Old Holcomb Lake Memories - Part 1
I recall when I first moved into the neighborhood. It was in the fall of 1979, and I was six years old. We pulled up to a dark red cedar house, on the top of a ridge. It was the third section of a far-out subdivision called Hasty Meadows, attached to Hasty Acres, the previous section.
I immediately began to explore my wonderful new wilderness. When you're that young, any forest is wilderness. On the next block over was Holcomb Lake, about a five acre pond nestled into tall pines. Only a few neighbors and the hood kids even knew it was there. I made friends with the Ohlstrom boys, Bruce and David, who lived with their mom in the original farmhouse for what was there before the streets and homes. It was a simple one-story white paint affair, with electricity and a bathroom added as an afterthought. We would have 'magic trick day' for other kids, and set up lemonade stands. They showed me some of the local secrets of the Lake, including several treehouses and an abandoned junkyard. Many hundreds of acres lay to the east of the lake, and the only way to get there was to walk the overgrown dam, take a steep fall to the bottom, and look for a red plastic cup on a fence that marked where the barbed wire was pulled open. Squirming through this fence would put you into, ironically, a Sandy Plain. I always thought that was one of the best things I found, and funny. The road names used to have meaning. Scufflegrit probably was. Branchview...you could. Allgood was someone's last name, but it probably wasn't bad.
A brisk run through a horse field brought you to a creek, and then a power line trail. Going on, the trail became narrow and overgrown, and ended at Allgood Road, right in front of the big church. A very kempt campsite, waterfalls and creeks, a century old red barn, a stable house filled with corn, and several abandoned vehicles were very fascinating highlights. I went back, over and over, mentally mapping the area, traversing rock-bottomed creeks, climbing over wild hills, and troughing through thick underbrush to see ruins and old cars that had been there for decades. It was a great, almost ethereal place to be. No sounds of traffic or suburbia could be heard in any direction, and the waterfall at the camping site was peaceful enough to fall asleep by. Several years went by, as I concentrated on other things, and I didn't go back until I was in my teens.
After telling some friends about the place, we decided to take a venture. We found an old man harvesting orangemelons in the middle of nowhere, and we hid out for 30 minutes behind some blackberries. When he left on his golf cart, we raided it. Hard. Like playing golf with them using logs hard. Probably not right, but very much what a 14 year old boy does to a patch of melons. I took several friends back into what was now 'my secret spot', because all who knew about it locally didn't care anymore, if anyone even knew.
I am naturally curious about history, and I researched (pre-net, btw) the area. I went back to the now overgrown Ohlstrom farmhouse and discovered a shed between it and the lake, with many artifacts; the shed and horse barn gave me what I wanted to know. I might have had the gumption to ask the old farmer, but since I bashed his melons I never did. Here is what I found:
The entire area was once owned by the Hasty's, who subletted farmland to the Holcombs around the end of WWII. A dam was built, creating the naturally fed lake. Several old photographs I found in the barn (very cool B&W shots with furrowed edges) behind the old farmhouse depict the Holcombs farming the land, with no trees visible from the lake or beyond. I also found several documents and signs that referenced "Holcomb BP Station", and "Holcomb Gulf", which was the gas station on the corner of Sandy Plains Rd. and Piedmont Rd. Back then they were unpaved gravel, far before my time. It was the only building on the corner of that intersection until 1973, when they built Sprayberry High across the street. Around 1987, someone cleared the house on the opposite corner, then drained the pond and built a Kroger shopping center. Holcomb Gulf became a standard BP station sometime in the 80's, or it could have been 90's. The Ohlstroms, who also lived in another house around the block, were related somehow to the Holcombs. I asked them some questions when I saw them on the porch one day, long after the Holcombs were gone, sometime in the 90's.
When Bruce and David left, their mom took them in a beat up green Super Beetle to North Carolina. I was probably 8 or 9. I once went into the house after they left, and it was littered with objects, including a phonograph machine with a big horn on it. I took out one of the brittle 78 speed records and cranked it up. There were some clothes left, and maybe a piece of furniture, but everything else was gone. I could tell from the design of the floor and walls that the house had been built piecemeal, one room at a time. The original structure was the central living room with a wood stove, a kitchen with a back porch, and one room behind the living room. The front porch, both rear bedrooms, and the bathroom were all afterthoughts.
Old Ms. Holcomb, now in her 80's (in the 1990's?), and the last of the descendants, lived in a large brown house perched above Holcomb Lake.
(Something interesting here is that there was actually a ghost town located across Scufflegrit Road, which was nestled into a thick tree stand in the middle of fields. I once knew a kid in the 2nd grade who rode my bus home, but would get out and walk the dirt road to this small homestead. So, the little pocket of houses and a well were inhabited until at least 1981. In 1986 a tornado violently ran right through the middle of this 'hidden town', and upon inspection had decimated all of the buildings except a well house and a 1959 convertible red Edsel. This land was sold off to developers, and construction began on a tract home development in about 1987. They cleared many trees, and built a paved road, before our neighbors petitioned to stop the overcrowding. It worked. All that remained for 10 years was a single, blocked off paved road, and the destroyed farm town. About 400 acres of bliss for an ATV, and my friends and I had tons of fun roaming its many valleys, ponds, and trails. In 1998, the entire acreage was leveled, and replaced with those homes people had fought hard to repel.)
My 'secret spot' was given reprieve, and I would find hidden entrances for my Jeep Wrangler to sneak through. It actually involved entering the power line trail through someone's monopoly house side yard. I ran quickly, and quietly, making a first pass to ensure "Bob" wasn't washing the car. It was on one of these ventures that I actually saw two deer bound in front of the Jeep. I was awestruck! An actual deer this close to town (Marietta) was incredible, and showed just how much land and semi-wilderness was being lost for tract homes. I thought that the builders might have taken Scufflegrit Field, but I had my spot. Not so.
Two weeks later they were back, with a less-than-polite sign from the surveyors. It was inevitable. They were going to plow my spot. F'n bitches.
I passed it one day on Scufflegrit, when I noticed something smoking and turned to see what it was. They were bulldozing and burning everything.
Well, at least the namesake lake remained. It was a testament to what the land used to be...farming and agriculture, and a life far removed from the modern age.
Not so. In the spring of 2000, they drained the lake. They then brought in several thousand tons of dirt, and made the large pond into one the size of a swimming pool, then ringed it with more of those ugly houses. They actually blocked off the other homes, which were once lakeside. More rude, carpetbagger yanks moved in. They still had the nerve to call it Holcomb Lake Estates, or something to that effect. The land I had grown up with was now East Park Estates, an endless morass of cheaply built, overpriced houses that are creepily similar.
At this time I was caretaking the house I grew up in, good ol' 2100 Branchview. I would drive the new roads in East Lake, see the new houses, and want to commit serious and multiple felonies. I restrained myself. The "East Park" name came from the sister property, "West Park", which is a business park. This was also once a wonderful tree filled wonderland that was harvested for the greedy mouths of developers. West Park is another story altogether, and was still relatively unbuilt until 2000. There was once a horse farm, Happy Valley Stables, where West Park is located. Yep, wiped out.
Man's history for eradicating the past, simply by razing trees and calling it progress, was made plain and complete for me. I knew I could no longer stay. The population was changing, the landscape was changing, and the adventure I craved had been feasted to an empty plate. While the people who sold and razed the land have every right to do so, by man's law, I don't think they knew the impact it would have on a young man, and his love for these few hills...nor do I think they would have cared much.
So, I left.
This small blog is but a snippet of the full story, and I will always hold fond memories of my Personal Childhood Paradise behind Holcomb Lake.