Uh-Oh Atlanta
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Check Granny's letters of the day
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Day 5: October 29, 2023 Uh-Oh Atlanta Comment via blog Check Granny's letters of the day |
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| Today's the day, minus a hundred years, that my great-grandparents began their second trip to Florida. Noting that made me realize that a statement I made in the blog post announcing this trip was really stupid. I explained that I had started a few days ahead of the anniversary then said "At some point, I will be exactly where they were a century ago." This morning I decided to try figuring out when that would be. I almost instantly started laughing when I tried to calculate how long it would take a Model T traveling on dirt roads to catch up with a Subaru ruising on asphalt. I guess I might hit "where they were a century ago" if I revisit a point on the way home but it's otherwise simply not going to happen. |
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Young Brother's Pharmacy is not the only place in Cartersville that closes
on weekends. Every place I thought might be a good breakfast spot, was
shown as closed until sometime Monday morning. I repeated my search as I
headed on down the road and came up with
Doug's Place. It was right on my planned route and
just a few miles away. It was also packed. I found an open spot on my
second pass through the parking lot and walked to the door. People were
waiting on benches outside and on assorted pieces of furniture inside. I
announced myself to the gal I identified as the hostess and prepared
myself to move on after being told there was at least an hour wait. But
that's not what happened. After verifying that I was really a group of
one, she said, "You can go down to the little room."
Most of the customers were in family groups of four or five or more. The "little room" held about a half-dozen two-tops where singles and couples could be accommodated expeditiously. I was seated immediately, had coffee in a minute, and breakfast in a very reasonable amount of time at a more than reasonable price. Maybe this is why all the breakfast places in Cartersville were closed. |
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This shady stretch of Old Allatoona Road was one of the few rural scenes I
would see today. The roadside was lined with greeters at Acworth and it
would be lined with buildings and/or people most of the way on.
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The Robbinses "went thro Atlanta without any trouble". I didn't.
The sensible way to get beyond Atlanta today is via expressways but those
didn't exist in 1923. Driving my plotted path through the city was
unpleasant but it got worse when that path was blocked by some sort of
street festival, a police car, and a valet parking sign. I wasn't the only
one to get caught by the surprise dead-end and I really wish I had
pictures of a half-dozen vehicles, including a couple of large pickup
trucks, making simultaneous multi-point U-turns but I was too busy making
a multi-point U-turn to think of it. More closed streets and heavy traffic
made getting back on route quite a challenge and at one point I found
myself headed straight toward a huge ferris wheel. I was back on route
when I passed the big Coca-Cola sign but I can't say whether it actually
looked like that since I snapped the picture without actually looking at
the subject. My windshield is definitely quite dirty so maybe that caused,
or at least augmented, the weirdness.
Things got much calmer once I was past the center of the city and approaching its southern edge. Here some of my route was signed Dixie Highway. That last picture was taken at the intersection of Old Dixie Highway and Old Dixie Road. |
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I have passed through Hampton several times and am always impressed by the
row of nice looking buildings on the east side of the street. I'm
confident that the blue tarp marring the scene today is temporary. There
are no buildings on the west side, only grass and train tracks. The big
area of kudzu "sculptures" at the south edge of town doesn't
show well in pictures but is pretty impressive in person.
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The town of Griffin made an impression on Granny on both of their trips.
In 1920 she called it "the best town for bargains that we have
found". She reported that "it is still a cheap place to
buy" in 1923. She also commented that "They have the nicest 5
and 10 Woolworth store." The town was pretty much closed down on a
Sunday afternoon so I didn't have an opportunity to shop for bargains but
I did walk around about three blocks of downtown. I was hoping to see some
evidence of that Woolworth's but found nothing. I even asked a fellow
sitting at a sidewalk table if he knew anything about it. It turned out
that Frederick had only lived in Griffin about twelve years and knew
nothing about its Woolworth's but he did remember the Woolworth's in
Atlanta. We had a pretty good chat and he shared some other memories like
getting a mule for his twelfth birthday that bit him when he first tried
to ride it.
Griffin is rightfully proud of the many movies that have shot scenes there. They are identified by bronze markers embedded in the sidewalk, and I took pictures of several. I picked this one for posting because Dolly. |
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