Stone Mountain's wonder lasts, even after a job there ends

By Bill York

I had heard about Stone Mountain long before moving to Atlanta, so one of the first places I took my kids after moving here was to climb the mountain. Instead of a mountain we found a mammoth boulder, but we climbed it anyway, up the steep end. I understand that route is not permitted today. On a clear day the view from the top of the mountain is spectacular, looking clear into North Georgia.

The mountain has a remarkable history. Native Americans revered the mountain and held pow-wows there with their Great Spirit. When the carving began, workers threw boulders and other debris off the mountain to protect against something falling on them while clinging to the face where the carving was planned, unaware that someday those discards would prove to be significant artifacts revealing the 10,000 years that Indians nurtured this land before the arrival of Europeans. The Ku Klux Klan also conducted pow-wows around the mountain back when Klan pow-wows were in vogue.

When CD rates tanked and gas prices skyrocketed, I studied my anemic financial portfolio and determined that if I lived too long, I would have to spend my later years residing with my kids and their dogs.

Not relishing that prospect, I applied for a position at the mountain. It’s called providing supplemental income.

I took their aptitude test and was pleased to find that my brain still worked OK.

Having been in the Navy during World War II, I figured I would be pretty good steering the river boat around the lake. Unfortunately somebody else got there first, so those doing the hiring suggested I might like to be an attendant on the cable car.

That sounded adventuresome, so I became an attendant, riding the cable car up and down ad infinitum with passengers and keeping them at ease when the wind picked up or when the car bumped over that hump near the crest.

I explained the history of Stone Mountain and pointed out trees and other exciting sights, also ad infinitum. Boring.

When I agreed to serve as a guide for cable car passengers, I didn’t realize I needed to be multilingual. I wasn’t very successful communicating so I smiled a lot. When a child got sick from the car swaying and threw up on the floor of the car, I found out that one of my responsibilities was to keep the car clean.

My single paycheck was for $54.80. Most of the jobs I’ve held were longer in duration. But Stone Mountain is still a wonderful place to visit. I’m attempting everywhere, including Stone Mountain Park, to have a Native American sculpture displayed commemorating those people who took great care of this place when you could still drink water directly from the Yellow River. Today, your gold filling would glow in the dark.

Bill York, of Stone Mountain, is a novelist, freelance writer and retired furrier.