fan walked off quickly, stopped about 15 feet away, turned and said something to the old man, then left rather hurriedly. I wonder what that was about.

“Hurricane” then kept looking for something on the edge of the stage. He walked around looking for whatever it was, back tracked his footsteps, carefully looking down, then back over to where he and the fan exchanged words… he never did find it.

I wonder if the fan picked up a little authentic souvenir to snuggle up to last night?

Sunday downtown Marietta at a Festival

A preteen girl seemed to be enjoying Glover Park’s Fountain as if a seal or an otter might. She looked perfectly natural splashing around in the water by herself. That was her mother sitting close by on the bench.

Yesterday we went to an arts and crafts festival in downtown Marietta. We got there a little late and some of the booths were getting ready to close up.

We did some arts and crafts Mother’s Day shopping and had a bbq sandwich at either the Civitan booth, Jaycee’s booth, Lion’s Club?.... whichever, it was very good because it was practically free. The people who ran the booth wanted to close down before the storm moved in and they said take what you want for free or leave a donation if you wanted – just hurry! We each had a huge bbq sandwich and Willow had a hot dog…. All for a $5 donation.

While we were sitting on the block looking thing about three feet high in front of the Strand from down Cherokee Street walked the strange little fellow I have seen at previous arts and crafts festivals downtown. All but one time he had a different puppet with him – the kind of puppet that make body movements by sticks and strings that the puppeteer is controlling…. He seems to disparately seek the attention of small children.

Before I watched parents frown at him and hustle their young children away from him before they reached out and touched his puppet.

The one time he didn’t have a puppet he was with a girl. He had a date with a girl taller than he was. He seemed very nervous and uptight as the girl yakked and yakked. I wonder if she is still around.

On October 21, 2007 I wrote a post about him on this blog named The Puppeteer. Either search on this blog for The Puppeteer or click here.

Today he had on black clothes and his puppet was a black dragon with a red stripe running down it side. The dragon looked very sinister, so did he. He also looked focused; he rushed by us with a look of a target on his mind.

I don’t know if had a black cape or cloak on like maybe Mr. Hyde would, but if not, he should have.

Weekend Pics

Here are some pictures I took over the weekend. They are not perfect compositions or a study in color or light. The subject matter is all that counts. I deleted the ones that only had my foot hand, or an eye as the focused subject.

The first picture was in the previous blog. It was the sign in front of the Sandy Plains Baptist Church saying this coming week is No-Watch TV week. I am just trying to get some more miles out of it, that’s all.

I took it while on a bike ride in my area of Marietta as well as the next two below.


The top picture is the McMansion that I reported was fire Friday. Saturday I boldly parked my bike in the driveway next door and took this picture. My bike was pointed outward towards the street in case anybody hollered at me… brave, aren’t I?

The below were taken at the Big Shanty Festival in Kennesaw Sunday:






The above picture was taken of “Wildman” Dent Myers’ store. He is an interesting person. Someday I may have to talk some more about Wildman.




By the old Train Depot were many age groups clogging and doing hip-hop dancing, musical dancing, and I don’t know what all. I sat there transfixed, all the dances impressed me. Not too many years ago they had a big group named THE LI'L GENERAL CLOGGERS (or similar) that did things like this, I don't know if they were the same group of not. There, while enjoying the dancers and the dances we had barbecue Sandwiches we bought there from the Kennesaw Optimist Club. It was good and plenty of meat, but I should have complained, just to take their optimist smiles off their faces.

There we ran into my first cousin. She was there with her daughter and two grandkids. She confirmed what I said a few postings back.

I think the arts and crafts booths were the most I have seen in one place. They just about covered every street in the downtown area. I was talking to a lady that had jewelry booth and she told me she does better at festivals that are sort of inner-city or in the center of large towns – she said she has always done good in festivals in downtown Marietta but not at well as more rural areas such as Kennesaw.

I noticed a lot of people wearing something with the brand name Harley Davidson on them. Maybe a tee-shirt, a back pack, belt buck, whatever. It is not the first time I noticed a lot of Harley Davidson attire at festivals. I may just have to send off for me a Trek Bike tee –shirt to show them a thing or two.

Also we noticed plenty of people brought their dogs. We wished we had brought Willow. Oh well, we can make it up next Friday night by carrying her to concert at Glover Park in Marietta.




You can see the Kennesaw Civil War and Train History Museum over the peak of tents – if you stand on your tip-toes and strain.



A Titanic blow-up ride? It is like a water-park slide, but instead of water to slide down on, you do it on your butt.



What is a Civil War historical area without a reenactments? It reminds me of a book I once read by Sharyn McCrumb named GHOST RIDERS. Only one side were re-enactors and the others were well…gulp! You get the idea.

Costume Contest

This reminds me of a Halloween costume contest Marietta had downtown one year.

We took Adam and Rocky. There were plenty of loud rock music furnished by a radio station and people were all over the downtown area dressed up in some outlandish costumes.

Behind Shillings Restaurant in the parking lot of what now is a lawyers’ office, and one time the stables of Marietta, and another time a trolley terminal the contest was held. The head judge of the event was Mayor Flournoy who sat a table along with the panel to decide what costumes should win first prize, 2nd, and so on.

They had not counted on a few entries that made a mockery of the whole contest. Two man had on long rain coats. At the opportune moment, he would jerk his rain coat open and out sprung a huge penis – maybe 3 or 4 feet long. We ran into both men near the park before the contest at different times and if I was the judge I know which one I would award the prize to. The one with the maniacal laugh when he opened his coat and out sprung you-know-what. Timing was everything.

Another trio of men had a similar outfit they had to work in unionson. The middle man had material that gave the appearance he was a huge, well, you-know-what. And the other two buddies, each had what looked like a foam rubber ball around them, and the ball had wild hair drawn on it. The had to work as a team. If one turned to go a certain way, they all had to turn.

That night Judge Flounoy declared NO MORE HALLOWEEN COSTUME CONTESTS AT MARIETTA’S EXPENSE!!!!

Although they had one this past weekend in the daytime for young kids and pets – what gives?

The Puppeteer

Yesterday in downtown Marietta was a Fall Festival. There were arts and crafts booths set up to hawk their wares and other booths for special interests, such as animal rescues, Ghost Tour of Marietta, eats, and so on.

These kind of festivals happen for different reasons – most of the time we are lured there. We like to watch the people. Yesterday was a Halloween costume contest for kids and apparently a costume contest for dogs too. There were plenty dressed-up dogs walking around. Willow as with us, but we know better than try to but some kind of garb on her – she will have none of that…. How is a lady to squat and pee with dignity if she has clothes all over her body?

It seems that Marietta has plenty of these type of festivals and just looks for an excuse to have one. It must be a good money-getter. They must have 4 to 6 a year, maybe more.

Last year at one of these things in downtown Marietta along the row of booths was a short solo young man with a puppet in his arms. It looked something like a big bird like creature… with strings and little sticks he could control its mouth and arm movement. It sat on his arm and moved its head around as its controller moved among the crowd.

The puppet was so naturally moving life like, in his arms. People were ignoring him – I thought probably the parents told their kids not to go near him.

Apparently people ignoring him did not discourage him. At the next festival he was there, walking around with that puppet sitting on his arm. Again he was alone and ignored.

The thought occurred to me that he was a ghost – and nobody could see him or his puppet – however, if that was the case, what was I looking at?

The next festival we were eating in a little eatery when he and a girl came in. He had a date! Maybe that was the plan all along, maybe he had hoped his puppet would be a chic magnet. He looked nervous and ill-at-ease. I don’t think the girl even noticed. They walked in holding hands… or she was holding his hand anyway.

A few festivals have came and gone since I saw him. Then, yesterday he reappeared with a new puppet.

As we were walking back to our car he walked by, alone. He and a new one. This one had a white fur with something like a red hat – maybe it had a white beard… I’m was watching him more than I was watching his make-believe friend. He bent the puppet over towards Willow and made its naturally move an arm or its head or something. Willow kind of backed up untrusting. The guy never said a word or even smiled.

I wished I had taken his picture. I got a feeling his name will be a household name some day.

A Few Loose Ends

Last night a friend called to tell me another friend Ed who now lives in Quitman Georgia (south Georgia) had a heart attack that same day. He was put in the Thomasville Hospital and the doctor put a stent in. The doctor said after he stabilize he might go back in and put in another stent.

We were trying to figure out when Ed had his other heart-attack. It was easy to just about pin-point what era of his life he was in when he had his first heart attack. Was it with before Sue (1st wife) or after Sue? After. Was it before Judy or during Judy (2nd wife)? Judy is a nurse and recognized that he needed immediate medical attention. Was it before he retired or after he retired? We the jury are still out on that last question.

Today Anna and I went to arts and crafts festival in Powder Springs, Georgia, that was ten times or more bigger than the one we went to in Burnsville, North Carolina, and it was only about ten miles away.

Then we went to the Marietta History Museum. We drop by there a couple times a year to see what is new. Or what is old that is new…. Anyway. We bought a few things in their gift shop and I got a free brochure on the Dixie Highway which I plan on doing a blog posting on in the near future.

The building the Marietta History Museum is in the Kennesaw House in downtown Marietta. During the Civil War Andrew’s Raiders spent the night in the Kennesaw House in 1863 and stole The General locomotive the next day in Kennesaw, Georgia, about 7 miles away. That was “The Great Locomotive Chase” – and Disney figured out how to make a buck out of it. One year later in 1864 the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain was going on… about this exact time of the year, the first week of June. Sherman led the forces and ordered the Cobb County Courthouse and other buildings and homes burned. The 4th floor of the Kennesaw House was burned. Sherman spared the rest of the Kennesaw House because the owner was a Mason.

However, some in this area still remember Sherman burning the town. So, when we went to the Marietta Museum at the Kennesaw House today, I had to pee. In the men’s rest room, above the urinal, while you do your business, you are looking at a picture of Sherman and he is looking at you. A picture of Sherman is hanging up over each urinal.

Back in downtown Marietta Anna went into a card shop and I was in the car in front when a woman and her 3 or 4 kids came by. The kids banged on the big store window and pressed against it. The proprietor of the store ran out and chewed out the kids, saying she was going to let them wash her windows if they kept that up. The mother looked in a daze.

Then a little later we went to a Mexican restaurant and after the meal I went to the cash register to pay. The elderly Mexican man glanced at me and said some kind of greeting and by mistake I said “Good morning!”

He took a second look at me. I paid him along with a coupon. He gave me change and kept looking at me.

On the way to the car I told Anna the old Mexican man doing a double look at me when I said, “Good morning.”.

She looked up at me and broke out laughing. I had red sauce all over my cheeks. He probably was studying my face wondering if he should or shouldn’t tell me I looked like a pig.

Asheville and Around

We went to Asheville, North Carolina, and points north of there the previous weekend.

Here and there in town we would cross over the French Broad River several times. I have stumbled across the French Broad River in several researches while trying to find the originals of my Hunter ancestors.

My great-g-g grandfather John Hunter (1775-1848) lived in Buncombe County for a time (Asheville), and that is where his children were born – or nearby Henderson County. He died in 1848 in Union County, Georgia. A Hunter family lived in Buncombe County (Asheville) who had a son named John Hunter (b1775) who married Polly Edwards – as yet, I have found no direct proof that the John Hunter of this family is my ancestor John Hunter.. but it probably is. And if so, his parents were William and Anna Caldwell Hunter. William owned a tavern at the French Broad River in the area.



The building on the left is the Buncombe County Courthouse and the building on the right is the city of Asheville City Hall.

There is a mall there in the middle of town that a guy named Grove created. It has unique stores and offices in the upper levels. Grove also created some a cure for yellow fever, or some other disease of the times.

In the downtown area we drove up and down every street there – more than a few times trying to decide what to do and where to eat.

There were street musicians here and there on corners. There were a group of elderly ladies in their red hats and purple dresses protesting something, I missed what. There was a hot band in a small park that people were gathered around. And all these people made it harder to find a parking place.

We finally decided on a Cajun barbecue joint. It was okay, but not all that great. The downtown area of the barbecue joint is about 6 to 10 blocks wide and 6 to 10 blocks the other way. So, that is between 36 and 100 blocks of the good life. Outside dining, inside dining, art shops, and I don’t know what all – but a lot of young carefree living – which seems odd for a mountain community.

The morning time of our first morning the lobby and the free breakfast area was crowded with young people in nylon sport clothing. We soon found out that Asheville was hosting a big basketball tournament.

Someplace squeezing myself between people in the lobby I picked up on a conversation of a husband and wife, talking to some new found friends, how each of them talk on the phone… for each to mock his or her spouse the held up a thumb and pinky finger up to the side of their face. The thumb and the little finger is now the universal symbol for a telephone. I didn’t realize it until I saw both them doing it and it looked so natural and I picked up immediately they were imitating being on a phone.

We have been to the Biltmore House before in Asheville, NC, when the kids were young in grammar school. We didn’t really consider going this time. We do want to go sometime during the Christmas season, we hear they really make the place a Christmas Wonderland. We thought however, it would be nice to drive up the long driveway, which is several miles long…. It is such a park-like setting around every bend.

You might remember the movie with Peter Sellers, - I think the name of it was “The Gardner” Much of it was filmed at the Biltmore Estate.

We drove through the entrance and got behind a group of cars heading towards the mansion. At one point was a couple of guards. Some he would wave on and some he talked to and some he pointed over someplace. When he got to us he told us to buy tickets. I said we didn’t want to buy tickets, we just wanted to ride around and look at things outside. He said, this is as far as we can go, go make a U-Turn right there (he pointed). I misunderstood him and thought he meant another drive a few yards away. I drove passed the place I was ordered to make my U-Turn.

“HEY!!!” He shouted. Opps! He came towards us really scowling. I did quickly my U-Turn, almost hitting two runners and a car.


Anna's Gargoyle
On the way out we dropped by the Biltmore Gift Shoppe just outside the gate. Anna bought a small Gargoyle and I tried the various cheese samples that was laid out to complement the Biltmore Wine tasting even that was soon to take place.


Speaking of Gargouyles, here is mine that I have had a long time. It is perched on a bookshelf beside a replica of "The Sleeping Lion" which the original statue is in the Confederate section of Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta.

We went north to the little town of Burnsville, not far from the Tennessee border where a festival was to be taking place. The “come-on” we read on the net said music of all kinds and food of all kinds and arts & crafts.

To get there we drove through Yancy County which plainly doesn’t have any zoning laws. There were at least three, maybe more houses that old junky cars and old rusty buses in their yards…. Terrible sights to be beautiful rolling hill countryside.

The Burnsville Festival was a country band and maybe 5 or 6 arts and crafts booths. They had two food booths. One served booth served barbecue and the other booth served nachos and cheese and maybe corn dogs. It was our disappointment for the day. And they almost only had one. The owner of the barbecue booth owns a barbecue catering service near Atlanta. He told us not too many day ago he was searching the Internet looking for festivals and came across this one. He wrote and asked them did they need a barbecue vender and suddenly, he was one.

I noticed a lot of bikers in the town. Just by what I observed and I am wrong plenty, I think the bikers and the mountain farmers have some sort of comforting relationship. The bikers like to ride around mountain curves. And they farmer, down in the valley on his plow see them and wishes he was as free as a bird as they seemed to be. And the biker probably appreciates the farmer working Mother Earth. I noticed sitting around on benches in town they seem to respect each other.






The Burnsville Festival



Before we checked into our room at a motel in Mars Hill, NC., we drove through the little town of Mars. Hill. A couple of blocks from downtown is a beautiful college campus. I think Mars Hill College is the principle industry of Mars Hill, NC.

We checked into the motel. We asked the desk clerk what was going on in this area (far away from anything) that the only had one room left when we called and made our reservations the day before. She said two family reunions and a wedding. I asked her which one had more food – we would take that one.

The next morning after breakfast, which I already mentioned, I was pushing the luggage rack down the motel corridor and I was approaching an opened door. About that time the door across the hall opened as I was passing. A lady from inside the door that just opened said, “Good morning Sunshine!” And a man from the door already opened, said, “Are you talking to me or that gentleman?” – meaning me. She said, “The gentleman!”

And I said, “Morning Moonbeam!” But down in my heart I was saying, “I was noticed! Somebody actually saw me and commented!”

On the local TV news, which was broadcasted from Greenville, South Carolina, we heard of a big hot air balloon fest in Simpsonville, South Carolina, not far from Greenville. They were to have balloon rides going up and coming back down for about $10 or $15, long rides for a hundred bucks and other balloonists were having a race to a far away place… I didn’t catch where to. On the way back to Georgia we thought we would give it a try. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”, they say. What they don’t say is, “Venturing can be costly.”


Established in 1982, by the Greenville Chamber of Commerce to provide a local event center on patriotic and family entertainment.
The concept of the festival started when a movie company came to the Chamber of Commerce asking them to have a festival so they could use it as a backdrop for the movie “Hot Heir”, which was released as a 3-D movie, but never made it to the Greenville area local theaters. And after that, they just kept on having it as a tradition…. And a good money getter I might add.


We found Simpsonville near Greenville. We expected to see some kind of signs pointing to the balloons. There were no signs. We drove to the little town, through the town, and about a mile and a half on the other side were policemen and their flashing vehicles. Somehow, we got directed off the road onto a big field, probably equal to the size of four or five football fields. A group in bright orange tee-shirts collected $5 from us and told us to go that-a-way. Another group with the same type of bright orange tee-shirts directed us to a parking place…. The person in his early 20s used both hands and all eight fingers to direct us to the correct distance behind a car. He must have been a aircraft carrier flight deck placer wannabee. He did his job well.

We were told to go “over there” and wait for the shuttle bus. We walked “over there” to stand. A dark skinned man and his dark skinned wife approached. I think they had a child with them. They both had tattoos. The two were not very old. They were probably in their early 20s. He was wondering where he could find a motel with a Laundromat. We asked them where were they from. He was vague saying something to the effect that they go wherever they want. The more we talked, the more he said. He was a carnival worker. Either that morning or the day before when he reported for work at whatever ride he worked his boss told him he was 30 minutes late, so for him to take the whole day off. The guy said he could do better than that, he would take the whole week off. So, they were on the go.

He told us there would be a lot to do that this thing we were waiting to go to. In a several minutes I realized he had carnivals and rides on his brain. Even when he didn’t have to go to a carnival he went for fun.

I suppose he was a member of the infamous White family, a.k.a. Travelers, a.k.a. Gypsy. I noticed a few years ago, Gypsies were the only group of people, who were born into their group that it was politically correct to be prejudiced against, scorn them, say bad things about them, and make them the blunt of your jokes – and it was okay to say they are thieves and dishonest. It seems Gypsies need some kind of representation or a spokesman or something.

About a tenth of the huge park was for food and crafts and the other remaining area was for carnival type stuff like rides and games.

You had to buy tickets and they were your method of currency. At each place the price would tell how many tickets for what. Our lunch cost us 9 tickets. We had one ticket left over which we gave a mother to use for her daughter.

We had a hard time finding where the hot air balloons were to take off. And when we did, it was even harder to get a straight answer WHEN. The most specific time we could get was “Probably about 6pm”. The policeman who told us that, after he found out, said, “I’m as disappointed as you are.”

We got back on the road to Atlanta. We took a toll-highway to get out of the Greenville area, which cost $2.

Anna read aloud the latest book I am reading while I drove. She already read it for herself but did this for me.

No trip can be completed without a visit to an outlet mall. We went to an outlet mall in Commerce, which is between Gainesville, Georgia, and the South Carolina state line. Holly Hunter is an native of Commerce. They have a very big outlet mall there. Anna bought a watch from Seiko store. The manager was very wordy and clever. When she was paying for it she asked something to the effect were they an authorized Seiko repair store. He said, “No, which is probably a good thing. We are nice but not very smart.”

While Anna did some more shopping I enjoyed sitting on a bench on the walk like a wooden Indian and watched people walk by. It appears that Mexican fathers are more devoted to their children than us white folks are.

Also, speaking of Mexican fathers, I went to the rest room there and when I walked in was a Mexican man standing in the middle of the floor putting his toddler daughter’s clothes on. I felt a little awkward. Should I have unzipped my shorts, turn around and face the urinal, whip it out or what? Maybe I should have went to a stall and shut the door real easily, as not to cause a scene… heck, whatever I decided to do, it would be wrong. Luckily, he had her clothes on and they left before I got down to business.

Another “A Lot About Nothing” post

A Taste of Marietta

A sea of people and booths with food. That was today at the Square in downtown Marietta. Above you are looking at the West Park Square. It was the same on two of the other sides.

The east side was opened for traffic passing through.

We tried several things. There is a new Cajun restaurant in Marietta and they were showing off their alligator stew. I thought it was pretty tasty (it doesn't taste like chicken).

A lot of people, you could hardly move. Of the multitudes of people I saw only three people I know, a cousin, and an old friend (we don't speak anymore), and a Postal carrier I used to work with - which we are almost related. We are related to the same people.

Memories of the Fair & the Carnival

One time over the weekend we taking a short cut to get from side of Cobb County to the other and went by the fairgrounds. If I had realized it was time for the annual fair we would have avoided the area.

I never been near the fair that there was not a traffic jam. But, this time there was no traffic jam. We sailed on by it without backed up traffic or anything. I saw a Ferris wheel in movement and heard a loudspeaker and a loud diesel engine and cars were in the parking lot, but no traffic. They were either already there or not coming that hour.

It reminded me of past Cobb County Fairs as I was growing up. Now, the Fairgrounds in the near the County Farm Prison Farm about three or four miles outside of Marietta. Back when I was growing up it was just a three or four blocks from downtown.

As a preteen some friends and I would walk around and watch them set up the rides and usually a carnie worker would give us little jobs to do for a dollar or sometimes even a dime. One Gypsy-looking woman handed me a bucket and told me if went to get a bucket of water for her she would give me a dime. I filled up the bucket and walked back with, which was about the length of a football field. I was just a little guy and I had a hard time holding the bucket and some of the water sloshed out. When I got to her trailer she was mad the water was not all the way to the top and gave me a nickel.

After the Fair ended and the carnival workers packed up their rides and moved on out usually the next morning would be a Sunday morning. Us boys would walk around where the rides were and look for money that fell into the wood chips and grass. We usually found several dollars of change each.

One year while looking for money I found a box full of jars. Each jar had a snake’s head in it with its mouth pried open to show its fangs in all its glory. I think there were about five or six jars. It was too valuable of a conversation piece to leave. Two of us lugged it, taking times carrying it until we got it to my house. I hid it by some bushes until I was sure nobody was watching me then we lugged it to a little shack of chicken house we had way back in the back yard – which at that time we had no chickens. I used the little house for our clubhouse and also as a make believe ship. Up on the roof was a hole that I could go through, and I had a little ladder that was there… we would pretend we were on a old wooden frigate out to sea and the hole was a hatch going “down below”.

We lined the jars with the big snake heads up in various wood boxes turned on their sides which did serve as a home for the chickens to do their thing – lay eggs.

The snakes worked out well, until one time my mother was up in the back yard having an old black man and his mule plow up an area to plant a garden and stuck her head in the chicken house and saw the snakes.

She was very upset with me and was about to destroy them regardless of my objections when her brother dropped by for a visit. Her brother was head of the State Rehabilitation Department and up until then he was an educator and principal of a high school in Murray County, Georgia. He looked over the snakes heads and told his sister I really had something that many schools would love to have. He talked her out of getting destroying them.

For that moment anyway. She waited until I was in school the next day and broke all the jars with an ax. A horrible stench was in the air when I came home. Snake flesh along with whatever you pickle snake heads with – vinegar? We had to shovel the heads up and throw them in the garbage.

I don’t blame her, she couldn’t stand snakes.

Back then the fair started about the same time the first high school football game started. One year several of us on the side of the street watched our friend in the high school parade to celebrate the opening of the football season and the fair. One of our friends in the parade hollowed from a convertible that the parade was going to the fairgrounds and they would get in free.

My friend and I pulled off some crate paper off some of the paraders’ cars and ran the streamers up and down his mother’s PV544 Volvo. We jumped into the car and drove up and became the last car in the parade. I drove and the friend got on the front fender and raised his trousers up, past his knees, crossed them like a beauty queen and flew kisses to the people on the curb watching the parade.

Everybody watching cracked up – except and aunt of min who saw me and hollered, “Eddie Hunter! I’m going to tell your mama!” As far as I know she never did.

We, as the tail end of the parade we paraded right into the fairgrounds.

We ran into two friends who both now are millionaires. They told us some guy in a big trailer full of stuffed animals told them he would give them ten bucks each to carry a bunch of stuffed animals and dolls to his booth on the fairway and hand them over to the guy there and after they empty out the trailer he would give them pay them.

We asked what kind of game is he running at the booth. They laughed and said they didn’t know, they never got that far. They put the first load of dolls and stuffed animals in their car.

Memories.

The Cards of Life

In the spring of 1975 Anna was pregnant with our first born son, Rocky. One weekend we went to the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, which is booth after booth of arts and crafts.

There was one display of some kind of the things about the same size and as eggs. Out of each one, was a little carved human baby prying him/her out of the cracked egg. I think each one was home made. Anna really liked a certain one and I was going to buy it for her but the one she wanted was reserved for someone else who already paid for it.

The lady told me she also sold them at Tuxedo Pharmacy in the Buckhead section of Atlanta. And if I came there Monday morning I could buy one there. OK.

While looking at the arts and crafts I noticed a strange woman standing at a distance smiling at us. Why? I thought I would pretend to be looking at some art near where she was standing so I edged myself over to get a closer look at her and she wasn’t there. Then, about five minutes in another section of the festival there she was again, looking at us smiling. Again, I pretended to be studying a good photo shot with my camera and backed up to where she was. Only thing is, again she slipped away.

So much for that. I just thought it was mysterious and strange.

The next Monday morning after I got off work at the Post Office in Atlanta I drove to Tuxedo Pharmacy in Buckhead and they did have the little egg/baby that Anna liked so I purchased one and went home to hide it. I gave it to her later on Mother’s Day.

A day later, Tuesday morning I was driving on my way home from work and I was going through a busy intersection , going under the green light and WHAM!!! A pickup truck rammed my car in the side at full force. It ran the red light part of the same traffic lifht. It knocked the car out of the intersection and onto the edge of a McDonald’s parking lot. The car, a Gremlin, was turned over on its side.

I did not have my seat belt on. The driver’s side of the car was caved in. If I had my seat belt on, I would have been crushed, but luckily the force knocked me on the other side of the car.

The man that hit me also didn’t have his seatbelt on. He went through the window which was the caused of his death a few hours later.

There is an argument here for and against seatbelts in the same wreck.

I remember being in a strange awkward position on the shotgun side of the car, turned over, glass over me, blood oozing out of glass cuts that showered me, and Bob Dylan’s “Blood On The Track” was playing on the car radio.

I found out later the man who went through the windshield lived nearby. He was an aged man, about 65. He was driving to his drugstore to get a prescription refilled. It is believed he fell unconscious while driving, so probably never knew about the accident.

With “Blood On the Track” playing I was pinned down but managed to pull a cigarette out of my breast pocket and light it. What I didn’t know, gasoline was pouring out of thecar onto the ground.

People were gathered around and I heard sirens getting louder. Before I had a chance to take over two good inhales on my cigarette a paramedic reached in and grabbed the cigarette out of mouth.

As they got me out of the crushed vehicle and loaded me onto a stretcher I got a lecture on smoking near an overturned car. I also received a lecture on smoking period – “Smoking can kill you.” one said as they loaded me into the ambulance.

We went to the hospital. Somehow I told somebody to call Anna at work. She and a couple of co-workers arrived shortly after I arrived.

I was x-rayed and looked over and the glass picked out of my hair. Aside from a few scrapes that was solved with bandages the doctors declared I could go home. I had a painful headace. There was some kind of mix-up about transportation, I forgot the details.

When Anna came to the hospital she was too nervous to drive, so a co-worker carried her. Then she had to get back to work and for some reason which I don’t remember I could not be released for about one or two hours.

We called Marie, my mother-in-law to come and pick me up and carry me home.

They wheeled me in a wheelchair to a waiting room and told me to wait for my mother-in-law there. They said that is where she would drive up to, under that drive through awning. OK.

I was sitting there. An older lady was also sitting in a wheelchair near me. Over, behind a round pillar was a tall lanky teenager with long hair, sitting, looking bored.

The older lady asked me was I waiting on someone. I said, “Yes, I am, somebody is suppose to come and pick me up.” She hollered over to the teenage boy, I forgot how she called him, but she said something to get his attention, then once he looked up she said, “Is this the person you are waiting for?”

I said, “No, no. I am waiting for my mother-in-law, it will take her a while, she is coming from north Cobb, between Woodstock and Kennesaw.”

The teenager got and stretched and walked over to be attentive to our conversation because he probably wasn’t sure it concerned him or not.

The older lady went on to explain why she got the boy’s attention was that she didn’t know I was waiting on a female and she was thinking I might be waiting on him, but because of the big pillar hiding us from each other we might not have know we were in the same room.”

That made sense to me. I have seen many comedy of errors that the right hand did not know what the left hand was doing.

The tall teenager walked behind her then folded his arms, like one might do to imitate a bird and started to pretend to peck her head. It reminded me of a big bird standing over her pecking her on the top of her head.. I don’t remember if Big Bird was known yet or not, but if so, that is what he looked like. Why was he doing this? Acting crazy behind that old lady’s back. Was he on drugs?

I don’t know why he did it, but it got me trying to swallow my giggles. I was probably high on some sort of pain medicine.

I took off from work ten days or so. I had a pounding headache. The other man’s insurance company gave us book value for my Gremlin and paid me a small amount for my pain and suffering and reimbursed monetarily what sick leave I used.

Still happy with American cars, we bought an orange Pacer that looked something like a big pumpkin.

Just after I returned to work I put my motorcycle up for sale. I had a Honda CL350. It was the type of motorcycle that was good for road or off-the-road. A man came and was really impressed with the Honda and complemented me for taking a such good care of it. I was asking $600.00. He didn’t try to talk me down. He wrote out a check and told me would I please wait until Friday to cash it until Friday, and if I didn’t mind he would predate the check for Friday. No problem, I told him.

The check bounced. I went to his house and the house was empty. He and his family moved. I went to the Post Office and paid a fee for them to look up the man’s forwarding address and he did not turn in one. He and his family just skipped out. I went to the local school and talked to the kid’s teachers and she said the boy told his classmates they were moving to some town in Oklahoma.

I went to the County D.A. office and talked to an assistant about how would I go about pressing charges against the man for giving me a rubber check and riding off in the sunset.

The assistant D.A. is now a prominent lawyer and also owns two barbecue places in town – his barbecue is the North Carolina type, delicious! He told me that when I accepted the predated check from him I was accepting his credit, with risks that come with such. The act of accepting his credit made it a “non-criminal matter”. Credit problems is a civil matter.

I tell these two incidences of bad things happening to me because I wonder if it was something the gods worked out, a kind of “give and take” or maybe a Karma, of a plus causing a negative to back down? Or put it this way, I suffered a bit, to prevent anything negative happening during the birth of my son. He was born healthy and wise.

And, if you recall the smiling dame at the Dogwood Arts Festival…. Was she someone dealing out the cards of life?

It is just a thought.

But if that was the case, what did the guy that went through the windshield get?

No Bears

In Dahlonega at their 'Bear In the Tree" or "Bear In The Square" festival there were blue grass fiddlers and pickers at almost every corner and under every shade tree. Damn right enjoyable.