I was born within a quarter mile of the Chattahoochee River on the Georgia-Alabama State line. The small hospital where I was born was just across the street from my home. My grandparents lived next door where my grandfather had a tiny little store.

I remember sitting on the little front porch watching my grandfather. He would snooze in an old cane bottom chair leaned back against the wall, chewing tobacco and spitting over the porch rail near the base of a huge pecan tree. He always had a fly swatter draped across his lap.

The store was so small he didn't sell very much. I think it was just something to keep him occupied. Since the store was right beside their house he would sometimes go home during the day. He had an old cowbell on a leather strap attached to one of the posts on the front porch of the store so that people could ring it if they needed to buy anything. The store had a screen door that would make a "creak-sproing-slap" sound as people came in and out. In the middle of the door was a metal sign that read "Colonial is Good Bread."

Following the street past Papa's store and our house you would end up at the State Line Road. On the other side of the road was the Chattahoochee River. We spent many days (and sometimes nights) on the river.

Papa's Store

Before the county built the hydroelectric dam on the river, it used to flood periodically. I can remember several times seeing water six feet deep on Main Street in the town. Some of the old homes built close to the river were built up on stilts because the river flooded so often.

During one flood, my brother Eddie and I went downtown. We walked through thigh-deep water in front of the Piggly Wiggly store to get to the bridge that crossed the river into downtown. Canned goods floated through broken windows into eddies around the store. We walked out onto the middle of the bridge and felt the bridge swaying from the force of the current. The water, almost up to the bottom of the bridge, was normally about forty feet lower. We watched as debris of all sorts floated down and under the bridge. Animals and huge trees were among the debris. The big trees would make a "bong" sound when they crashed into the bridge pilings.

After the flood subsided we went back down to the river to explore. In a low area where the water works creek flowed into the river, we found a stranded Garfish. He was dead and was the biggest Garfish I had ever seen. It was probably about four feet long. A Garfish is an ugly fish with a long thin snout full of sharp teeth. We unwisely decided to pick it up and move it. I grabbed the tail and Eddie grabbed the snout. We couldn't lift it and in the process Eddie got his hands ripped up by the Gar's teeth. We decided to let it rest in peace from then on.

There was an island in the middle of the river further upstream where we used to play. The island was formed where an old steam-powered riverboat sank a long time ago. I can remember when you could still see the old smokestack sticking out of the middle of the island.

As we explored the island finding tennis balls from the flooded tennis court we smelled a horrible smell. We searched the island over and could not locate the source of the smell. All of a sudden we reached a spot that was particularly pungent. After searching a while we finally looked up and saw a cow in a tree. The poor unfortunate cow was perched in a tree about twenty or thirty feet from the ground. Flood victims can sometimes end up in strange places.

During times when the river wasn't flooding we traveled up river in canoes we built ourselves. We would find an old abandoned barn and take a piece of tin from the roof. The tin was then folded in half lengthwise and a short two-by-four was nailed in each end. Another two-by-four was nailed crosswise in the middle of the canoe to keep it open. Next, tar was used to fill in all the cracks and nail holes. We carved paddles out of old one-by-fours we found in the dump.

The standard procedure for travelling in our canoe was for Eddie to be up front paddling and Gary, my other brother, sat in back paddling and I, being the smallest, would sit in the middle with an old Maxwell House coffee can to bail out the water that leaked in. When our adventures were over for the day we would go back to our starting place and tie a rope to the canoe, tie the other end to a root under water, and then sink the canoe so no one could steal it.

Sometimes the river was low enough that we could walk almost all the way across it on the rocks. We sometimes found Indian artifacts in the gravel under those rocks -- pottery shards, arrowheads and other things we couldn't figure out what they were used for.

There were two things in the rocks that I was terrified of. One was a leech, for obvious reasons, and the other was a huge insect that we called "Goodiggities". It was a horrible thing about three inches long with a large set of pincers on its head. I was never afraid of snakes or of drowning, but I would hurt myself trying to get away from leeches and Goodiggities!

We swam, fished and camped on the river. None of us were over twelve or thirteen and I was only about five or six. I'll never understand how my mother kept from having a nervous breakdown trying to raise and keep track of six boys, three girls and one unpredictable river!

I now live hundreds of miles from where I grew up and no river in sight, but there are still fond memories of my Huckleberry Finn-like life on the Chattahoochee.

DeLoach is a professional artist with experience in graphic design, computer illustration, and mixed media. Philip spent ten years as a printer and graphic artist before he became a full-time artist. To see some of Philip's own work, visit his personal Web site, Picture This...

He was a content provider for the Artists' Exchange at About.com for five years. His Artists' Exchange was included in an article entitled "29 Must-See Web Sites for Artists" in the October 2000 issue of The Artist's Magazine.

Philip also dabbles in creative writing.