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