History Girl: One Big-Ass Monolith

While this morning got off to a leisurely start, you wouldn't know it by how plum tuckered out we four travelers are tonight. It's well after 11 p.m., and we just got back to the hotel from our afternoon and evening at Stone Mountain Park.

The day began with a bit of sleeping in--well, in varying degrees. Yvette was up early, as usual, and was cleaned up and dressed and fed by the time I got out of the shower. Heidi was up next, and, as ever, Madeline was the last one to roll out of bed. Breakfast for me was eggs, grits, and bacon again--and, damn, it was good.

A quick trip over to Enterprise provided us with a car for the first time on our trip, a little red Chevy. With the help of Siri on my phone, we soon found ourselves driving through a rainy afternoon in Georgia.

Here I should mention the weather we've encountered on our trip--rain, rain, showers, rain, and mist. The sun has not so much as peeked through the clouds since we touched down on Wednesday. According to the locals we've spoken with, the entire summer has been like this. They're all hoping for an early winter, just to get rid of the muggy, wet, warm, weather.

The upside to the dampness is that wherever you look, the world is green and lush. The landscape between Atlanta and Stone Mountain was beautiful and also proved the truth of what Winnie the cab driver told us upon our arrival--people in Atlanta just carve out a little piece from the woods and plant themselves in it, while the woods remain all around.

Upon entering the parking lot at Stone Mountain Park, I was the first one to glimpse the monolith directly in front of us. Reliable sources report me as saying "Oh, my God!" in an excited fashion. As my companions had not seen what I saw, they couldn't understand my excited utterance. Then they saw it, and they knew that "Oh, my God" was an understatement.

The monolith rises from the ground with sheer sides of granite; there is no gentle sloping up--it's just there, bang, right in front of you. Coming around the corner toward the ticket booths, I also got a glimpse of the carving on the face of the mountain, and I realized with a jolt that no photo or video I had seen while preparing my Stone Mountain research paper had prepared me for the enormity of the carving.

We made a beeline to the gondola that would carry us to the top of the mountain, a wide, long, flat surface. Once up there, we did not let the rain stop us from exploring the smooth granite top. It was surprisingly easy to walk around--exposed granite is not slippery! Who knew? Anyway, even Yvette and I could keep up with mountain goats Heidi and Maddie.

It's like being on the face of the moon!

The mighty conquerer!

Think it was cold and wet? Just ask Yvette!

It was sobering to think that the very granite that we stood on at the summit of Stone Mountain was the spot where, in November of 1915, one William J. Simmons and 40 of his closest friends formed a new version of the Ku Klux Klan, the version still in existence today. Creepy, right? Stone Mountain was a pseudo-religious site for the KKK for decades afterwards.

It's not that Stone Mountain has much to say about this part of its history. While taking in the exhibits in Memorial Hall, the only notation about the Klan was a small little wooden plaque and one photograph.

And that was all Stone Mountain had to say about this particular aspect of its past. The Civil War was covered to a small degree in the Memorial Hall museum, but it was an innocuous presentation similar to that at the Atlanta History Center yesterday.

This all got me to thinking about the packaging of history in these places we've visited since we got here. Everything is subdued, made palatable for all audiences. The complicated, ugly parts are smoothed over or pushed into the background. Anything embarrassing must be deleted, so people can feel good about their history without ever having to consider that there may be lessons there of things not to do in the future. If we learn history to keep from repeating the mistakes of the past, how do presentations like the ones I've seen here do that? They don't.

All this does not mean that I didn't have a good time. I certainly did, in spite of the constant dampness that seeped into my shoes and socks (I hate this!!). We had a lovely lunch at a restaurant whose theme was that of a camp--our waitress was our "camp counselor."

No sense just sitting here waiting for food,
says Maddie.

Heidi is hiding from the papparazi

"Quit it, Lorraine!"

After lunch, we determined to try another 4D experience, hoping for a repeat of the fun we had at the 4D film at World of Coca Cola. Of course, there was much teasing of Yvette in regard to her Min-Min Disease. She did not even want to sit with the three Herbon girls, but eventually we maneuvered her into a spot in the middle. She settled in with her arms folded and a stubborn look on her pretty face--she was determined not to be startled, no matter what happened in that theater.

She need not have worried. The 4D movie was not that good--not too many 4D effects except for the spraying of water. Yes, more water. I'm sure that feels good in the summer, but when you're already wet? Yeah, not so much.

We took a train ride that circled the entire monolith and got more opportunities to look at the natural wonders of Stone Mountain. There are yellow daisies, Stone Mountain daisies, that grow only within a 60-mile radius of the mountain. Of course, there was a lot of green foliage to look at, as well as the beautiful granite. Granite from Stone Mountain went into the pedestal of the Lincoln Memorial (this park is full of irony) as well as into buildings as far away as Japan. I don't know if they still quarry the granite nearby, but it is certainly possible. As we learned, only one percent of the monolith is visible--the other ninety-nine percent is underground. That's amazing!

After the train, the girls made a big decision. They wanted to go back up to the summit and then take the walking path down again. I had really wanted to do this when we were first up on top, but decided against it when the ranger warned me about the muddy slipperiness. But my babies are mountain goats, so I gave the nod of approval, and off they went.

Here I want to say something about the remarkably good travelers I've raised. The girls may not always be interested in the history I try to impart, but they are always good sports about looking around and not whining. On this trip, they've been off on their own a couple of times, to the Aquarium and then to the walking path down Stone Mountain. And Maddie explored Centennial Olympic Park by herself and sat in the park sketching in her sketchpad. My girls are worldly!

While Maddie and Heidi enjoyed their hike, Yvette and I trooped over to the Antebellum Plantation section. Here are several replanted houses and outbuildings, just like at the Atlanta History Center. There was a doctor's cabin circa 1826, a little school from the 1870's, a modest colonial-era house, and finally a big plantation house circa 1840. We peeked into the slave cabins, and it again reminded me of the concept of packaging history for the masses. The quarters were big, with furniture and such, one even had a glass window, and there were toys for the slave children. I don't doubt that this is likely accurate. But it glosses over the darker parts of what it was like to be a slave. No freedom to go where you wanted, at a master's beck and call, sexual exploitation, families torn apart, etc. But, by presenting the slave quarters, the curators can congratulate themselves on telling the story without having to really tell the story. Hmmmmm.

We met up again with the girls, who announced that their hike was the best part of their Stone Mountain day, in time for the laser show. Now this is really something. Lasers and projections are put onto the side of the mountain, over but sometimes including the carving. At first, the show was pretty innocent. It began with, believe it or not, commercials for the various corporate sponsors whose dollars go into producing the laser show. Then there was a section that seemed just like more commercials that celebrated Atlanta's professional sports franchises. Much of the rest of the show was focused on music--music by native Georgians, like Little Richard and (believe it or not) the B52's. Of course, Ray Charles singing "Georgia on My Mind" was prominently featured, although there was also a little salute to neighboring Alabama when "Sweet Home Alabama" was combined with laser-generated images that brought to mind the best parts of that state (including Talladega). And there was a sticky sweet salute to heroes with some sticky sweet song that did not inspire but irritated instead.

I worried that the portion of the laser show that I wrote about in my Stone Mountain paper was no longer a part of the show. But it was! Generals Lee and Jackson, along with President Davis, came to life and rode across the mountain with swords drawn. Then General Lee rode alone and saw all the destruction of the war. This made him so sad that he ended the Civil War by breaking his sword over his knee. The pieces of the sword dropped down and miraculously turned into the reunited United States--except that everything west of the Rockies was not included. Mind you, readers, that there were states in the West, states that remained within the Union. Hell, California even sent soldiers to fight in Texas! But we weren't included in the reunited nation--they've only ever loved us for our gold, then and now.

I wish I could have gotten a video of the laser show, especially the part about the three Confederate leaders. But 'twas not to be. Happily, there is a video on You Tube that shows that portion. What's good, though, is that now I can update my Stone Mountain paper with my own observations. Guess I'll get right on that when I get home.