Dahlonega, Georgia

[gilmore]

I went today. The weather was indeed chilly, in the 40's or low 50's and windy, but a dry (for Georgia) cold. With the heavy wool kilt and Harris tweed jacket and vest it was comfortable and briskly stimulating...as long as you didn't stand still, as I did to hear the Appalachian St Andrews Pipe and Drum band, a new and small one based in north Georgia.

There wasn't a crowd there at all. The weather must have run people off.

I didn't hear any of the other music. There were demonstrations of Scots and other Celtic crafts and storetelling, etc in the little shops around the square, and since there was hardly anyone there, one could talk to the presenters as long as one wanted.

Other than the pipe band, I didn't listen to any of the music. I was occupied looking for long lost relatives. My ancestors went from south Georgia to Dahlonega and Lumpkin County for the gold rush in 1828. Some stayed there, but the one I descend from returned to south Georgia. My father located some distant cousins there back in the 1960's, but I had no luck, other than coming across a mention in a thin book on local history in the bookstore. In fact the entire afternoon I met only two people who were born in Lumpkin County. Dahlonega has certainly changed over the years. It's full of restaurants doing their best to be colorful, antique stores, shops that sell hand made things that smell good but aren't very useful, etc. I am afraid I prefer it the way it used to be: interestingly run down and homey.

What I found interesting was the ambience. It was as if "furriners" ---and that was what they would have been called not so long ago there--- had come from all parts of the country, bought up the little shops and storefronts, and attempted to recreate a nostalgic yet near total fantasy of life in the rural mountains of a hundred years ago or more, displacing the inconvenient locals with their rather different ways of doing things. Of course, that was only in downtown Dahlonega around the square and courthouse.