 
The Erwin House, first built as a cabin in 1800, stands in all its antebellum splendor. This is the house my mother grew up in, which I visited time and again in my own lifetime. I look back at those memories, cane pole fishing in the pond out back, playing football by the green bean fields, and running wild in the woods as some of the first connections to nature that I cherish today. Got to make it out this visit for my Grandmother’s 82nd birthday.
Long shadows after a short hike up part of the Kennesaw Mountan National Battlefield Park. Spent a freezing New Years Day morning with my friends Todd and Jeni, hiking up the hill that barely kept Sherman’s Union troops from taking and burning Atlanta.
I’m still amazed that some people can hold grudges from the 1860s. I grew up with the Southern bitterness at losing the Civil War, but never understood why. When I finally did, I got over it, and tried to look forward towards things that are more important. Here, on a historical marker at Kennesaw Mountain, people have crossed out Gen. W. T. Sherman’s portrait. Though you hear the argument/cliche “Heritage Not Hate” when mostly white Southerners support the flying of the CSA flag, Sherman’s defacement is a simple image of hate that seems ridiculous in the 21st Century.
Sunset on Kennesaw Mountain.