Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: River (08/31/06)
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TITLE: The MIghty River | Previous Challenge Entry
By Annie Hamilton
09/05/06 -
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Then as it is now, Sand Mountain was known as one of the most densely populated areas in the country. And the “Mighty Tennessee” was to become known as one of the most important sites for the development of lakes and dams in the Roosevelt era.
Unknown to me, this expansion of the river would be the driving force, which changed my life as well as that of hundreds of Alabama and Tennessee residents. I was a small child when this happened. My father had returned from “The War” (World War II), and farmed one year before going to work on “The River,” for “The Tennessee Valley Authority” (TVA).
Until we started first grade, my two brothers and I, along with Mother, moved with our father to regions where he worked on the building of dams on the Tennessee River. Before, I had only experienced the plateau of the mountain…the river, I had only seen a few times, and just a small portion of it as I rode The Greyhound bus from the farm into the closest town.
Until my family and I traveled into the eastern parts of Tennessee, I did not there were places so far away. Neither did I know the power of the river. With these new experiences came many others…riding for the first time on a train was one of these.
While we lived in Paris, TN. Father was called into the US Navy. He did not have time to take us back to Alabama, and we rode the train to Chattanooga, TN. My first train ride included another experience, which I still remember as if it were yesterday. It is the experience of a little girl, for the first time in her life, seeing the beauty of a little black girl. I can still feel myself as I twisted my head to look at her sitting on the back seat of the train. Afterwards, I begged my mother to buy me a doll, which looked like this little girl her. Mother, finding it difficult to ignore my plea, did as I asked, and I never loved a doll more.
I do not remember who came to Chattanooga take us back to the farm. It must have been one of my father’s brothers. Soon afterwards, Uncle Sam issued them an invitation to the war.
This left my grandmother; two of her four daughters, and the three of us on the family’s 40-acre farm. There were no longer any men to tend to the farm, and grandmother could barely pay the taxes.
These are the things I remember from stories told to me.
The war ended, and my father came home. I am glad he went to work on the river because he was not much of a farmer…or so I was later told. After this, “The River,” and its lakes remained a big part of our lives. On the weekends, we picnicked and fished along the riverbanks, and newly formed lakes. “Daddy” did not stay with TVA. Because he was a good worker, a large Alabama road building company hired him.
However, this did not change the time we spent on “The River.” Instead, we broadened our horizons to include the TVA park areas. This happened after “Daddy” was appointed the superintendent to build a parkway to DeSoto State Park in Northeast Alabama.
My language is still frozen, and I have not ventured far from “The River” or “The Mountain.” I now live between two mountains…Sand Mountain and Lookout Mountain…only a few miles from “Desoto Parkway,” and “Little River Canyon,” a national preserve. Neither of these, like the person I am today, would have been possible without “The Mighty River.” From time to time, "The River" beckons me to renew my spiritual strength as I gaze across its beauty into a rising or setting sun.
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