DHS, Class of 75

When my family moved from Huntsville, Alabama (the birthplace of my sister) to Dunwoody, Georgia, we met an agent with Northside Realty to look at houses in the Dunwoody area. At some point we drove up Roswell Road to a Dairy Queen on the right side of Roswell Road, near the intersection with what became I-285 (the perimeter). We ate lunch and then continued on to Dunwoody to look at houses and lots. I remember sitting on the picnic bench outside the Dairy Queen and looking north toward the only office building in Sandy Springs at the time. There just wasn't much else in Sandy Springs south of that office building.

Inside that office building was a Morrison's cafeteria, where my family used to eat Sunday dinner after church at Mount Vernon Presbyterian, which was in Sandy Springs, as well. Further down the road was a Dunkin Donuts where my father used to buy donuts for Sunday morning. There was a Baskin Robbins next to it, where we got ice cream when I was a kid.

Further up the road was a music store in a strip shopping center where my father bought my first guitar. In that same shopping center was the Sandy Springs Mini Cinema, where we used to go to movies before the theater was opened at Perimeter Mall. Further down Roswell Road was another strip shopping center with a small optometrist's shop, where we all got our glasses. There also was a branch of the Buckhead Men's Store, which was the nearest men's store around until Tommy and Eddie Smith opened up T&E Men's Store above Cumberland Mall. Across the street the world's first Mellow Mushroom Pizza opened when I was a senior in high school.

A little further up, Lum's family restaurant was where we spent most Saturday evenings in the fall. We would run around in our football uniforms and lime covered cleats, while our parents would enjoy a beer or two after the long day of watching Pop Warner football. I remember going with my grandmother to Lum's one time when my parents were out of town. After a brief supper, she left a quarter tip on the table. I was embarrassed and left a few more cents next to her quarter. I doubt that made our waitress happy.

Across the street was another pizza parlor, the name of which escapes me. I remember going there with several of my Mormon teammates and being lectured on drinking beer and pressuring my friends to drink too. In my defense, I think I told them that I wasn't trying to pressure anybody to do anything.

A couple of doors down was a little restaurant called "The Speakeasy." They tried to emulate the Jazz Age and used to have a jazz band and a magician that went from table to table to entertain the crowd. I loved that place.

For many years, there wasn't anything to speak of between those places and the town of North Springs, which was situated just below the dam below which we used to embark in our rafts down the Chattahoochee on hot summer days when I was in high school and college.

You don't see too many people shooting the 'Hooch' these days when you pass over I-285 at Powers Ferry.

It was fun growing up in North Atlanta in the 70's.