12 Sep Chattanooga — Seeing Rock City

If you grew up in the South, it was impossible not to See Rock City

SEE ROCK CITY was emblazoned on the roof of every barn

 

 

and bird house

 

 

in Georgia. And Alabama. And Tennessee and both Carolinas, as far as anybody could tell. In the face of something like that, our parents never stood a chance. Rock City is situated HIGH ATOP LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, as the signs pointed out, perched on one of the half-mile tall cliffs that ring Chattanooga on three sides.

 

 

Lookout Mountain is a natural fortification and a meteorological phenomenon.

 

 

Humid air from the Atlantic sinks partway into the valley before settling onto the cool air below, forming a layer of mist in an otherwise clear sky. In November of 1863, the Battle Above the Clouds took place there. Three brigades of rebels held off three divisions of Yankees. And, then, counterattacked. We were proud of that.

At Rock City, the Confederates had been replaced by goblins. And fairies. And a six-foot Humpty Dumpty

 

 

making its way along the Enchanted Flagstone Trail, a dicey undertaking for an egg. Rock City is Geology Improved, courtesy of the guy who invented miniature golf.

They had the Needle’s Eye, which grownups had to turn sideways to get through, and Fat Man’s Squeeze where just about everybody had to turn sideways. They had glens and grottos and a swinging bridge over a deep gorge, which was just the place to jounce up and down and scare the people following along behind. At Lover’s Leap we could look out upon seven states.

that’s the motto of Rock City, See Seven States from High Atop Lookout Mountain, but it was awfully hard to make out which state we might be looking at.

From Rainbow Hall,

 

 

we could see Chattanooga in green. Chattanooga in red. Chattanooga in violet. Chattanooga in every sort of color through the green and red and violet and orange and yellow windows. There was even a pane of ordinary glass where we could look upon Chattanooga as it really is, but nobody much did that. Nobody came to Rock City to see things in their true colors.

After Rainbow Hall, the trail crossed over the lip of High Falls,

 

 

which is a pretty impressive bit of engineering when you consider that High Falls, like the gnomes and the fairies, was added by the miniature-golf man.

The Trail wound its way through Goblin’s Underpass, and beneath Thousand-Ton Balanced Rock which we hurried past then, safe on high ground turned and watched, hoping the rock would become unbalanced and roll over somebody.

After that, artificial caves with stalactites pasted to the ceilings, along with coral. And gnomes and elves on trapezes, or leering at us from rock shelves: twisted, bloated old-peoples’ heads stuck onto children’s bodies.

 

 

They were freaky and wonderful and scary and shimmering with fluorescent paint. Acres, it seemed like, of glowing characters.

Snow White

 

 

and Cinderella

 

 

and Goldilocks

 

 

escaped from their fairy tales and wandering the dark.

A dish running away with a spoon. Witches and Little Miss Muffet, a kid stealing a pig, and the voices of children singing nursery rhymes over loudspeakers. Everything, except any mention of what had happened on Lookout Mountain almost within living memory. I used to think that was a shame.

Now, it seems to me that a phosphorescent princess biting a radioactive apple is a much better thing to be remembered for than twelve-hundred scared, starving boys trying to defend their country from ten times as many invaders, invaders better armed, and better equipped and better fed. Boys who had been sent up there for what purpose? To prolong a war that was already lost? There’s nobility in that. But foolishness, too.

That miniature-golf guy had it about right. If you’re going to deal in fairy tales, it’s best to paint them up in glow-in-the-dark colors so you don’t forget it’s make-believe.

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This is lifted whole-cloth from my book Crackers. I don’t usually do that in these Ramblings but I like the piece.