I LOVE the South. I have loved it since reading Gone With the Wind when I was an 8th grader. Luckily for me, I married a man who had a brother who fell in love with a girl from the South. My sister-in-law, Gayle, has taken me so many places over the years and she is such a "Southern Belle", such a true southern woman who is so proud to be a lifelong Georgia native, that my love for "what once was" has been enhanced by her love for it also. Our recent vacation started with the "Antebellum Trail", a four-day fest of the towns that Sherman FORGOT...so the plantations and mansions remain much as they were since the early 1800's.The house at the top is the CHURCH-WADDEL-BRUMBY HOUSE, ca. 1820. It is considered to be the oldest house in Athens and was built for Alonzo Church, professor of mathematics at Franklin College, now the University of Georgia. This home is located in ATHENS, Ga., which is the start of the Antebellum Trail tour.
The DOUBLE-BARRELED CANNON was built in 1862. It is the world's only double-barreled cannon and was designed by Athens native John Gilleland. It was manufactured at the Athens Foundry and Machine Works. The imaginative inventor's theory was to load two cannonballs connected by a chain into the gun. The chain and cannonballs were intended to sweep evenly across the battlefield upon firing. In repeated testing, the balls traveled unpredictably, and the cannon was never used in battle.
Why do I love the South so much? Do we see monuments honoring Union soldiers who died in the "Great Conflict" right in the middle of the street? This ATHENS CONFEDERATE MONUMENT was built in 1871 and stands in the middle of Broad Street in Athens, on the same street as the Arch to the University of Georgia. It honors Athens and Clarke County soldiers who gave their lives in defense of the South during the Civil War.
This was on the sidewalk at the University of Georgia. It is Camillia blossoms in a circle with the leaves making a giant circle. It probably means nothing but I absolutely loved the symbolism of it. All I could think of was a young Southern gentleman leaving this as a calling card on the bricks outside of a woman he loved.
