The day we finally saw Rock City

Last month I chronicled the day that we did not See Rock City, or any of Chattanooga for that matter, and how it tested the elasticity of the Sullivan family fabric. We pulled through somehow, scarred but perhaps not any smarter. Kristen scheduled the very same activity on our calendar for the following month and upped the ante by deeming it worthy of an overnight stay. I wasn’t messing with her plans this time around. We were all in.

Our first stop was Ruby Falls, a cave tour in the bowels of Lookout Mountain that culminates in an underground waterfall. The line didn’t appear to be too bad until we turned a corner and saw that about 95 percent of it was originally out of view. By the time we reached the ticket counter the woman informed us there was not enough time left in the day to see both Ruby Falls and Rock City. But we had two days to play with so whatever, CHOO CHOO!

Before boarding the elevator to middle earth, I noticed a sign warning the tour is 90 minutes long and there would not be access to restrooms. The most surefire way to make a man in his 40s feel like he has to pee is to warn him that under no circumstances will he be able to for an extended period of time. So my bladder was on high alert and what else…? Oh, yeah – Elliott decided he didn’t want to do it. After waiting a month, driving 120 miles and spending two hours in line he reminded us he doesn’t very much like elevators, never mind one that drops 300 feet underground. Kristen and Margo just shoved the two of us aboard.

The cave enhancements went both too far and not far enough. Flat screen TVs doled out info-nuggets and accent lighting gave the waterfall a laser light show effect that lent the experience a bit of an aspartame flavor. But the path should have been made much wider. The tour was a series of short walks and long stops. We’d hug tight to the wall so groups coming in the opposite direction could pass us, chest to chest, like 7th graders slow dancing.

The guide would take these opportunities to direct our attention to a rock formation that looked like a candle or a turtle or something. There was a 2-year-old behind us who punctuated every pause by screaming, “NONONONNO!” Her parents said they had never heard her protest so loudly. Maybe she had to pee, too? We did learn that the cave has an impressive echo factor.

That evening we walked down by the riverfront, thrilled to be above ground. We found a restaurant we thought the kids would like. It was called Cheeburger Cheeburger, but it had nothing to do with the old “Saturday Night Live” skit. Instead, the decor was that of a 1950s diner. Occasionally, a waitress would startle us by shouting that everyone had to sing “Happy Birthday” to someone or clap for a 12 year old who just earned his picture on the wall for eating an enormous hamburger. It was confusing, and they definitely did not have a liquor license (Just something I noticed).

The next day, we finally made it to Rock City. Two days of waiting in lines left the kids the kind of wound up that usually calls for bouncy houses and foam pits but we made do with rock. While most people were stopping frequently to take pictures and genuinely marvel at Mother Nature, we took to the trail as if on “The Amazing Race.” We slithered through Fat Man’s Squeeze like we were greased up, waved to all the gnomes and merely slowed to a jog for Lookout Point. I bought a birdhouse hat for our friend Mike, who had made fun of us for going, and we were all smiles as we climbed back in the minivan and headed home.

Tim Sullivan grew up in a large family in the Northeast and now lives with his small family in Oakhurst. He can be reached at tim@sullivanfinerugs.com

Jan.6, 1884: Harry Herbert Pace –successful entrepreneur, music publisher and lyricist – was born in Covington, Ga. to Charles and Nancy Ferris Pace. While an infant, his father, a blacksmith, died and Harry and his mother eventually moved Atlanta. In 1903, he graduated valedictorian of his class at Atlanta University. W. E.B. Du Bois was one of his instructors. Pace worked in printing, banking and insurance, first in Atlanta and later in Memphis. In 1912, he met and collaborated in Memphis with Alabama native and blues composer W.C. Handy. They formed the Pace and Handy Music Company, using Pace’s business knowledge and Handy’s creative genius. While the company was profitable and artistically effective, Pace was frustrated. He observed as white recording companies bought the music and lyrics from them and then recorded them using white artists. Pace resolved to start his own record firm. By March 1921, he launched the Harlem-based Pace Phonograph Company, the first blackowned recording company. In summer 1921, under the Black Swan label, the company released “Down Home Blues” by Ethel Waters.

Jan. 6, 1979: Emory University’s landmark buildings are placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The buildings were designed by New York architect Henry Hornbostel. The architect created more than 225 buildings, bridges and monuments in the United States. Currently, 22 are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including Callanwolde, the Tudor Revival style home on Briarcliff Road built for Charles Howard Candler. It was completed in 1921 and is now used as the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center.

Jan. 10, 1931: Sinclair Jacobs, son of drugstore founder Joseph Jacobs, opened his new Five Points drugstore on the southwest corner of Marietta and Peachtree streets, where his father had established the original Jacobs’ Pharmacy 46 years earlier. Jacobs’ Pharmacy was the first place where Coca-Cola was sold.

Jan 11, 1969: The American Institute of Architects (AIA) appointed Atlanta Architect Henri Jova as a contributing member to the organization’s committee of design. An 11-year member of AIA, Jova had served as chairman of the design committee for the North Georgia Chapter. The graduate of Cornell University was a Fulbright scholar and winner of the Prix de Rome. Jova’s architectural firm, Jova/Daniels/Busby, was completing construction of the multi-million dollar, 25-story Colony Square office building on the corner of Peachtree and 14th streets in Midtown.

Jan. 12, 1871: “Atlanta As It Is: Being a Sketch Of Its Early Settlers” was a brief, 116-page history of the city with a business directory and 16 pages of advertising. By March, over 5,000 copies had been sold for 75 cents each. The author, John Stainback Wilson MD, was an Augusta native who arrived in Atlanta in 1870 after serving as a surgeon in the Confederate Army. That same year his book entitled “The Woman’s Home Book of Health” was also published. He mailed free copies to all who sent him a postage stamp for return mailing. He is also credited with opening the city’s first Turkish bath at 14 Lloyd Street, today’s Central Avenue. Wilson died Aug. 2, 1892, and is buried in Oakland Cemetery beside his wife Martha Eleanor Loftin Wilson.

Jan. 19-20, 1909: The annual convention of the Coca-Cola Bottlers of the South was held in Atlanta. Registration took place in the company’s office on the second floor of the Candler Building in Downtown. One of the highlights was a theater party at the old Orpeheum on Marietta Street. On Wednesday afternoon, company founder Asa Griggs Candler conducted a tour of the bottling plant and gave the history of Coca-Cola.

Jan. 21, 1940: Crawford W. Long Memorial Hospital became part of Emory University. The hospital was founded in 1908 as the Davis-Fischer Sanatorium. In 1931, it was renamed after Long, who had discovered ether for use as anesthetic during surgery. In 2009, the name was changed to Emory University Hospital Midtown, but the Crawford W. Long name remains on exterior monuments.