Georgia: Ranger debating retirement

TRENTON, Ga. — Driving around Cloudland Canyon State Park with Stanley Hammock is an education.

The park manager knows the popular camping and hiking area so well, he can point to a patch of land and tell you what it looks like any time of the year.

Wild blueberry bushes are out of season, but he knows where they dot the forest like a bear planning next summer’s feast.

Slowing the truck, Mr. Hammock motions to three wild turkeys that rush through the forest, and then he sees the trees. He calls the autumn leaf change “absolutely breathtaking.”

It’s easy to see why Mr. Hammock has worked in the Georgia State Parks system for nearly 34 years.

“It kind of gets its hook into you, and you don’t want to give it up,” he said.

Fellow park managers see Stanley Hammock as well-suited for the work.

“Being a park manager is like being mayor of a small town,” said David Foot, manager of Vogel State Park near Blairsville, Ga.

He called Mr. Hammock a “jack of all trades,” and added, “When he retires, there is going to be a hole to fill.”

Retirement potentially looms for Mr. Hammock, but he hasn’t decided.

“I’m really torn inside to say, ‘I’m retired,’” he said about leaving the job that has held attention for most of his life.

While still in high school in Carrollton, Ga., he started cutting grass at John Tanner State Park in 1976, then after graduation got full-time work at the park.

“I guess you could say I lucked into finding a cool job,” he said.

From cutting grass he went to maintenance work, fixing trails, repairing cabins — anything that needed attention.

Across three decades he worked at Red Top Mountain State Park near Cartersville, Sweetwater Creek State Park near Douglasville, High Falls State Park near Griffin, Stephen C. Foster State Park near Fargo, and then Seminole State Park near Donalsonville.

The swamps and alligators of Seminole and Stephen Foster were foreign to a man who hailed from the hills of North Georgia. He looked for ways to learn, and moved around as asked in the stiff competition for advancement, he said.

He worked in maintenance, public relations, search and rescue and law enforcement, and said all those jobs prepared him for management, a chance he got at A.H. Stephens Historic Park near Crawfordville, and then at Cloudland Canyon, one of the busiest in Georgia.

Mr. Hammock admits that ending his career at Cloudland was always a goal he had.

Driving near the campsites, he rattles off Germany, France, England and Russia as home from which visitors hail. Turning a corner, there’s a folding chair with a Canadian flag design.

“Let’s see,” he says squinting to read Ontario on a vehicle tag.

He waves and smiles, then relates how public interaction is the most important duty of a parks employee.

Much has changed in 34 years, some for the better, such as how visitors treat camp sites and the eye for conservation.

“People are preserving and protecting, more green minded,” he said. They now understand: “If I break off this mountain laurel bloom then it won’t bloom next year.”

The papers stacked on Mr. Hammock’s desk speak of the administrative side of park management.

Another park manager said the job requires part lawman, housekeeper and supervisor.

“And Stanley can do it all; rescuing campers, administration work, work with the public,” said Bob Bolz, region 3 resource manager for Georgia state park system.

Mr. Hammock has done search and rescue work since the mid-1990s from cave rescue to high angle cliff searches, such as the July search for Judy Payne, a Rock Spring, Ga., resident whose body searchers found at the base of a cliff.

Some searches end well, others do not.

But there are cabins to clean, trails to check, questions to answer and people to help.

For nearly 34 years Mr. Hammock has done those things, and he’s not sure he’ll hang it up just yet.

“It’s kind of hard to give up something when it’s all you’ve ever done.”