Hiking at the Georgia International House of Pancakes...

... or maybe that should be Georgia International Horse Park. I decided when this long, depressing winter began that I couldn't just stop walking, but I didn't want to continue to traverse Arabian Mountain, as I wanted to see the beauty of that area when it was warm enough to enjoy it.  I wanted to stand on the mountaintops with the clear blue sky and sun reflecting off the lakes, not cloudy, dreary, overcast days where I shivered in my coats.  So I picked another area for winter hiking. The Georgia International Horse Park (hereafter referred to as GIHP) was a perfect spot.  The wetlands around it, seen from Google Earth, would be much better walked around when it was too cold for mosquitoes and the like to swarm around my face.

The true beauty of Rockdale County exists in its variety. From the Panola Mountain granite mountainsides to the forests of the South Rockdale County Park to the wetlands of the Haynes Creek Nature Center, you would never guess it's all within Georgia's second smallest county.  I started walking at the GIHP south of the Memorial Arboretum on the gray path covered in horseshoe prints.  As usual, it's the paths off the main ones that are the most interesting.  The trees labeled with pink ribbons wind through a cave of trees, past grass-like plants down to the Yellow River, where the trees flow down from upstream and get caught in the shallows.  I spooked a Blue Stork standing in one of the dried up river banks (it delivers Smurf Babies, because Smurfette doesn't, you know, Smurf.) The swampland down in this area reminds me of Degobah, and a path goes from the gray one along the Yellow River off underneath the Power Lines and through strands of grasses, where the crickets and frogs sing incessantly until you come closer to them, and then they hide.

Then, after it rained, I walked under the bridge at Gees Mill Road and watched the now brown, muddy Yellow River sweep past us, leaving each drop of water, each moment, flowing endlessly away from me.  It's true that if we wde into a stream bed, we've never actually waded in the same river twice, for the water is different each time, as it flows down into Lake Jackson and south from there into the sea.  The rain washed out part of the path, and I realized later that it would do me no good to continue, for the bridge next to the private Railroad Tracks (made for those small toy-sized trains like Ricky Schroder had in his living room on Silver Spoons ) had been washed out many times, leaving the wood rotted away.

It's amazing how many of the wooden structures I've seen that have not been kept up here.   There are

places on the web where you can see structures of past Olympics in ruins, the trees growing over the bobsled track, now covered with moss, a highway for the squirrels and such.  Such is the case here at the GIHP, but on a much smaller scale.  There were places along the trails where some wooden structure had been built, perhaps to stand a camera on, or for judges, or water stations, and now these areas are crumbling, as they aren't needed anymore. I'm glad that people keep the trails up, and cut down fallen trees and the like.  There are some places where it looks like strong storms have knocked over the trees, and so there are areas that look almost destroyed. There are areas of serenity, where I walked down a wide grassy path, finding nothing but the birds and the sunlight angling through the trees.  I could have walked for miles and found no one about.  I feel grateful that the people have let me enjoy my moments of solitude, yet I wonder, what if people could see outside their homes and televisions and smart phones? It is gorgeous, and yet I fear that the campgrounds I've seen remain vacant for much more than they are used.  What of the gravel pits
rounded by wooden benches (now half rotted), or the ones circled by granite stone, used for campfires, where boys told stories and laughed and roasted hot dogs or marshmallows in the flames? Would they remain empty while people bickered and funds dried up and everyone lost interest in raising children with any semblance of what the outdoors actually looked and felt like?  The barn houses will rot and fall down, the mills along the rivers (like the one next to the Haynes Creek Nature Center) will fall silent, standing inside of tall fences meant to keep people with beer and spray paint cans away.  Would these places become as invisible as the stone walls in the Factory Shoals area in Newton County?

I learned a few things while hiking these trails.  Watch where you step... they are horse trails, after all. For the bike paths, walk backwards from the way bikes would travel, that way you seem them and can step out of the way in time.  The falls off of some of those paths would hurt.  Follow the color codes on the main trails, or you will become lost, and then walk on the other trails some other time.  It might take a little bit to find some of the trail markers, but they are there.  Finally, take the time to see the beauty around you. I see bikes whizzing by, their riders more interested in how many calories they've burned than the marvels they are missing.  As Noel Paul Stookey said, "There's two ways to miss things. One is if they go by too fast, and the other is if we go by too fast.  In some cases, it's well worth watching the rings form around the trees, and let the speeding machines just pass by.  The cool thing is that, in the GIHP, there are tons of trails to hike, through rocks, swamps, fields, giant hills, forested lands, and it will take some time to walk through them all.  But I have the time, and the desire, so the winter's cold won't stop me from continuing my trek through the world, nor should it.

Trails I've been on up to March 12th, 2014 at the GIHP

Panola Mountain State Park: Return to the Wild

When we are all decimated, and the human population dwindles to far off islands where whatever supervirus has not effected people, nature will be quick to take back over.  The ivy will crawl up the walls, breaking through the doors and siding. The squirrels will make homes in our attics, and sooner or later, the termites will take care of the rest.  I don't see the house I live in now lasting much past 20 years, but it would make little difference, as there would be no one here to live in it (except maybe Will Smith, but he'll have enough to do fighting off the undead.)  Because the Apocalyptic Disaster movie is so popular, it wouldn't be above people's imagination to see mass death come out of some Robin Cook or Stephen King book and kill us all.

The planned and perfect squares of nature that we play on, the parks and golf courses, would grow wild, turning back from the patterned gardens that Wordsworth penned  to the scary wilderness even Thoreau would not venture into.  So it is that the Southerness Golf Course was given to Panola Mountain State Park and used as a trailhead for the Path Foundation's trails running through the area. Most of the course itself was allowed to revert back to natural space, with the concrete paths twisting around the greens becoming trails amongst the wild raspberry bushes, the thorny thistles, and the many maple trees dropping seed pods everywhere.

The west side of the course has been turned into an archery range, with makeshift artificial animals (it looks like a bear, but it's not moving). They really should move, automaton style, like those games at carnivals. You're allowed to walk on the trails that go from one "target" to the next, but the others are fenced off.  And while I'm used to ignoring signs and hopping over fences, I don't want an arrow in my thigh, so I stay on the trails.

photo by Rob Meeks

The east side, around the lake, where those retired from daily chores come to chat and fish, but mostly chat, are trails that wind around a huge tree used for climbing programs.  Teaching kids how to   climb a tree, which would be instinct in yesteryear, now is done with safety equipment and an instructor. I would rather have large oak trees in the park with winding limbs, just calling for kids to climb higher and higher, and if they happen to fall and break an arm... that's just the pains of childhood. But of course, that won't happen in today's litigious society.  The injuring tree would be cut  down and artificial plastic playsets would be put up, as if man could engineer anything as intricate as a tree.  You know, going to Factory Shoals Park in Covington, the thought processes needed to cross the rapids, with slippery rocks and unknown depths, knowing that a wrong move would cause injury, is the same thing as climbing a tree. Would the limb hold? Can you reach it? The strategy is worth every second.

Parks like this also have wooden things constructed around every bend.... bridges crossing creeks, picnic tables and cooking areas in former greens... built as Eagle Scout projects.  The Gazebo at the South Rockdale Community Park is another one.  Hopefully, the ideas the scouts learned in the program will last as long as the projects.  And past the bridges and the picnic tables, a path leads out to field of grass, and off to the side, a house that has long been abandoned. Perhaps it was a property that was donated to the state to make the park.  The house stands with the ivy encroaching and the animals making shelters in the attic rafters.  An example of how nature would take over our environment, as soon as we leave it.  It leaves a strong impression, not an eyesore in some neighborhood, but a symbol of the power of nature, when wood rots and the storms break through and the walls crumble.

Skywriting and Trail Walking

There are few places in the world where you can truly experience freedom.  Away from technology,  other people, all the social restraints and mental hangups we all have about most everything.  No financial issues, no cars screaming to get gas, your eyes constantly on the arrow pointing dangerously close to "E," hoping that it'll get you home and back to a gas station by the time you get paid again.  There are very few places in this world where all that goes away, leaving us with our own two feet  and our minds.  One thing I know, there's nothing like the grocery store parking lot.

Back a couple decades ago, when Walmarts didn't dot the Conyers countryside, when there was a Richway, and a Big Star, and the building behind Arby's was actually a movie theater, there was a 16 year old boy just beginning work as a Bagger at Bruno's Finer Foods.  I was the fastest bagger there, and second fastest cashier.  But late at night, when the other baggers would rather be in the back pretending to put the fruits and herbs back in the refrigerator, I'd go get buggies out of the parking lot.  And there was total freedom away from most everything.  It was in the early nineties, so the only music available was that in my head.  And I sang those songs while gathering carts.  Only 5 at a time, for safety reasons (I think I was the only one to follow that, it was so "manly" to get 12 carts and push them all in at once).  My favorite song to sing out there was "Skywriter" by Art Garfunkel and Jimmy Webb.  Simply wonderful.  That was freedom.

 I'm reminded of this as I walk through the trails in Rockdale       County.  There are no people around, no financial pressures, just the ticking of time keeping pace with my walking staff.  So a week ago, I parked on the north side of the Rockdale River Trail (you can find it on Google Maps by looking up Daniels Bridge Rd, off Union Church Rd.) and walked to the clearing where the power lines stretched north to the power station.  I started south, trudging up the hill, higher and higher, until just before the top I looked over and saw Stone Mountain over the horizon to the north.  Don't think I've ever seen Stone Mountain from Rockdale.

Over the top of the hill, underneath the giant towers of flowing electricity, and continuing, there's a valley of green flora, weeds and insects.  Grasshoppers flying away from the trail, the cicadas rubbing their legs together in the hot Georgia summer.  To the right, a couple of houses are far off into the adjacent forest, and one has a rooster, so it crows, not knowing the time
of day.  This path would take me into a valley and up another hill to East Fairview Road, but I had already been that way.  This time, I turned east and climbed another steep hill to a grassy area.  On the left, a large granite outcrop grew out of the forest like some ancient ruins.  I climbed to the top of the rocks and looked around at the beauty of the trees, the grass, the sounds of life all around me.  Around the grass, dirt had been mounded together to make ramps for motorcycles, mopeds, and the like.  I wondered, as I listened to everything, why people on motorcycles would so freely roam this area, filling up the valleys with noise and not caring about everything that surrounds them.  I wondered how many people on foot had climbed those hills, reached the top on their own, and saw everything that Rockdale County had to offer.

Then I reached the gazebo overlooking the paved trail far below, next to the South River.  It reminded me of Stonehenge, some structure built long ago to watch over everything.  Turns out, it was an Eagle Scout project made by a neighbor of mine, Keith Asher, and his troop.  The gazebo had been pulled off it's original foundation by those same moped riders, but it was still very secure and well built.  I felt like I had made it to some end goal, standing atop some mountaintop, and it was good.

There are other trails I have followed where each dirt path had imprinted on it the hooves of horses (and honestly, I had to watch where I stepped).  Again, the trails were filled with sights that you just don't see going about your daily chores, a loan tree towering above the rest, plants I had never seen with soft, furry leaves, the cooler breezes going through the forest as the sun began to set.  And while I respect the people who traverse this area on their horses, I still think that these areas would be better enjoyed on foot.   There are similar trails at the Georgia International Horse Park, but according to the map, the trails are divided between bike paths and horse trails.  Would that we be able to walk any square inch of this Earth with our own two feet.  Just to walk, we should be able to go anywhere, but the fences and the signs and the obstacles that our laws put in place keep us in tight quarters.  Walking costs nothing except time, harms nothing, wears nothing out save the soles of our shoes.  It takes no maintenance, no oil changes, no cleaning of waste products.  It is marvelous and wonderful and if we could rid ourselves of the wheels and machines that walk for us, we would be in control of where we went.

A car can only go on streets, the width restricts us, the gas limits us.  But if we could walk to everywhere we needed, we would be totally free to explore and expand indefinitely.  There is nothing to keep our legs from traveling anywhere we wanted.  That is freedom.  You will not find true freedom cruising along the highways of America, although it certainly is tempting.  In my opinion, you will find the open freedom that I seek only on your own two feet, walking up hills and through valleys to places unknown.  May I never run out of trails to travel, nor miles to walk.

Wild Places

I don't pretend to be an environmentalist.  Someone recycling cans could probably fund college through what I throw away.  I'm not going to make excuses for this; I'm too lazy to make the effort.  I remember listening to Rush Limbaugh on his radio broadcasts, where, during the event that has been called "Earth Hour," where everyone is supposed to turn off their lights for an hour to preserve energy / pay homage to "The Earth" (as if our power is some sort of ritual lamb were supposed to slaughter), Rush tells people he's gonna turn on all his lights.  I agree with him... I'd go buy those flood lights that rotate in the sky and pay a huge electric bill that month.  I really wouldn't do that, but I don't agree with the idea in the first place.  In fact, the whole idea of Environmentalism is about as complex as you can get.  If you would ask me my top 10 books, easily among them would be Henry David Thoreau's Walden.  Simply give me a log cabin out in the woods someplace, next to a river (and if I ever win the lottery, I've got one picked out), and an ultra-fast line to the Internet, and I'm all set.  I'll sit and watch the ants gather food for their hills.  You see, there's a distinct difference in loving Nature, wanting to treasure and relish in the glorious things of this world, and being an Environmental Activist.


I guess it goes back to political ideologies. It concerns how we want to govern our lives, how we see our contract with those who would govern over us.  Our relationship with our fellow man. At its core, Environmentalism is a genuine concern for our planet, with maintaining the beauty and wonder of the planet we live in.  While walking the trails at the SRCP (South Rockdale Community Park), along the South River, I've seen many empty beer cans, other pieces of trash, even a bag of Legos spilled out on the ground.  And at times, I've noticed the water itself has a green tinge that is probably caused by pollution upriver in Atlanta.  I am not saying that the SRCP and the South River are junky.... it is truly beautiful, as the pictures I've taken show.  It would take very little for volunteer groups to pick up what little trash is there.  It would take so little to recycle cans, to conserve water...etc...  We use a large bucket to collect the water that comes out of the compressor in our air conditioning system.  We could, if we had a garden, use it to water the plants and save on using water out of the hose.  It makes complete sense... except we don't have a garden to do that with.

The problem with Environmentalism lies in how you handle the problem.  Companies like Disney, who created a  "Friends for Change" program on TV, have used private funding to promote volunteer work from their clients.  Excellent job! Through individual efforts, so much can be done to promote conservation of our resources...etc...  However, it's when people decide that government regulation of large corporations and commercial regulations of such things as light bulbs, that I start to object.  At this point, the power is taken away from the individual and put in the hands of bureaucrats in the government.  It ceases to be about caring about the planet we live on and more about money, power, and status.  Environmentalists become identical to the private corporations they seek to drain power from.  And then I get turned off by the whole thing and start agreeing with the bombastic statements that Rush Limbaugh uses against the Environmental movement.

The Paradox comes into play here.  By that I mean the Libertarian paradox that states that limited government is ideal when the "ideal" is followed.  If every private corporation instituted measures to protect the environment, preserve resources...etc..., then no regulation would be necessary.  However, not every business is going to operate by what is right, as the desire for profit at the expense of those they are responsible to (including the customers, the Earth, their stockholders), will overcome the reasoning for self-regulation.  Thus the government is needed to assume such actions.  And it drives me nuts!  Because almost every issue runs up against the Paradox when "ideals" are brought to the table. I return to Thoreau at this point, reading his essay on Civil Disobedience, especially the last two paragraphs.  Well worth the look.

Now, jumping to my walks down the trails of the SRCP.  A song kept coming into my head, one by Peter, Paul, and Mary.  In 1982, they self-published a live concert album titled Such Is Love.  I originally found it in a used music store located by my grandmother's house in Oklahoma City. The cassette had never been opened, but what music it contained!  One of the tracks was "Wild Places."  It brings together the idea of protecting the Environment,

 

living along side the beautiful works that God made on this globe, and the idea that doing so is an act of devotion.  For the very fact that such beauty exists in this world, outside of our influence, is an argument that God created this aesthetically pleasing place for someone to enjoy.  Namely, us.  If we cannot take care of it, then it was a wasted effort on his part.  And since I know that this is a fallacy, since God is outside of time and error, then He expects us to enjoy the beauty He has given us.  And what better way than to walk down the trails of this land and witness the beauty of nature, as well as the monumental objects we have placed on this Earth.  I always get this feeling that we need to make God "proud" of us.  For He must have pride in those He loves (and by the fact that we were made in HIs image, we must have pride in the objects we create.)

The duplicate beauty of the trails I've walked is that it contains both God- and Man-made wonders.  Taking a scene from literature, Howard Roarke, in The Fountainhead stands on the hill outside of the architecture school and visualizes the magnificence he can create from simply the clay and rock around him.  A marvelous first scene of any book, in my opinion.  We create things on this Earth for our own convenience, and if we do this in a method which preserves the natural beauty of the world, or even enhances it, then we have used our talents in ways that God would approve.  We have created objects in our world that are good, just as He created this world.   So whenever I cross the hill and see towering before me the power lines that stretch to the far horizon, it is beautiful to me.  If only other people could see the aesthetics that I see.

On a related note, an article in Yahoo showed an design from Meridian 105 Architecture that would work perfectly with my idea of an apartment building that would conserve space and allow people to live in balance with Nature, with Commercial space below ground, and Educational and Religious structures in a vastly increased green space that would be created from the destruction of unneeded current buildings.  Check out more designs here!

The Joy is in the Journey

White Trail is paved, the Red are Dirt paths.

I love maps.  I've said this before, numerous times, in fact.  I know three blogs ago I went on a rant against the uses of GPS, since it is much more exciting to get lost, to find your way home again.  And every time I come home from being cast adrift in this world, I get the map (which nowadays comes from Google's amazing map program) and I see where I've been. Then I know no matter when I arrive back at that place, I'll know where I am.  The GPS shows you only where you are going.  A map can also show you where you have been.  And more importantly, where you can go.  It puts the conditional tense into your life.  What path you can go down, and where will it ultimately take you.  For that, no GPS system will show you. 




Robert Frost probably best shows this in "The Road Not Taken," which if taken literally, is about someone walking a trail, and seeing it split in two, decides to take a path, to see where it leads.  Frost concludes that, while he must take one path, he will probably never take the other.  For either time or condition will never allow him to come back to that same spot, with those same leaves covering the ground. Or, if he would return, that he would not be the same traveller, having lived a life from the one fork to another.  I accept this, but I also know that I will return to that fork, and I'll take both paths, because a traveller looks down both paths, and takes one, and does not care where the other one leads.  I absolutely do care.  


It's almost like a case of OCD. Orson Scott Card wrote a character in The Children of the Mind who had a deep case of Obsessive Compulsive. She felt compelled to trace the wood grains in the floor of her room.  The trails in the map above look almost like the lines in a wooden grain, where roads follow rivers, where straight lines of electricity cross miles  of land, where brown trails of dirt split off like water droplets flowing down the side of the windshield.  There's an inescapable desire to follow that water drop all the way to the end, to see a path curving past your sight and want to know exactly where it goes.  I want to know.  And in the case of the trails I've been walking on recently (map above,) it means little how far the trail goes.... I want to see where it leads.  

Some people think walking is an method of exercise, as if going to the gym and walking around a track is going to somehow be a means to an end.  And I guess it is, if you're willing to sacrifice time for fitness.  Because walking around a circular track never takes you anywhere but where you already were.  You should never end up where you first began, as you as a person are not the same as when you first started the circle.  So go someplace different, walk a different path.  And when the path ends, continue it, step foot into the unknown and fell the branches in your way.  Take it to the lush openings of paradise that certainly exist, but never are seen because there is no paved walkway to it.  I should never walk a trail without a machete, never to turn back because a briar is in the way.  The explorers of the Amazon could not just stop because a plant blocked their path.  For the ends were fabulous riches, treasure at the end of their rainbow.  And even if they never found it, they must still keep going, as it was the journey that was just as important as the destination.  If the end is the same as the beginning, or if you are the same as in the beginning, then what is the point of starting out at all?  


It's the same about life, going from a literal trail to one of metaphor.  If you go to church, and you come out of the doors of that church at noon, and you have not changed, if nothing in your mind is different, then what was the point of walking down that path?  I would rather take my Bible, sit upon a rock in the middle of the South River and read from there, knowing that what is said would be something to think about, going to and from that rock.  And then my trip to the cafeteria will have been worth the effort.


So when I say I'm "going out for a walk," I have no intention of getting exercise.  That is but a fortunate side effect of my real intention.  I do what makes me happy, and that, at this point in my life, is to see where the trail goes (either literally or metaphorically).  I say that the Epicurean philosophy is the best one, as it measures happiness upon any choice.  Do I pick the ice cream sundae or the cheesecake? If knowing that ice cream will give me a sinus infection and make me ill for two weeks, I'll go with the cheesecake, for that is the path that provides happiness.  If being a teetotaler or going out and drinking every night are the decisions, and I realize that drinking will probably end up in some form of accident or grossness, or at the least, a headache.... I'll stick with my Mr. Pibb, thank you very much.   Because, as Candice from Phineas and Ferb has said, after a dream about going to the land of Oz and travelling to Bustopolis, the "Joy is in the Journey."  On a similar note, James Taylor wrote,  "The Secret of Life is enjoying the passage of time."  To me, that means walking down the trails of the gorgeous rural areas of Rockdale County instead of walking around some stupid track in a gym with a bunch of sweaty people.  And if I don't burn off 2,000 calories, well, that wasn't really my goal to begin with.  If at the end of that walk, if I happen to fall down dead, like the runner from Marathon to the gates of Athens, then I will have been happier walking down the paths of my own choosing.    

On My Own

Taken from a rock in the South River. North Side.

I'm very proud of myself.  I finished walking the entire section of the South Rockdale Community Park River Trail.  The northern end of the trail is even more beautiful than the southern half.  Think of a path covered with trees, sun shining through in spots, and the sound of a river flowing past, little rapids, the plop of frogs jumping into the stream.  Not to mention turtles... big ones.  Like the southern part, the Power Lines come into view and stretch to the horizon where a distribution center sends the power off to be used.  What an amazing world we live in, and it's all right here, in our own county.

I was walking under the power lines, actually veering off on a path that goes to the South River, and all I could imagine was the scene in Clifford D. Simak's Ring Around the Sun where Jay Vickers sees the power plants and industry units in the parallel Earth he was walking in.  He walked for days without seeing a person, surviving on his own abilities.  I tried to imagine walking down this path, and being the only person for miles, or even further, and this whole place was for me to enjoy.  I'm selfish, I admit that.  A part of me wants to delete all these blogs posts about the River Trails and not let anyone else know that there are wonders just down the street.  A part of me wants to be Will Smith (you know, but without the undead things around), or Thoreau sitting in his log cabin beside Walden Pond. Because there is the joy of being free from societal constraints, from bills paid and job schedules and aesthetic norms.  There is the freedom from the constant drone of people's conversation, of television banter, of political animosity.  There is the squirrel that jumps out into the pathway and looks at you, and sees just another animal, and hops along, trying to find a seed to munch on.

Below the Power Lines on the North side, a trail to the South River.

What if we did what Jean Craighead George did in so many of her works (may she rest in peace), and send a teenager out into the wilderness to fend for themselves, without the GPS systems and cell phones and ipods and everything that keeps him or her connected to this world.  And what if, instead of a week, some kind of ritual into adulthood, we only send him out for a couple of hours, onto these paths, and not let anyone else travel them.  They would be totally alone.  It would be Glorious.  At least for me it would be, although I don't know if today's teenagers could take it.  It would be akin, to them, as child abuse.  It makes me think that maybe with all the wires and data streams connected to their bodies, if they aren't actually less advanced than their ancestors, a mere three or four generations ago.  I long for those days when no data transmissions flew through the sky above me at the speed of light.  When the only way to communicate was through the mouth, to the listening ear.  And if there were no people around, then you listened to yourself, and understood.  How is it that the great works of literature, the marvels of human thought, most of them were created before the 20th century?  Those that are post-invention of the telephone, television, etc... talk about how communication between people has broken down.  T.S. Eliot talks of the people on the bridge in "The Waste Land," or the confused J. Alfred Prufrock, and for all the breakthroughs in communication, we spend less time knowing our neighbors and more time knowing our machines.  Could we name the people living next door to us?  I can't.  But let us relive a quest from World Of Warcraft or name our Sims characters, and we can do that readily.

Wooden bridge on the South Side. Amazing construction!

The greatest danger we face in today's world is never being alone.  It becomes a scary silence, as when someone turns off the lights in a school classroom filled with kids.  They immediately start yelling, because they must identify that there are other people in the room.  If not, they are left with only themselves, hearing or seeing nothing.  And then they must come face to face with their own being.  That is something, I fear, that few people want to deal with.  They have to be constantly fed stimuli. Data from computers, TV broadcasts, the flicker of screens with strangers faces, even far into the night, when they are asleep.  This is normal, they say. Those that want to be alone are crazy.  Why would they want to walk, outside, alone, with nothing but their own thoughts to keep them company?  It is unfathomable that, just a century ago, most people were like that for a majority of the day.  As they slept, only the cicadas and the frogs gave nightly reports.  The thoughts were of the day, or of the past, memories to bring sweet joy upon recollection. Now we can't even do that.  The present is consistently upon us, demanding that we assimilate data and respond, for the future is "coming up!" as the news reports say. 

View from a small trail on the North Side.

 Then let me be alone, and I will walk the paths of Rockdale County.  But I will not be alone.  I will have the understanding of Thoreau, picking blackberries on the hillsides of Concord.  I will listen to the 4/4 beat of my walking stick, and keep time with my steps.  And if I find a path that takes me off the trail, into the woods, to some secluded spot on the South River, then I will enjoy being off the trail.  I will find my way back; I am certain of that.

Power Lines

Sometimes, I think we take for granted what mankind is truly capable of doing. What we've accomplished in barely a century of manufacturing, creating a world that was only imagined by H.G. Wells in the late 1800's. An example: When we first moved to Georgia in 1987, my dad drove us up to the intersection of I-85 and I-285, to what is called "Spaghetti Junction." What a magnificent work of architecture! Bridges spanning miles, stretching up to the sky, carrying the working force of Atlanta to and fro. Now, having been here for many years, it conjures images of traffic jams, accidents, natural disaster movies. But just look at the tons of concrete, steel beams, supporting slabs of rock and metal, all fused together by fire and sweat, by the men who worked long days, as if to make the Great Pyramids, just so we can drive our cars across them. It's hard to be humble at a sight such as this. The window-cleaners that span this countries' tallest skyscrapers should feel this pride in what this two-legged animal has done with their own hands. And the purpose for these monuments? Just to get from point A to point B. To work. To play. To earn money and support the family. We create wonders of the world just to go about our daily lives, as if this were perfectly normal. And that's because it is. We have the ability to make things that our ancestors would call miraculous, a work of God, just so we can listen to the radio on our cell phones, or drive our cars (which are a marvel in themselves) to work and back. It becomes normal that we've been in space for 50 years now, as if space were simply down the street, the local grocery store.

Power Lines at South Rockdale Community Park

To understand what I'm talking about, I propose a short walk. The city of Conyers is but a short drive from Atlanta, and we have created long paved paths for people to walk on. Go to The Path Foundation to get maps to the paths in Rockdale County. Specifically, the South River Trail that goes from East Fairview Rd to Daniels Bridge Rd. I went there a couple of weeks ago to take a walk, having cabin fever for most of the day. I trudged up the first few 100 yards, being straight uphill, through the forest, watching the squirrels gather food, oblivious to me, and I was quite out of breath when I got to the clearing. Stretching from horizon to horizon, far above my head, were cables attached to giant metal frames, carrying electricity from the power plants to the city of Conyers, operating the blenders in the coffee shops, the cash registers of the grocery stores, the lights in the houses of the people. Giant power lines, each humming with power, with the musical vibrations of power. It was amazing to see, to walk under. It looked like the parting of the forest so that this giant God could stick forks in the ground and tie them together. And yet it was not God, but us, that did this.

Some people would call it sacrilegious to think this way, but I think otherwise. We create our structures in emulation of God. We become, in some small sense, the Creator, and in doing so, hopefully, we can learn of God's love for us through our love of our own creations. Would a potter, having made an object, pulled it from the fires of the kiln, not love it as much as a child born of the womb? Or an author, who when he finished the last line of the book, closes the binding and sends it off into the world, much like a graduating senior? So did God create us, and loved us, and sent us out into the world with free will to do what would please Him. In that, we are learning to become like God by creating as He did. I did a series of blogs about the idea of creation and emulation, etc, starting at this post, and the 7 following it. Anyhoo...

So back to the walking trails. The best trails in Conyers, in my opinion, are the ones at the South Rockdale Community Park, which is where the power lines cross right next to the South River. Some beautiful bridges and shoreline scenery. I'm gonna go there more often, just to see the wonders of Rockdale County. The great part about it is that very few people know about the trails, so it's quite peaceful. If nothing else, I'll go to hear the Bb Concert hum of the power lines, and see them as they stretch onward towards forever.