The Children's Wonderland - for Steven King

There were a few details about the town of Warm Springs that I did not share with you, but I had to pace myself and reflect on the day. Scott's interpretation of Warm Springs was that it was the place where the evil clown from Steven King's It lives - a place where old carneys go to die and their ghosts get together for drinks.

When we hit main street in Warm Springs, we browsed a couple of shops and looked for a place to eat. I nixed everything I saw - I like charming, but there was something definitely off about the place. And then we found the courtyard...

Painted signs invited us to a courtyard of shops and antiques, and an older gentleman walking around told us the kids might like to look around the courtyard. There was even a sign calling it a Children's Wonderland - sounds good to us, so we bit on that one. I tried to capture it all in pictures, but you just had to be there...nonsensical statuary, most of it appeared to be dug up from Fred Sanford's house; broken merry-go-round machines that used to be at grocery stores, statues of giant green rabbits, broken juke boxes, very old, tacky dime store items for purchase but nobody there selling anything, outdoor toilets smack dab in the middle of the courtyard. Poor Scott was so creeped out he had to beat it out of there very quickly, but somehow that made me only laugh more. Somebody that just ain't right made this place, and I don't think it will be around much longer because they are advertising a giant estate sale on March 6th. Looks like the creepy clown from It will have to find a new place to live...

The Nerds Do President's Day

Scott and I, being raised by education professionals, have a thing for tracking down historical markers, historical places, and random bits of trivia relating to the area in which we live. We just can't help it. So, for President's Day, the girls were out of school and we headed to Warm Springs, GA. We toured Roosevelt's Little White House and explored the area. The girls had to come along, of course, but they were indulgent of us, anyway.

The town of Warm Springs became known in the late 1920s because Franklin D. Roosevelt went there in search of treatment for polio. He had be stricken with the disease three years prior to hearing about Warm Springs, GA. He loved the place so much, and he felt so much better after his visits, that he spent 2/3 of his fortune purchasing the springs and surrounding land. FDR came here before he was in politics and before he was President. Because of his contact with this part of the country, he became an advocate for poor and rural people, for children forced to work because of a terrible economy, and he started the March of Dimes. Within 10 years of its founding, a vaccine for polio was discovered and people did not have to live in fear of the horrible disease.

The place is perfectly preserved and very moving. They never changed anything - there is still toilet paper from the 1940s in his house. You get a sense of the type of man Roosevelt was and how a wealthy New York Yankee could start so many programs to pull the country out of a horrible depression. I never knew how scary polio was until seeing everything yesterday. We were impressed with all the detail and all the history. All the old stuff was great to look at. He had a stroke while an artist was painting his portrait in his living room, and he died from it. The portrait hangs here and is still unfinished.

I thought some things were kind of funny. Because his electric bills were four times higher in Georgia than they were in NY, he started a program to get electric service to rural areas at reasonable rates. He helped out poor farmers, starting all sorts of New Deal programs, and Social Security - because of his contact with ordinary folk in Georgia.