#rabun gap

“To me the foggy blur over the tops of trees is a mental affair. You hold in your mind another time and live there in that other imagined time while the present time, new and raw in some way, presses for attention. But the other time is held like a fragile glass, transparent but up close in front of one’s face. This is a practice from childhood. It serves no purpose except to counter the insistence of present time and to block it a bit. I can’t remember when I haven’t done this. Being in two places at one time. This is my definition of a person, I say, as if I were saying something definitive and true.”

Martha Ronk, from “Her subject/his subject,” Double Room (no. 5, Winter/Spring 2005)

When I returned to Appalachia, it had been years since I’d seen a mountain. Living in the gentle, forested hills of East Georgia isn’t so bad, but I longed for behemoths to rise above my head and instill me with a sense of humility. So in October I traveled north again, to see the leaves turn colors and stand thousands of feet above my head.

Mt. Pinson peeking through the clouds. 

I’ve been meaning to make this post for a while now. It’s been a fair set of days since I said “more are on the way” when I posted pictures of my trip to Appalachia this past autumn. Tonight I’m going to rectify this. 

In order to keep a consistent flow, I’m going to reblog the previous two photosets before this one.

Rabun Gap

Sights from Black Rock Mountain

Goats on the Roof

Tallulah Gorge

Sky Valley

Lake Rabun

Back before the pandemic closure, we were inspecting one of the films we received from the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School (RGNS), a film made about the school in 1952 by the late John F. Cowart, a talented Atlanta filmmaker who had won several cinematography awards and later had a long career as a cameraman for WAGA-TV and WETV (now WPBA). Perhaps the school administrators had seen his ad in the newspaper:

and were inspired to contact him to make a film of their school. No matter how it happened, we are delighted that the film has survived in very good condition.

You can watch the film here:  https://bmac.libs.uga.edu/pawtucket2/index.php/Detail/objects/362958

Cowart made the film using his Auricon Cine-Voice camera. The kit for this camera includes a microphone and a turntable so you can capture natural sound or music from an LP playing directly into the soundtrack. This was a real boon for filmmakers.

While looking for more information on Mr. Cowart, we ran across mention of an earlier film made for another north Georgia mountains school, the Tallulah Falls School (TFS), by members of the Amateur Movie Makers of Atlanta club.

Articles in the Atlanta Constitution mention in May 1950 that Bob Stanley of the Atlanta club offered to make a film for the TFS, which is just down the road from RGNS.  The money to make the Tallulah Falls School film was donated by a patron of the school, and the amateur movie club members involved in production were Bob Stanley, Gates Dunn, and Dr. Hoyt Simpson (a dentist). The film was to show the students in their daily tasks over the course of the school year,  making handicrafts, studying in the classroom, cooking, and working on the farm, with the final scenes being of graduation.

A quick email to TFS led to the office of the President of the school who was excited by these articles and our interest. He located that film as well as another film about the school produced by the Protestant Radio and Television Center in 1959 (we also preserve the PRTVC archives). That second film is titled “The Light in the Mountains” and both films have been donated to us. Watch them here: https://bmac.libs.uga.edu/pawtucket2/index.php/Detail/objects/362995  (1950)

and here:  https://bmac.libs.uga.edu/pawtucket2/index.php/Detail/objects/362994  (1961).