Monday, May 25, 1840– The turbid waters of the Oconee swelled. The artery of a nascent Athens community revolted. The rains began that afternoon and created an injurious effect: the Greatest Natural Disaster in Athens’s History. For days it rained relentlessly. Banks gave way in the Oconee and Savannah watersheds. Milledgeville (then the state capital), Augusta,Continue reading “In Floating Fragments: The Great Freshet of 1840”
Tag Archives: environment
A Windshield History: Athens-Augusta (Part 2)
Most mornings I drive with the window down. The cool air brings the scent of the Piedmont to me. Although shrouded in machinery, it is my way of letting nature in. A window pane is not the best way to see the environment. Working farms smell like manure and sweet feed. Rivers smell sweet andContinue reading “A Windshield History: Athens-Augusta (Part 2)”
Thoreau of the West
Today I saw the ghost of Ed Abbey. He played his flute, lifted one leg, and planted it on the brick wall which rested his back. A hobo. A drunkard. A vagabond. Delightfully nomadic. His long, graying beard barely exposed his lips. The brim of his hat nearly touched his nose. He carried a pack,Continue reading “Thoreau of the West”
Windshield History: A Car’s Eye View, Athens-Augusta (Part 1)
Every Wednesday I drive to Augusta, Georgia. The city is less interesting than the trip. It’s just under a two-hour drive from Athens. The trip is a course in southern environmental history. Athens is the liberal oasis of the south. Sure, corporate mongers tear down historic buildings to build parking decks. The university acts purelyContinue reading “Windshield History: A Car’s Eye View, Athens-Augusta (Part 1)”
History is Complicated
I shivered more than ever before. Clutching a drenched sleeping bag. Lying in soggy clothes, next to three trembling men. The wind howled like a locomotive, swirled around our tent, and pounded on the vinyl walls. I drifted through several states, none of which were sleep. It was last October. I was a junior atContinue reading “History is Complicated”
Much of Nature
When I drive down the freeway I often watch the hills as they roll on either side of me. Rather than focusing on their present, barren, condition my imagination soars with ideas of how they must have been. Instead of forty foot billboards I see hundred foot Chestnuts. I see oaks as big as housesContinue reading “Much of Nature”
Wilderness Artificiality
The other day my wife and I went for a run. The challenge was to run six miles outside. It was a rare feat for both of us. We chose to run in downtown Jefferson, Georgia. We started near a park which has a Boy Scouts home on the premises. This park is a tributeContinue reading “Wilderness Artificiality”
Wild, Wonderful
Last night Nature’s progression became an inconvenience for man. A storm moved in. As the skies filled with moisture, turning every shade of gray, and replaced the sun-streaked blue and white landscape from the early afternoon with a dark tumultuous atmosphere in the evening, I drove my cantankerous automobile over limbs and leaves, which swirledContinue reading “Wild, Wonderful”
Constant Life and Beauty
We are the projection of the perpetuated ideals of our parents, teachers, culture, religion, nation, and fears. Our view of nature is an aspect of the projection. It is programmable. Like a universal remote control, with the correct codes, our intended purpose can be fulfilled. It is no more natural for me to walk underContinue reading “Constant Life and Beauty”
A Magnificent Oak
It is the most magnificent oak tree I have ever seen. On the route from my home to the gym is a homestead featuring a wooden house painted yellow with a very old brick fireplace. Directly in front of the house is a stump at least nine feet in diameter. I want to stop eachContinue reading “A Magnificent Oak”
Anthony Sadler 