Cassville Tour Guide: Abridged Version

When you think of touring the state of Georgia, for sightseeing, historical or vacation purposes, you always think of the obvious: Savannah and the barrier islands, Atlanta, Ellijay and the mountains, a rafting trip down a river in north or south Georgia, Warm Springs, Andersonville...you know, the classics. Get a t-shirt from Six Flags, take a picture at Stone Mountain, buy a green Masters visor (the alpha and omega of originality), get a caramel apple from a man in overalls at the Apple Festival and break your arm rafting down the Ogeechee River.....and you are golden. You've done Georgia in a nutshell.

Unfortunately, Cassville was not part of that nutshell. Other than a few Civil War monuments and a cemetery, we don't have a ton to offer. In fact, we were not on a state map for years until somebody designated us a "historical area" and boom....we're back on there, with such illustrious places as Pine Log, Kingston, and Acworth. I remember Billy saying, "Aw, hell, now Atlanter is gonna swallow us whole...here we go." Nope. We did get an influx of visitors after we appeared on the map again. Whether it be a weary I-75 traveler, a wayward biker, sightseers or just curiosity...all of them ended up at Cass Grocery at some point. It was always entertaining to watch them approach us, as if any minute we would snap and Ned Beatty one of them behind the store. (+1 for Deliverance reference) That dang movie damaged the reputation of small town Southerners everywhere, especially those of us at Cass Grocery. The gas station in Deliverance was full service, like us. We often had someone with a physical deformity hanging around (usually missing fingers from chainsaws, or in the case of one man, a bull that sawed his fingers off with a tight rope during a rodeo). We had old men with funny hats standing around scowling at them. Matt played a banjo. (just playin'....or am I?) In any event, looking back, maybe they were justified.

When they realized we were not into such things, and we had encountered modern humanity before, they would relax. Most wanted to know the age of the store, how long we owned it, who caught the giant bass over the beer cooler (my Granddad) and whether my Dad would be interested in selling any of his Coke signs (H-E-double hockey sticks, no). Of course, they would get a God-forsaken ice cream during this line of questioning. The women would remark at how "cute" the store was. After laboring over the frozen spawn of Lucifer himself, I would be asked the inevitable question: "so, what else is there to do around here?" Answering them honestly, I would tell them about the cemetery, the old post office and the hill where the old colleges were located before Sherman burned them. Not very riveting if you ask me, maybe a fifteen minute total tour. Cassville has so much more to offer than fifteen minutes of monument reading and silent reverence over 150 year old gravestones.

So, in the interest of promoting the endless possibilities that exist in Cassville, I have devised a driving tour for the novice Cassville visitor. The tour would start and end at the store, be conducted in a caravan of 1986 T-Top Camaros (primer gray, of course and no mufflers) and before it would begin, the following recording would be played:

"Greetings and welcome to Cassville, Georgia: home of laying drag, toothless hags, limp dishrags and illegally purchased deer tags. We are proud to call this home and we ask you not to litter or otherwise sully the pristine condition of our pot-holed roads, trailer parks, and especially, our beloved store. There are a few things you need to remember along the way. Number One: You must not interact with the natives, especially those beyond the Cedar Creek dumpsters. If they choose to interact with you, ask them for a cigarette and then run. Number Two: Please keep your hands in the vehicle at all times. Feet are optional, as most female residents prop their bare right foot on the sideview mirror anyway. Number Three: Do not, under any circumstances, mention the following names: Jeff Gordon, Honda, Toyo, Komatsu, or Barack Obama. You will bring possible harm to the entire group. If you can remember those rules, and deal with massive exhaust inhalation, you will enjoy our tour. Now, take your respective "Dale Earnhardt 1951-2001" t-shirts, your John Deere hat, your Justin Ropers and light up that complimentary Marlboro. Thank You and Get On it!!!"

With that, the drivers (only those of Cassville birth are allowed) will lay a serious drag and take off down Cassville Road into this...

1) On your right....you will see the vacant house with plywood windows. That house was the site of many a Cassville legend. It holds the record for the most times raided by SWAT teams and the only recorded instance that someone was awakened by a wharf rat biting their lower lip. A bastion for meth use, it was responsible for more Fudge Round/Yoohoo purchases than little league baseball. To top it all off, two of its former residents fought off twelve would-be attackers with baseball bats after refusing to allow one of the attackers to date his sister, who was pregnant with another man's child.

2) Another legendary household stands on the right. If you will look past the red Chevy on blocks, you will see on outbuilding where one resident tried to kill his son with a hatchet. The son holds a Cassville record for most cigarettes smoked before the age of ten and is the only person who has had  a .38 Special pointed at his head in the store parking lot. Currently serving a prison sentence for burglary, sadly, he is unavailable for pictures.

3) As we make our way south, you will see the first of many trailer parks. It's been renamed several times over the years, but I like the name bestowed upon it by a sheriff's deputy in the early 90's......"the cess pool of Cassville." This illustrious neighborhood requires a felony conviction, an illegitimate child, a drug problem and unemployment to live here. Upwardly mobile citizens need not apply.

4) The trip back up Highway 41 would be highlighted by a stop by the old middle/high school (where we had a dirt track, not a paved one), a stop by the house of one of my old classmates who punched a teacher in the face on a field trip, ran into the woods and wasn't found for six hours, and the Cedar Creek dumpsters. Everyone needs to get a picture next to the "No Dumpster Diving" sign and witness the trash compactor break down after yet another person threw a car battery in it. This is where it can get a little rough. Some of the biggest characters and morally casual people that I have ever known inhabit this area. You know, the kind of people who still smoke with an iron lung, may have spent time in prison, have nicknames that nobody can explain, and tattooes they don't remember getting. (For those of you who remember....Yoda lived down this road)

5) Moving onward, we stop by the Eternal Light Baptist Holiness Temple of Judah Mount Zion Antioch Ebenezer Bread of Life Messianic Church. (12 members strong, plus 3 water moccasins) An abandoned house that once had $425,000 worth of marijuana growing behind it. (Big day in Cassville, two helicopters landed in a pasture and 30 GBI agents swarmed this place like a TI-83 calculator giveaway at Georgia Tech.) Go down the road where I grew up. (Everyone must pay homage to the old homeplace. Nowhere in the world means more to me.) Take pictures of the porch where the Cassville Skateboard Club began. (2 members: Matt and yours truly) And another picture of the field where my Dad shot a Chow running full speed, after it killed one of my grandmother's ducks. (with an AR-15 no less)

6) No visit to Cassville is complete without a stop by the most notorious of trailer parks, which was behind my grandmother's house. The Sheriff's Office might as well have had a precinct in there. If the other place is a cess pool, then this one is the trash ring out in the South Pacific. This place provided us with such characters as Junior (never knew his last name), who once peed his pants at the counter because he was so hammered. One family that seemed to always have a money jar on the counter with a sick child's name/picture on it, although we had never actually seen this child. Of course, somebody would end up "stealing" the jar after it got full. Another family, who apparently must have at least one member housed in the Georgia Department of Corrections at all times. You also had the man who shot his wife in the head with a .25 pistol, but she survived and they stay married for several more years. Another man, whose entire tricep was torn off when he punched out the window of his wife's boyfriend's car. Of course, the boyfriend caught his arm and drove about half a mile with him hanging out of the window.

7) Coming back toward the store, I'll show you were my good friend got drunk and chainsawed a giant oak tree down across Cassville Road, knocking our power out for hours and resulting in his arrest. Another guy who sells beer out of his house on Sundays, the spot where my brother chased BRAG (Bike Ride Across Georgia) members with a garden hoe (barefoot of course), and the house of the man who did ten years in prison for cutting another man's throat during a card game. The same man also had the words "sweet" and "sour" tattooed over his nipples (he never wore a shirt) and his ex-wife's name "x'ed" out and his girlfriend's name tattooed under it.

See? Much more interesting than Union troop movements, empty home foundations and a quiet graveyard. Of course, airbrushed T-shirts would be sold at the end of the tour. Your options:

1) A Chow barking over a canyon with Dale Earnhardt's car driving through it; or

2) A John Deere Gator laying drag with "I Got On it in Cassville!" in cursive beneath it.

Disclaimer: This was only meant for laughter. I am in no way condemning my neighbors or trying to cast a negative light on them. They were and still are good people (for the most part) and never failed to make me laugh or teach me a life lesson, most importantly, never get a woman's name tattooed on your body and move out of your house if a wharf rat bites you on the face.