Our beloved state of Georgia has its share of outlandish and brain-befuddling sights. This should be no surprise since Georgia, legendary as the land of cotton and buckle of the Bible Belt, is a state with a complicated, often tragic, history and a present of maddening social ferment and promise.

The only state in the Union named after an English King and the only state in the Deep South to send a President to the White House during the modern era, Georgia’s first white settlers were English colonists who had to compete with the advanced Creek and Cherokee civilizations already here. The “peculiar institution” of slavery marked Georgia irrevocably: the chains of the ancestors of our many African American citizens rattle in our collective subconscious, the screams of whipped slaves echo through our nightmares. Georgia also suffered the humiliation of being conquered during the Civil War. Appalachia, with its grinding economic poverty, and rich tradition of folklore, runs through this state.

Georgia is “haunted” by the future as well as the past. Although stereotyped as rural by many outside it, the state is highly urbanized and a place of advanced technology. Nevertheless, our citizens often feel defensively obligated to make an extra effort to show the damn Yankees that we are not ignorant and bigoted. We want to lead the New South into the millennium as a progressive and modern people. Home to Margaret Mitchell and Martin Luther King, Jr., Georgia is forever looking backward and racing forward. At the same time that we are sensitive to stereotypes, Southerners possess a saving grace: a sense of humor about ourselves as evidenced by the popularity of “redneck” jokes and some of the things discussed in this article.

The most bizarre landmarks of Georgia represent these contradictory yet creatively fertile impulses.

Domed communities are beloved of sci-fi writers and futurists but they have been a reality in the Farside Community in Lakemont, Georgia, a small town in Ravun County and south of Clayton, since the Farside Land and Development Corp. started building there in 1979.

The domed homes have been joined by a church. The “chapel is non-denominational,” engineer Peter Kelly, President and CEO of Farside, says. “We call it the ‘cistern chapel’ because a cistern is underneath it.’”

People who favor domed buildings like them because these structures, which look like gigantic egg-halves, are economical and resilient. There are two types of domed houses in Farside, Kelly says. “The first I built was a Geodesic dome and the rest are monolithic domes. Geodesic domes are Bucky Fuller’s triangle bolted together into pentagons and hexagons. A monolithic is made by inflating a balloon, spraying the inside with foam, hanging rebar (reinforced steel rods) on the inside, and then spraying concrete on top of that.”

Although they are of very modern origin, having been unveiled on March 22, 1980, the Georgia Guidestones — also called Stonehedge or America’s Stonehenge — are almost as mysterious as the ancient Stonehenge that clearly inspired them. Standing near Elberton, a small town northeast of Atlanta, the Guidestones are granite pillars over 29 feet tall and weighing 28 tons which form a gigantic X. Like Stonehenge itself, Stonehedge is aligned with the sun in mind: the rising and setting sun shines through a “window” in the center stone. Etched into the stones are 10 moral precepts in 12 different languages, both modern and archaic. Included amongst the maxims are “Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity”; “Unite humanity with a living new language”; and “Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.” The repetition of “Leave room for nature” is etched into the original.

The Guidestones were designed and paid for by a group of people represented by a man using the nom de plume Robert C. Christian. He hired the Elberton Granite Finishing Corporation to build this monument. Stonehedge stands close to the spot which Cherokee legend says is the center of the universe and is called A-yeh-li A lo-Hee in Cherokee. However, whether this was part of “Robert C. Christian’s” plan or a coincidence is anyone’s guess.

Hula hoops and Pet Rocks have come and gone but the Cabbage Patch Kids we have with us still — perhaps because they speak to something deep within the human psyche as the embodiment of the tales long told to curious children by parents embarrassed (as who isn’t to some degree?) by reproductive truth. Georgia, heavily citified yet resolutely rural in stereotype, is the natural home of the Cabbage Patch Kids and, indeed, Cleveland, Georgia is where Babyland General Hospital is. Visitors to Babyland can view the miracle by which Cabbage Patch kids are brought forth from Mother Cabbages — with aid of Licensed Cabbage Patch Nurses and Doctors.

The Southern ability to poke fun at ourselves is given physical dimension by Georgia’s monuments to kitsch. Amongst these is the Jimmy Carter Peanut of Plains, a statue with a Carter-like toothy grin on a 13-foot-tall peanut in a shell.

The myth of rural Georgia gets another tickle from Kadie the Cow, Columbus, Georgia’s 20-foot tall bovine who wears a Santa’s cap and wreath during Christmas season and usually dons sunglasses in the summer. Kadie both guards and represents the Kinnett Dairies milk processing plant which is owned by Parmalat Dairies. The horned cow looks away from Peachtree Mall and toward the intersection of 185 and Manchester Expressway.

The capital of Atlanta, unlike the state of Georgia, is land-locked. However, it is here that a spectacular reminder of the watery world stands. A gargantuan denizen of the deep leaps out of a fountain in front of The Atlanta Fish Market (a restaurant, not a store) and is seemingly arrested on its way to the heavens. The fish is 65 feet in length, weighs 50 tons, and is made of solid copper and steel. Located in the Buckhead district, the sculpture has brought fame to the Atlanta Fish Market. According to Steve Larner, Manager of the restaurant, “People come here from all over the world to take pictures of it.”

No article attempting to capture the spirit of Georgia, or even a significant portion of it, would be complete without a dog story. A canine called Calculator was for many years a mascot for the military personnel at Fort Benning. Calculator got his name because he often walked with one leg pulled up as if disabled, i. e., “He puts down three and carries one.” Calc could walk perfectly fine but the wily dog had learned that the pretense helped him get food from humans. His monument, paid for by soldiers, reads:
CALCULATOR
BORN ?
DIED AUG. 29, 1923
HE MADE BETTER DOGS OF US ALL

Also at Fort Benning is a hollow bronze and aluminum sculpture of Adolf Hitler’s head that was taken from amongst the Führer’s own treasures. For many years, it was kept upside-down to a metal plate and used as a trash can by the man who captured it. Although no longer doing duty as a waste receptacle, Hitler’s head is still upside-down at Fort Benning’s National Infantry Museum. Perhaps there a peculiar justice in that Georgia, a state whose history has been warped by racial prejudice, has kept a sculpture of the head of history’s worst bigot in the position it was in when it did something both appropriate and worthwhile.

Taken as a whole, the wacky and wondrous sights of “Bizarre Georgia” capture deep truths about the Peach state: that ours is a resilient land of humor — a quality essential to resiliency — which honors the past and seeks to progress toward a better future.

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