What A Long Trip It's Been

What started out as a "for the summer" relocation to Washington DC, turned out to be a summer filled with adventures all across the East Coast and our new home in Decatur, Illinois.

Many posts will follow about our adventures but a brief rundown of the highlights we saw along the way including:

The Appalachian Mountains in rural Pennsylvania
State Capitols of Pennsylvania, Vermont, and New Hampshire
The Baseball Hall of Fame
The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
Downtown Manhattan
Laura's hometown in New Jersey
My brother-in-law's wedding near Burlington, Vermont
The Atlantic Ocean coast in Portland, Maine
Lake Ontario and Toronto, Canada

And we finally arrived in Decatur, Illinois, which was the location of Abraham Lincoln's first home in Illinois after moving here with his family from southern Indiana when he was 21. It is said he gave his first political speech here which attracted the attention of Illinois political leaders. 

Use My Camera Classic: Uncle Remus and the Song of the South

**In this series of posts, I revisit interesting locations and sites that I never got around to posting about when I originally visited them.**

Eatonton, GA July 2015

One of Georgia's most famous native sons was Joel Chandler Harris, author of the Uncle Remus anthologies of stories featuring the character of Brer Rabbit which were incredibly popular at the turn of the 20th century. 

Harris was from Eatonton, GA which is about 50 miles south of Athens, Georgia and from driving around the small town, they clearly are proud to be the birthplace of Harris.

The collection of fables and stories attributed to Uncle Remus included philosophical stories which were a combination of original ideas by Harris and folklore and traditional stories attributed to African-American culture. His style of telling the story in Uncle Remus' voice would later be famously seen in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn.

Modern criticism of Harris' work is that he took many of the stories from slaves and newly freed African-Americans without attributing the sources. Interestingly, another author born in the very same town of Eatonton is Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple. It is hard to imagine two authors more different yet covering similar topics of race in the South. Walker wrote an essay on her thoughts on Chandler's work entitled "Uncle Remus, No Friend of Mine" and I think you can understand her opinion by the title alone.

Eatonton also boasts an Uncle Remus Museum a little ways from the downtown.

It features a period cabin reminiscent of something Uncle Remus would have occupied at the time of Chandler's work.

The Uncle Remus tales were brought to the silver screen in Disney's Song of the South. The film is a combination of animation and real actors interacting and it is famous for the song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah." Because of the subject matter, Disney has stopped releasing the film and it is not for sale currently. 

Although the movie is out of print as far as Disney is concerned, the complete film is currently up on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. I'm sure it will be taken down as soon as Disney notices that it has been posted so see what all the hubbub is about while you can.  

Visiting The Ty Cobb Museum

Shortly before moving to Washington DC for the summer, I was able to visit the small Georgia town of Royston which is home to the Ty Cobb Museum. Cobb was certainly the best baseball player of his era and the best contact hitter to have ever played the game. He became a little overshadowed when the first home run sluggers like Babe Ruth dominated the league but he was the highest vote getter among the first Hall of Fame class of 1936.

Royston is located in the north east corner of Georgia near the South Caroline border and is about 30 miles north of Athens. Here's a mural dedicated to their favorite son in downtown Royston. 

Although Cobb is famously nicknamed the "Georgia Peach," for some reason it only occurred to me recently to figure out if there was anything honor Cobb (other than a huge statue in front of Turner Field in Atlanta). 

It turned out that in Cobb's later years after retiring in baseball and earning a small fortune from being in early investor in Coca-Cola, Cobb donated money to start a small 24-bed hospital in Royston. That investment has expanded to what is known as the Ty Cobb Healthcare System and Ty Cobb Regional Medical Center.

In one of the smaller clinics in Royston, they have created the Ty Cobb Museum and as it is connected to the larger healthcare system it probably won't suffer the fate of other small museums that can't find the funding to continue operations. 

It sports the best Ty Cobb card collection I've seen in person in terms of quantity of original cards. Although, they should probably hire me as a consultant to display these in something better than a toploader.

The museum has a personalized movie of Cobb's life in the style of Ken Burn's baseball and a whole bunch unique Cobb pieces including this bronze bust.

They also had Cobb's lifetime pass to attend any baseball game for free.

There was also a bronzed version of one of Cobb's original baseball cleat. This seems appropriate as Cobb was known for his aggressive baserunning and frequently sliding into catchers and infielders with his cleats up. Here's a famous photo of him in action.

In the gift shop I was very excited to see special Ty Cobb cards made exclusively for the museum. I picked up two of the cards which were sealed with a gold sticker with the red card on the left limited to 1,000 copies and the blue card on the right limited to to just 367 copies. 

After we finished taking a look at the museum, we took a ride out to the local cemetery and found Cobb's mausoleum. It is located on a peaceful plot that overlooks much of the cemetery and is a fitting tribute to the man.  

Criminal Records' Georgia Musicians Artwork

I recently got to visit the best record store I've found around Atlanta, Criminal Records. The store is located in the Little Five Points neighborhood of east Atlanta and it's a nice mix of new and used vinyl, comics, toys, and just about everything...except trading cards.

It was pretty hard not to notice that they had changed out the signs in front of the store and had added a great map of Georgia that roughly shows where some of the famous musicians from the state are from. Musical greatness might be Georgia's greatest claim to fame and just taking a look at some of these names you may understand why.

Here's a breakdown of some of the most famous Georgian musicians. Many were born here and some made their names here. James Brown was born in South Carolina but got his start in Georgia. The battle for most important musical Georgia town is between Athens and Macon. Macon has the one two punch of Little Richard and Otis Redding while Athens has an amazing quantity of stars from R.E.M. to The B-52's to The Drive-By Truckers to Neutral Milk Hotel.

Here is a more comprehensive list of the bigger stars.

Allman Brothers Band - Macon
Black Crowes - Marietta
Drive-By Truckers - Athens
B-52's - Athens
Gladys Knight - Atlanta
Gram Parsons - Alanta
James Brown - Toccoa
Little Richard - Macon
Indigo Girls - Atlanta
Otis Redding - Dawson/Macon
Outkast - Atlanta
Ray Charles - Albany
R.E.M. - Athens
Widespread Panic - Athens

The Lover's Oak

We recently visited Georgia's Atlantic coast and it was a refreshing change from urban Atlanta. It's hard to believe the change in environment in about a three hour drive and the islands of St. Simon and Jekyll Island are great places to visit if you ever get the chance.

The main city around the coastal islands is Brunswick, Georgia and like Savannah, it has many planned out public squares. While we were driving around early on a Sunday morning as the town was still pretty much asleep, we came upon this huge oak tree. Getting out and reading about it, it is called the Lover's Oak and the National Arborist Association has certified that the tree has been there since well before the founding of the United States.

The "Lover's Oak" name comes the tradition that the tree was a common meeting place for Native Americans who would sit under the tree's huge base. Who really knows about that but the tree was an amazing "off the beaten path" moment that you often find while visiting little rural towns. 

FDR's Walking Sticks

Over the summer I got to visit President Franklin Roosevelt's Georgia home, given the name the Little White House. He built the home in Warm Springs, GA to take advantage of the warm spring water that helped with his polio treatment and it would be the place where the President passed away when he died of a stroke in 1945. The museum that makes up the guest house and the main house has many great FDR artifacts including these wonderful walking sticks which he received from people all across America.

Getting Slapped By Gerrymandering

Since moving to Georgia last year, Laura and I voted in last November's congressional/gubernatorial elections last fall and this year we were excited to vote in our city's local elections for mayor and city council. We became a little more excited when we learned that our town's mayor, J.B. Burke, became a minor news celebrity a few years ago when he was elected into office by a single vote. Stick that in the ear of someone who says your vote doesn't matter!

I searched out the sample ballot to see who exactly was running as the Atlanta news stations weren't ever going to cover the election in our small little suburb of about 6,500 people from the last census. The last time we voted our polling place was the impressive National Archives/Georgia Archives complex a few blocks from our house. It was easily the most impressive building I've ever voted in but when we pulled up outside on Tuesday there wasn't a sign that it was a polling station. After talking with someone inside, they said that since it was just a local Morrow election the polling place was in the municipal complex up the street. No problem. Up the street we went.

Now Georgia's system of voting is the most convoluted I have encountered. I've voted in Wisconsin, Washington state, and Kansas and each of those states are incredibly progressive compared to Georgia (yes, that includes Kansas). The Georgia system involves four tables that voters move through beginning with a table at which you fill out and sign a sheet of paper saying you are who you are.

At the next table, someone looks at my approved government ID and makes sure it matches my sheet of paper. Next up is someone who looks at my address to be sure I can vote. When Laura and I made it to that table there was a line of four people ahead of us including one lady who was being told that she couldn't vote in the election because she didn't technically live in Morrow. Since there wasn't an election at the county or state level on Tuesday she wouldn't be able to vote at all. She, of course, was not happy about this and I thought to myself "come on lady, at least know what city you live in!"

We made our way to the table, handed our IDs over and the lady flipped the book to find us.

"I'm sorry, you don't live in the city of Morrow."

Laura and I looked at each other and the expression on our faces was "WWWHHHAAATTT?"

"What city do we live in?"

"You live in an unincorporated part of Morrow so technically you aren't able to vote in the city election."

She continued and explained basically the exact same thing that she had explained to the lady ahead of us that I made fun of to myself a moment before. We left flabbergasted and after doing a little research we understood what was going on. As you can see the boundaries of our town seem to be pretty standard based on the major city streets until you reach the east boundaries. Then they suddenly include areas and skip others and the areas that they avoid include our townhome complex as well as another down our street.

The population of Morrow of about 6,500 and not including those complexes eliminates at least 1,000 people from being able to vote in the election. These are of course non-homeowners and logically have lower incomes and so the city views them as less desirable to be included in voting and having a voice in changing the city government. I had never run into these sort of problems before and it gave me a window into maybe 1% of the issue that poor and black voters experienced just a few decades earlier. 

Visiting President Snow's Mansion a.k.a. The Swan House

The Atlanta area gives movie fans a lot of famous locations featured in some very famous movies. You've got the Driving Miss Daisy house, the Fried Green Tomatoes cafe, and in a few months a building at Laura's university, Clayton State University, will be featured as the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in Captain America 3: Civil War. 

We recently visited another famous location in northern Atlanta that was featured in the second Hunger Games movie, Catching Fire. This was the Swan House and it was the set for the mansion of President Snow (played by Donald Sutherland) where Katniss and Peeta attend a party with Effie. 

The Swan House was built in 1928 and features Renaissance revival architecture with a Classical facade. The Inman Family built the home and family members lived there until 1965 when the Atlanta Historical Society purchased it. It is now a part of the Atlanta History Center which also has an impressive museum about the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. 

Here are a few photos from the film and the Swan House for comparison. As you can see there isn't a long path down the property as it was shown in the film. 

Here's another shot of the back yard of the house bathed in purple for the movie. 

I took this photo from the second floor of the mansion looking out onto the steps and water fountain. 

And here are Jennifer Lawrence, Elizabeth Banks, and Josh Hutcherson walking up those same steps and taking a closer look it seems like the fountain is directly behind them and Elizabeth Banks' huge dress.

In the new few days, I'll do another post of random photos I took from the tour around the house.

Savannah And Forrest Gump

If there is one thing that Savannah is known for in contemporary pop culture it is that the city and its famous squares were featured in the park bench scenes in Forrest Gump.  As you can see from the opening scene clip it follows a feather as it floats along in the sky passing by a few of Savannah's buildings. Most notably it passes by the Independent Presbyterian Church and lands near a bench on Chippewa Square.

The famous bench that Tom Hanks sat on has since been moved to a Savannah visitor's center that you can tour. Today there's just an empty spot that people stop and take a photo of each day for no obvious reason.

Here's a photo of the filming of the first shot of the film. You can see the trees behind Hanks match up with the photograph above. 

Monterey Square In Savannah, GA

Savannah, GA was famously designed with many neighborhood squares by Georgia founder James Oglethorpe. Initially there were four squares which eventually expanded into 24 squares as the city continued to expand. One of the most famous squares today is Monterey Square and we made a point to take a closer look.

As I mentioned in my last post, Polish Revolutionary War hero Casimir Pulaski died from the wounds he received during the Siege of Savannah and Monterey Square has a large pillar in his honor in the middle of the square.

In 2001 the pillar was restored after it started to show its deterioration in the 1990's. 

Monterey Square takes its name from the 1846 Battle of Monterrey during the Mexican-American War which was won by future President Zachary Taylor.

In 1929 Congress made October 11th each year is Casimir Pulaski Day.

"Casimir Pulaski Day" is also the name of a great song by Sufjan Stevens.


As if the Pulaski monument wasn't enough, Monterey Square is also the home of the famous Mercer House. Built by the Great-Grandfather of famous songwriter Johnny Mercer it was the setting of the famous murder that inspired the book Midnight in the Garden Of Good and Evil.

Famously, Savannah antiques dealer Jim Williams shot and killed Danny Hansford in his home under the chandelier that you can view from the sidewalk outside the house.

Williams was charged with murder and was tried four different times for the incident finally being found not guilty in 1989. The book follows the events of the trial and is famous for the descriptions of the odd Savannah citizens that live in the neighborhoods around the squares.