Bob-Bob-Bobbing On Lake Allatoona

Our son Adam took us on a Pontoon ride across Lake Allatoona Thursday.  He had us meet him at Glade Marina on Kings Camp Road, where he keeps his boat.   When we drove up I immediately recognized  some small cabins and the terrain.  I am pretty sure it was where my late friend Bubba Johnson's parents had their cabin back in the 1950s.  It is now a gated community owned by a corporation.

I was unsure how to dress.  Would I fall in?  Years ago if I even got close to a lake or a creek I would fall in,  Should I dress in shorts, maybe a swim suit underneath?.... No, I'll dress like a pirate and say AAARRRGG a lot.

Allatoona has many coves and many little creeks and a several rivers that feed into it.   When I see a map of it, as I told Adam, it reminds me of a Chinese Dragon.  He said it reminds him of two Chinese Dragons kissing.  I am proud to say he learned  the places on  Allatoona like the back of his hand.

Adam is a good boatswain.  And he knows and obeys the safety rules.  He gave us a good trip..... we are still floating in our minds.

Pssst!  Remember to click on each image to make it bigger and better.

The first bridge is I-75 going North, the second is the I- 75 going South.  The third bridge is the Old 41 Highway (4 Lane) going both ways.  Interesting, beyond the bridge one was a dead woman who would occasionally float to the surface but when fishermen tried to grab her she would sink again.  Finally, someone with a net got her.  That was back in the 1950s,  

We noticed there is a net on each side of the bridge full of litter.  I think the authorities realized that a lake is such an easy target to lop trash out the window.  The net solves most of that problem.

This, we think is a Hawk's nest on top of the pole.

Girl Scout Camp

Allatoona Pass

Allatoona Pass was a notesworthy Civil War fight.  It all happened before there was a lake.  My great grandfather William Hunter's  unit fought here, but I don't think he did.  This is after the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, where he was shot in the knee and sat out the rest of the war.

This is the bridge that goes from the I-75 to Red Top Mountain.  Over to the left their is a peninsular sticking out.  When I was a kid and they just created the lake, on Labor Day they had sail boat races here.  Our neighbors belonged to a civic organization that was selling concessions along the shore where they expected hoards of people to gather  to watch.  The neighbor got me an ice cream cart, the honky kind of cart, refrigeration by hot ice and put me on that peninsular.   Not many people came around so I got bored and started skidding rocks in the lake, then I threw a chunk of hot ice in the lake and was amazed to see it bubble and bubble.  So, I threw some more hot ice into the lake.  The ice cream softened.  Moral:  Never trust a young kid to work without supervision.

Allatoona Dam.

On the other side the Etowah River flows down the valley to Cartersville and Rome.  One time my late friend Sam Carsely, who was a Ga Tech student, studying aviation  physics and air dynamics wanted to try flying paper airplaines off the Dam into the Etowah Valley and see what they would do - he believed that that wind would carry the paper airplanes back up in the air... he was right.  Each time they got a certain height they would fall and a wind would swoop them way up again.  They might still be doing that, maybe for eternity.

Allatoona Yacht Club

We had our 1960 Senior Party , Phase II, here.

A houseboat being towed.  Why?  Repossessed?  Did he have one of those "under water" mortgages?

Victoria Landing

As a teenager and beyond this was our main getaway for years.  

More Victoria Landing

A probable hawk nest on top of a bridge frame.

Allatoona Landing.

My dad and I went with his brother Herbert Hunter from this landing many times fishing and to check on Herbert's lines... I think he called them "trout lines".  One time I remember he caught a big live green turtle which didn't look very happy.  I keep looking at him in a tank under one of the boat's seats.  Another time, I helped my friend Larry Southern's father get a abandoned boat off the bank that I suppose Mr. Coy Southern claimed.  About four or five of us was in the operation.

Gerald Flinchchum's Book

Gerald Flinchum

In Monday's Marietta Daily Journal and the Cherokee Tribune there was an article about  Gerald Flinchum and his book CROSSROADS, CREEKS, AND CLASHES: CIVIL WAR SKIRMISHES IN CHEROKEE IN NORTH COBB COUNTIES: 1864.  It looks like an interesting book if you have a historical interest in the area.

In 2004 on my blog chick-fat I published pictures of the Tyson Cemetery near Hwy 82 and Bells Ferry Road.  It is a small cemetery with only 4 marked graves and 3 or 4 unmarked graves.  Gerald Flinchum emailed and called me.  We set up a meeting place in a close business parking lot near the cemetery and I took him to see it.  He took detailed pictures because he told me he believed that some of Sherman's horsemen came through the area a few months before The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.

Months after our meeting and looking at the  Tyson Cemetery he called me told me something to the effect there was a big skirmish in of Yankee Calvary men and Rebels  in the cemetery itself.

I am more than curious, it appears that my great  great grandfather Robert  Graves Tyson (1821-1864) ( died about the same time the skirmish happened.  Maybe this book will open up new facts.

Tyson Cemetery:

Eugene Hargraves Tyson

Frances Herring Tyson

Robert Cabel Tyson

Sarah Moody Tyson

Woodstock Bluegrass Jamboree Oct 4, 2014

The below two Youtube Vidoes are only bits and pieces of some of the songs sung.    It is meant only to give you a hint of what you missed, rub your face  in it, so to speak.

SCARLET WOOL

JOT''EM DOWN BOYS

Atlanta's Best Kept Secret No Longer a Secret

On WABE public radio the other day when I turned it on  Cascade Falls off Sand Town Road in Atlanta was being discussed.  I only caught some of it.  My ears perked up when I realized they were talking about a little known Civil War site.  It isn't well known because it is not in the history books according to the speaker.  He said it is not in the history books because the winner s get to write the history books.  He was saying at Cascade Falls the Confederates lured a whole company into the Cascade Falls area and it is shaped like a horseshoe.   So, the Rebs got the Yanks in the area which was a trap and decimated them - so said the guy being interviewed, which I  take it he was a historian.  Also mentioned it got its name because there is a waterfall that falls down some rocks, cascade style.  The radio people stopped and asked several people that visited the falls - they said it was the best kept secret.  I suppose  it WAS - not now.   Thanks WABE!  Did you know Atlanta had a waterfall?

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! MAD's TARZAN, a double feature

As you may know, if you read my blog regularly, I finished the book TARZAN OF THE APES by William R. Borroughs last week and wrote a review.  I still have TARZAN on my brain.  Me Tarzan!

MAD comic book did two take-offs on TARZAN.  The first one was in issue number 2 and the next one was in issue number 6, both named MELVIN OF THE APES.  Both written by editor Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated by John Severin.

Here they both are, a double feature!

click on image to be able to read the balloons and see the details.

from MAD #2

from MAD #6 

Boyd McKeown.  Or also  known as "Mr. Mack" or "The Band  Teacher"  I think he was the Marietta High school Band Director my whole time at MHS.  He taught his bands to do it right with music and marching.   When they marched out on the field you felt a certain thrill or excitement.  They pumped  the  spectators' adrenaline.  It is ironic that now he wears a hearing aid.   

I run into him from time to time, he looks the same as I remember him in the late 1950s.   He has brought up my blog  Chicken-fat  to me without me  mentioning it.  It took me by surprise because I am invisible to most people.  I wasn't even a student of his.   He has a keen mind.

What Me Senior?

At Kroger's yesterday I was ready to check out and the only cashier available had a sign over his counter that said "15 ITEMS MINIMUM".  I counted and I had 17 items.  The guy was getting ready for me.  I was about to leave and stand in line at another cash register.  He motioned me to come on up.  I told him I had 17 items.  He motioned me forward anyway,  in a way, he said, "Who Cares?"

While I unloaded my 17 items onto the belt I was about to comment to the cashier about having 2 items over by saying something like, "I bet on Senior Citizens' Day on Wednesday, you see more people abiding by the 15 item rule."  But I didn't get to say that, because an elderly lady pulled in behind me and her grocery cart was full, several times over the 15 items rule.   She disproved my theory before I even got to say it. She didn't apologize for  having over the minimum rule.

I remember seeing her earlier in the store.  She had on shots that ended several inches above he knees.  It is not that I disapproved of her shorts but it was just rare to see.

Anyway, I paid for the 17 items and went out to the car.  Anna came out with her mother's groceries and we loaded them in the car.  Next to us was a cute little white sports car with the top down.

As I was rolling our carts to the cart holder I saw the elderly lady that was behind me in  line pushed her grocery cart up to the little white sports car and started loading it up.

I said to her, "I would have never matched your little car up to you."

She laughed and said she has been driving sports cars for the past 30 years.    She added she is 75 years old and won't drive anything else.  She is two years older than me.

Not that it matters, but  in the shotgun seat was a large stuff bunny.

I asked if I could take her picture and she proudly said yes.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROCKY!