Fernbank Forest

This is a story from the BK days, the days Before Kids, when Jean and I were living in Stone Mountain, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. My folks came to visit us one summer and Jean and I thought they might enjoy a walk through Fernbank Forest. Fernbank is a local science museum and planetarium for kids. In addition to the indoor facility, Fernbank also has “a 65-acre undisturbed, mature mixed hardwood forest located in Atlanta, which is part of Georgia’s Piedmont region.” We thought it would be a pleasant excursion for Mom and Dad.

Jean and I had actually walked through the Fernbank Forest once before. It was a serene sanctuary located in the city of Atlanta. While in the forest we couldn’t hear anything other than bugs, birds, and the wind in the trees. It had a church-like atmosphere. We felt compelled to whisper.

During that first visit to Fernbank with Jean I noticed that many of the trees closest to the walking path were identified with signs. On the many outings during my childhood in the Midwest I’d also noticed that Dad knew the name of every tree and bush he encountered. Dad had a keen interest in science and the natural world. The trees and the forest at Fernbank looked entirely foreign to what I’d experienced in Iowa as a kid. I was sure that Dad would enjoy seeing the different species of trees that grew in the southern climate.

So we took the folks to Fernbank and toured the indoor museum exhibits first. All was well. Eventually we made our way to the back door of the museum that led to the entrance of the forest. All was well. There was an elderly man in a rent-a-guard uniform sitting at the entrance to the forest. All was well, except the man guarding the forest leads me to two irrelevant comments to the story at hand.

This first comment is that it is sad that an urban area like Atlanta has to fence in a forest. Surely the fence isn’t there to keep the trees from escaping. It seems ridiculous on the face of it. I can imagine my Wisconsin relatives clucking their tongues and shaking their heads in sad disbelief. “Why would anyone want, or need, to fence a forest”? I suppose the fence is necessary to keep neighborhood kids from invading the virgin forest and making trails with their bikes, building tree houses, and turning the forest into their personal playground. I know that is what I did as a kid.

The second comment is why would you need a rent-a-guard to protect a forest when you have a fence running around it? To keep kids like me from entering without a parent: to keep bikers and skateboarders from disturbing the sanctuary? Anyone who wanted to burn down the forest could easily smuggle in a pack of matches. The rent-a-guard seemed like overkill to me.

Anyway, getting back to the story, the guard was elderly and carried nothing more than an old walkie-talkie. He was sitting on a tall stool in a small wooden kiosk that kept the sun and rain off his head. It was clear from his rent-a-guard uniform, rent-a-guard badge, and lack of reference materials that this man was not a docent for either the museum or for the forest. He was exactly what he appeared to be; a rent-a-guard, and nothing more. As we passed by the gentleman I nodded my head and offered a pleasant “howdy” as we moseyed into the forest. All was well, or so I thought.

All was well for the first 20 yards into the forest until we encountered the first labeled tree. I don’t recall the tree’s exact label as it is irrelevant to the story, but let’s say it was a black oak. Do you know what is coming? Have you guessed it already? I bet you do.

Dad had brought along his handy-dandy pocket paperback reference guide to trees. At the very first labeled tree he whipped out his reference guide, looked up black oak, squinted at the tree, and angrily announced, “This isn’t a black oak! They’ve labeled this tree wrong! This is NOT a black oak!”

I tried to convince Dad that because Fernbank was a center for science that SURELY they had an experienced arborist or a biology professor from nearby Emory University who was an expert at identifying trees. Dad was unconvinced. He was convinced the tree was labeled wrong, and the more Dad talked, the more agitated he became. In short order he was apoplectic over the labeling of the tree. What I thought was going to be a peaceful serene walk through the woods became a tirade against incompetence.

Dad stormed back to the rent-a-guard waving his reference guide. Dad was as angry as I’d ever seen him, and I’d seen plenty over the years. I went with Dad hoping to protect the rent-a-guard from real harm. Dad verbally laid into the rent-a-guard as if he were personally responsible for the allegedly mislabeled tree. He acted like an Old Testament preacher bringing down hellfire and brimstone. His face was red and he was practically yelling at the man for this imagined travesty.

The rent-a-guard sat on his stool and regarded my father as if he was speaking a foreign language. Nothing Dad said had any effect on the rent-a-guard. I wanted to make excuses to the man for my Dad’s bad behavior, but it became clear that it wasn’t necessary. The rent-a-guard had either seen it all, heard it all, couldn’t speak English, or couldn’t care less.

After a lengthy tirade my Dad finally lost some steam, and he stormed back to Jean and my mom to resume our walk down the asphalt trail. There were only a couple hundred labeled trees left to go. (Sarcasm) I winced at each tree and bush we encountered worrying that the label might offend my father and incite another riot. I felt like I was tiptoeing through a minefield for the rest of the afternoon. It wasn’t the peaceful walk through the forest I hoped it would be.


I love visiting botanical gardens, but every time I see a labeled plant I remember that day at Fernbank with my dad.