McLemore Cove: Part 2

 Lookout Mountain from West Cove Road

Pentax 6x7, 105mm f2.4 Takumar lens, Fujichrome 100 film

(Click to enlarge)

This is the second installment of my article about McLemore Cove, originally published in Georgia Backroads Magazine. The first part was posted on my blog on Monday, December 28th. 

The mountains that enclose and form the Cove are Lookout, famous for "See Rock City," and Pigeon, its offshoot to the east, famous among spelunkers for some of the world's deepest caves.

If you were to view Lookout Mountain from above, you would see that it looks like an alligator with its jaws open. With the tip of its nose in Tennessee, its body sprawls southwest for 80 miles across the northwest corner of Georgia and into Alabama. The lower jaw is Pigeon Mountain, and in the alligator's mouth lies McLemore's Cove. At the south end, the "head" of the Cove, where the two mountains come together, Dougherty Gap Road winds to the top by way of four hairpin curves. It's paved now, but that was where Louise saw the deer. 

When we first came to the Cove, it was under siege from the Georgia Power Company, which wanted to dam Chickamauga Creek and bury the beauty and history of the Cove under a lake. Through the efforts of residents who banded together in the McLemore's Cove Preservation Society to fight that attempt, it has indeed been preserved.  And having been designated a National Historic District in 1994, the Cove will continue to be a treasure for years to come.

The Historic District includes all the land south of Ga. Highway 136 and between the two mountains -- some 50,141 acres, with a large number of historic buildings and sites and historic farm complexes. In practice, however, the limits aren't all that strict. In 1872, the founders of Cove Methodist Church, two miles north of 136, obviously considered themselves to be in the Cove when they named their church. 

Cove Methodist Church. Technically, not in the Cove.

But close enough. And very beautiful.

Canon EOS 6D

In September 1863, McLemore's Cove was the scene of a missed opportunity that could have changed the course of the Civil War.

Union General William Rosecrans had maneuvered his forces around Chattanooga in such a way that Confederate General Braxton Bragg had to abandon the city or risk having his supply line to Atlanta cut. Rosecrans's army was divided into three columns, with one column under General George Thomas coming into the Cove from the west, headed for LaFayette.  On September 9, Bragg devised a plan to trap Thomas's forces. He sent Generals Thomas Hindman and D.H. Hill on a forced march to bottle up the Union army in the Cove; once on the scene, however, the Confederate generals dithered instead of engaging the Yankees. Then they retreated, the Union troops doing the same. A few shots were fired, but what could have been a battle that would likely have changed the outcome of the Battle of Chickamauga a week later went down in history as only a minor skirmish. 

To be continued.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

McLemore Cove

Entrance to our property from Sourwood Lane.

This is where we had our first mobile home.

(Click to enlarge)

 

Originally published in Georgia Backroads Magazine, this is the story of beautiful, remote McLemore Cove in the Northwest Georgia Mountains, and how we came to live here.

Part One of Four

The deer stood in the middle of the road as my wife slowly rounded a curve and came to a stop. They gazed at each other for a few moments, then the deer turned and calmly sauntered into the woods. Louise continued down the mountain into a remote valley, thinking to herself, "What wouldn't I give to live in a place like this!" 

It was the late 1970s and Louise was a nurse working for a home health agency based in Fort Oglethorpe.  The agency’s territory covered a large section of northwest Georgia, so she had patients in the village of Cloudland, far down Lookout Mountain. One of the other nurses told her about an alternate route to avoid the heavy morning fogs (actually clouds) that often made driving on top of the mountain hazardous. That alternate route led Louise down a graveled mountain road and into the remote valley named McLemore Cove.

A city girl who was born in Queens, New York, and who grew up in Miami, Louise had for years longed to live in the country. I, on the other hand, grew up in the country and had no burning desire to return, but -- I love my wife, so what can you do?

 Andrews Lane in the heart of McLemore Cove

Olympus E-PL1, 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 Zuiko lens

 

We began to look for country property, both in Georgia and Tennessee, not really expecting that we might find something in McLemore Cove. But in 1985, a newspaper ad led us to 30 acres on a ridge with frontage on Chickamauga Creek, and on the day before Christmas, 1987, 155 years after the Cherokee Land Lottery of 1832 opened the area to legal settlement, we also became settlers in the Cove; not in a log cabin, but in a 12x40-foot mobile home.

The old Hicks farmhouse on our property.

Now, only the chimney remains.

 

The Cherokee, of course, were here long before the first white settlers, and the Cove was named after one of them, Captain John McLemore, the son of a Scottish fur trader and a Cherokee mother. A veteran of the War of 1812, he perhaps saw the handwriting on the wall and moved to Arkansas in 1817, where he became a leader among the western band of his tribe. The rest of the Cherokee were forcefully removed in the late 1830s in the infamous "Trail of Tears," one of the most shameful episodes in American history. 

A "cove," by the way, is Southern Appalachian-speak for a valley enclosed by mountains. In the west they might call it a box canyon. The best-known cove, probably, is Cades Cove in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. McLemore Cove is neither as large nor as well-known, but it doesn't give much away in terms of history or beauty, and as for being less famous, the residents of this particular cove would probably count that a blessing.

To be continued. 

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

The Gift

The Gospel of John, Chapter One

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. . .He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

The empty tomb, Jerusalem, Israel

 

Why a photograph of a tomb instead of a baby in a manger? Because, although Christmas was the beginning, this tomb -- this empty tomb -- was always the destination, the validation of Jesus' life and sacrifice.

 First Corinthians, Chapter Fifteen

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once.

The gift of God is eternal life, available to all and received by simple faith in Jesus Christ, who died to bear the penalty for all my sins and all of yours, was buried, and rose victorious over death and the grave. 

As we see this world in increasing turmoil, as the Bible foretold centuries ago, Louise and I are thankful we can look forward to an eternal home in a better world. But meanwhile, we pray for the peace of Jerusalem. We believe God is in charge and that he is watching over his people. We are continually amazed that God would send his only begotten son to die in our place and for our sins, so that we might be with him for all eternity. Thank you for reading my blog. We pray that the Father will bless you wonderfully in the coming year.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

Viral Thoughts

Bryan College Science Teacher

The student in the foreground had a severe case of anorexia

and had to leave school shortly after this picture was made.

(Click to enlarge)

 

So, I have the dreaded virus. What can I say? It sucks.

Actually, I'm not very sick, although Saturday I thought I might be coming down with pneumonia. I had a mild case of pneumonia about 25 years ago and it felt much the same -- drowsiness, heaviness in my legs, overall fatigue, low-grade fever. Sunday I felt better, and Monday Louise and I went to a doc-in-a-box and had the tests. I got the rapid test, which was positive, and Louise got the send-away test, which is slower but more reliable. (Got her results Tuesday evening and she is also positive.) We have both been far more sick than this, especially including the time we both got a stomach bug in El Salvador, but it's still no fun.

At this stage it mostly resembles a head cold with a high chest congestion.

On Monday, December 14th, we spent the afternoon shopping for our next home on an RV dealer's lot. It was 40 degrees, with a lazy wind blowing (a lazy wind is one that can't be bothered to go around you -- it just goes right through you) and we both got thoroughly chilled. So our resistance was down, and it's possible we may have picked up the bug from the surfaces we touched in checking out many different fifth-wheel trailers. Or maybe not. Anyway, we got it.

I made a decision early on not to live in fear of a politicized pandemic with an actual death rate of .05 percent (although it's a little higher for my age group) that has been weaponized by the left to defeat a great president and subjugate the American people. My son Rob has a very concise column on Townhall.com about this. Check it out at https://townhall.com/columnists/robjenkins/2020/12/22/why-wont-you-stupid-people-believe-science-n2581934

The virus is an inconvenience, to be sure. Especially now. On January 4th our new trailer will be ready for occupancy at a nice travel trailer park and we'll start moving our stuff in. We have to be out of our house by the 11th so the estate sale people can set up for the big sale, and the sale of our house itself will close on January 19th. Busy days ahead. No time to be sick.

But as always, we take life as it comes and are looking ahead to the future. We'll take some time to reflect on our years in McLemore Cove (I'll be writing more about this soon) and then we'll move on; always eager to see what's around the next bend in the road.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

 

 

 

 

Passing It On

Devlin's dad at age 4.

Maybe they have a thing about spray.

(Click to enlarge)

 

Yesterday I sent my Dad’s last camera kit, the one he used for some years before his death to my grandson, Devlin, a strapping freshman at the University of Tennessee. I’m sad that they never got to know each other, because they would have liked each other immensely. Dad died in 2000 at the age of 90 and Devlin was born in 2001.

Dad, an enthusiastic photographer for at least the second half of his life, was especially proud of his first good camera, a Kodak Signet rangefinder with a 44mm Ektar f3.5 lens which was very highly rated at the time. I can vouch that his slides from my wedding scan every bit as well as slides from my Olympus Zuikos and Canon L lenses of later years. He never made it into the digital age with cameras, but did a prodigious amount of writing on one of the early word processors. A specialist in radio and television electronics, he was always interested in new technology.

Dad owned many different cameras after the Signet, but I’ve always felt he did his best work with that one. His final kit was a Canon AE-1 and an AT-1, similar to the AE-1 but without auto-exposure, and several lenses. That’s what I passed along to Devlin.

Will he use the cameras? Probably not now, as a busy college student, but maybe later they’ll mean something to him. He took a film photography course in high school, so he has the basics if he wants to go that route. He appears to be more interested in video than still photography. His first camera was a Panasonic G7, which I helped him choose. He now has moved on to a Canon 6D II. 

Devlin has a broad range of interests, including bio-physics and biomedical engineering, as well as computer-brain interfaces. Way over my head. Apparently Dad's technology gene skipped two generations. He would have been proud of his great-grandson.

I took Devlin to some photojournalism seminars while he was in high school because I wanted him learn more about the field of professional photography, and also how difficult it is to get established in it. It’s always been difficult to make a good living in photography, and is now almost impossible for most people. I'm grateful for the life I've had in photography. Sadly, I can't recommend that life to my grandson, as conditions exist today, but I pass along what I can.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

Lost Rock City Barns that Aren't

Going, going. . .

(Click to enlarge)

When I began my barn photography project for Rock City, they gave me a box of old office file cards with all the known barn locations. However, as I began to travel around to find and photograph the barns I soon learned that not all the barns were barns. Some were sheds, some were garages, some were stores; there were even a couple of free-standing silos. There were no records of signs painted on the walls of commercial buildings. 

I also found in my travels that a number of barns (using the term loosely) had vanished from Rock City’s records, but not from this world. As I've written before, I call these “lost barns.” Since the publication of the Rock City Barns book, I’ve found many more; most with the help of readers of my book, but also some by my own explorations. 

But "See Rock City" signs painted on the walls of commercial buildings? They were not in the records I received from Rock City and they were not on my radar until I was driving on Frazier Avenue in North Chattanooga one day and noticed that a “See Rock City” sign was being sandblasted off an old commercial building near the end of the Walnut Street Bridge. I’m sure I had passed it hundreds of times, but it somehow never caught my attention until it was half gone. 

I passed this one every day without seeing it.

Likewise, the sign on South Broad Street. Through most of the ‘90s I had a studio in downtown Chattanooga and passed the sign on my way home at least five times a week. 

So why are these the lost Rock City Barns that aren’t? Well, first because they weren’t barns. They were signs. And second, because they weren’t lost, even though they were no longer in Rock City’s records. They were right there all along, hiding in plain sight.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

Looking for Pictures

 Boynton Beauty Salon

(Click to enlarge)

As I mentioned in my previous post, although I don't usually go out looking for pictures these days, I did a lot of it through the 1970s and on until 1988, when I began to get assignments, especially overseas projects, that were so picture-rich that I no longer felt the need to go looking for photographs. 

Although I was working in photography during most of those years, especially from 1978 on, when I had my own commercial/take-on-anything-that-comes-along photography business, there was a certain itch that couldn't be scratched by the general run of commercial work, even though I enjoyed most of what I did. 

Since I didn't live in town, street photography wasn't much of an option, or as they say these days, a viable option. I lived in the country, or at least on the edge of the country, so I spent many hours, especially Sunday afternoons, patrolling back roads looking for pictures. 

Early 1940s Ford pickup

There was a lot more driving than picture-taking, but I did manage to find a few photographs that I liked, and still like, and it ultimately pointed me in the direction of back roads and rural structures, which is largely what my books are about.

Both of these photographs were made around 1976, and as best I remember, were made with Nikon Nikkormat cameras; the beauty salon with a 50mm f2 Nikkor, and the old Ford pickup with a 28mm f2.5 Vivitar. Kodachrome 25 film for both.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

Devlin Discovers the Sprinkler

Devlin in the spray.

(Click to enlarge)

 

This will be a short post because I have many things on my mind and many things to do. We will be moving out of our home to make room for the estate sale people in less than a month, and then a few days after that, the closing. I'm just going to write, very briefly, about how I find photographs. 

I don't much go out looking for photographs these days, although there was a time when I did. Most of my photographs these days come from magazine or book assignments, projects, or simply come out of my life as I live it. 

Family, at least if you have one like mine, can be a rich source of photos if you keep your eyes open and your camera handy. This is my grandson Devlin, not quite three years old. becoming acquainted with a sprinkler. Devlin is 19 now, and a freshman at the University of Tennessee. I suspect he does not consider this his finest moment. 

The photo was made in 2004 with my first digital camera, the Canon EOS 10D and a 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 EF lens. 

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

Red on Blue Volkswagen

 

Red and blue -- the colors of Miami

(Click to enlarge)

 

In September, 1969 I got my first really good camera, a Nikon F. I was teaching at a small private school in Miami in those long-ago days and got a $300 bonus for something -- I don't remember what for. I knew I wanted to use the money to buy a better camera than the Ricoh Auto 66 twin-lens reflex  and the Petri rangefinder cameras I was then using, but wasn't sure what to buy. At the time Brown's Camera on Biscayne Boulevard had a like new Leica M3 with the 50mm f2 Summicron lens for $295 in his showcase. I fact, he had several of them. But a guy I knew offered me his Nikon F without a lens, but at a price low enough to enable me to buy a pair of Tamron lenses -- a 35mm and a 135mm, both f2.8 -- for a total outlay of less than my $300. 

So I bought the Nikon, because I wanted to photograph my school's football games and reasoned that the 135mm lens would be best for that. I have wondered ever since how my work would have been different if I had embarked on my career in serious photography with a rangefinder camera instead of a single-lens reflex. 

I made the above photograph in the fall of 1969 or early 1970. Can't say for sure, because I've lost the original slide, but it was either Kodachrome 25 or Kodachrome X, the 64-speed predecessor to Kodachrome 64.

Around that time, Popular Photography, the leading photography magazine in those days, ran two features in different issues -- The Colors of London, and The Colors of New York. They ran series of photographs showing that the colors of London were red and black and the colors of New York were yellow and black. 

If I had thought about it, which I hadn't, I would have supposed that the colors of Miami were pink and pale blue or perhaps coral and lime. But the red VW on a blue background opened my eyes to see pictures all around me that showed Miami in red and blue. I still have most of those photographs and would love to show you some of them, but they aren't scanned and I don't have time to scan them now because we are heavily involved with closing our house and moving. Maybe I'll come back to it later when things settle down a bit. 

This picture, by the way, was also important in helping me learn early on to see and compose each photograph to include only what I wanted in the frame and nothing more. 

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone