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Tales From the Altamaha

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This year’s Tales From the Altamaha production features retellings of several stories passed down from generation to generation about life in the Toombs County area in prior years. The play even includes a song based on a poem written several years ago by an anonymous author, and now, the cast and crew is searching for the author’s family.

Tales From the Altamaha brings history to life as real stories from the area are portrayed onstage by a talented cast and crew. The play is based off of a combination of stories collected from the writings of Colonel T. Ross Sharpe and submissions from the annual “Interview an Octogenarian” writing contest, which allows local students to submit stories which they learn from interviewing individuals in the community that are at least 80 years-old. These tales are combined with performances by the River Rat Review Band to form performances that share the true culture of the area in the most entertaining way possible.

This year’s production features a song based on a poem written by an anonymous author from the Toombs County region; the Tales From the Altamaha cast and crew is now searching for the author’s family. The poem is titled, “Memory’s Flood,” and reads, In childhood I played, and romped in the shade, as I piled up the sandbar sand.

On Spring days so green, at the old river scene, with flowers on every hand.

Then summer was mild, in the mind, of a child, the most beautiful places I saw Were the bluffs and the coves, wild ducks in the groves, on the banks of the Altamaha.

Oh how I do yearn for my strength to return, To carry me back where I saw The childhood of life, its pleasures and strife, On the banks of the Altamaha.

My youth found me there, huntin’ squirrel, quail, and hare, and sometimes a turkey or two.

With my pal and my gun, in a shade from the sun, and nought on the farm to do.

Now with hook on a line, and my sorrow behind, and scenery that would enthrall.

And yet I can’t tell what I loved there so well, lest it was the old Altamaha.

Oh how I do yearn for my strength to return, To carry me back where I saw The childhood of life, its pleasures and strife, On the banks of the Altamaha.

Now that I’m old, and the years took their toll, I come back again to the spring. And drink to my fill, as the cold waters spill and the whippoorwill quietly sings.

Oh promise me now that you will somehow find a place ‘neath the old plumb and haw.

To rest my old bones, when my spirit’s gone home in a grove by the Altamaha.

If you or your family recognize the poem or are the family of the poet, please contact the Lyons Main Street Association at (912) 526-6445.