You Can Go Home Again!

As many of you know, I build custom birdhouses.  This started as a hobby a long time ago and a few years back I decided to start doing festivals and art shows.   It embarrasses me when people walk into my display and ask if I'm the artist as I've never considered what I do as art.  My standard response now is that "I'm the craftsman,  if I was an artist my birdhouses would cost much more".  The festival life is some of the most fun I've ever had.  I've met so many interesting people and each show has it's very own personality.  I now have birdhouses hanging all over the world and even a couple in the yard of a U.S. Congressman.  You can see my work online at my website WWW. myfowlintentions.com.  OK,  enough of the advertising and back to the story.  The first year I started doing festivals, I was looking for shows to do in the Atlanta area and came across a show in Kirkwood at Bessie Branham Park.  It was only a one day show, ( most of the shows I do are two or three days) was very inexpensive, and was what many would consider a very small show.  I immediately told my wife, Peggy, I was signing up.  Her response was "do you think you can sell anything there?" To which I  answered  " It doesn't matter,  I'm going home".  Bessie Branham park is one block south of what is now The Kirkwood Lofts. Although now apartments,  this is where i first went to school.  Kirkwood Grammar School as we called it back then.  There were so many first for me at this place.  Years ago when I read "Everything I need to know in life I learned in kindergarten"  I just knew the author was talking about Kirkwood.  Strange I can't remember all of my teachers names but there are a few that are still  etched  deep in my memory  Ms. Milligan,  Ms. Estes, Ms. Ernhart and Ms. Overstreet to name a few  Our Principal was a lady named Ms. Nash who I am sure was a very nice lady but at the time I was sure she was related to the Devil himself.  Ms. Alday was a neighbor of ours and also served as a substitute teacher and I always hated when she was our teacher because if I didn't have my homework, did bad on a test or misbehaved, she would always tell Mom.  The Aldays had two daughters close to my sisters age and a son, Pete,  that was a couple of years older than me.  We all became close friends and as I got older I really grew to love the Aldays.  Some memories of   Ms. Alday was  that she without a doubt made the very best Peanut Butter Cookies in the world.  Another is vacation time.  Back in those days we didn't have air conditioning in our cars so when we went on vacations,  we would leave very early in the morning to try and beat as much heat a we could.  Whenever we went on vacation Ms. Alday would get up very early and cook breakfast for us and when the Aldays went on vacation Mom would get up very early and cook breakfast for them..If memory serves me Ms Alday always had pancakes, sausage and eggs.  Of couse I would have rather had peanut butter cookies.  Getting back to the festival at Kirkwood.  The festival is called "The Kirkwood Spring Fling".  It is held each year in May and without a doubt is my favorite.  That first year I saw people I had not seen in 50 years and each year it seems more of the old timers come  back.  I have also met people that lived a few blocks away or were a year or  two older or younger and have now become friends with them.  As  I said the festival is held at Bessie Branham Park.  When I was a kid I thought the city of Atlanta must really love me because they had built me my very own park.  This was my park and it had my very own Recreation Center.  The hours I spent there probably saved me from getting into really bad trouble.  There was always games to play and old adults ( people probably as old as 19 or 20 ) to make sure we behaved and to organize activities. This is also where I first played organized sports.  We had Grey-y (sp) football which was sponsored by the YMCA.  My first coach was a guy named Gil Glover.  I later went to Murphy High School for a couple of years with his younger sister.  Her name was Vickie and she was very pretty.  That's probably why I remembered his name.  He called us the Kirkwood Headhunters and I don't think we lost a game.  Of course I also think I scored 4 or 5 thouchdowns a game and believe if Bobby Dodd would have put me on his Ga. Tech team I would have been an All American.  We moved away from Kirkwood in what is now known as the "White Flight Era" and after a while Kirkwood became a very bad area to live in.  I remember one year it was called the most dangerous area of Atlanta to live in.  But after a while because of the price you could buy these 1920 bungelows for or just because the people got tired of living in this fear,  Kirkwood started to change back to the paradise I grew up in.  I do shows all over Atlanta but to me this is the neighborhood that I would chose to live in if I was moving back to town.  The communitee involvement is just unsurpassed.  These neighbors are really "neighbors".  Don't get me wrong,  they still have their problems but don't we all.  And the big  thing I have dicovered is after almost 50 years...."You can go home again."