There were beautiful days last weekend for enthusiastic boat rowers who came to Chattanooga from afar to participate in the colorful annual Tennessee River regatta that has the remarkable name “Head of the Hooch.”
What was it all about?
Well, first, the unusual name of the event demands an explanation.
There was a poet in the 1800s down in Georgia whose name was Sidney Lanier. Among his noted works was one poem about Georgia’s Chattahoochee River. “The Song of the Chattahoochee” virtually sings about the Chattahoochee’s musical water flow. (Countless schoolchildren dutifully, and some painfully, have had to memorize and recite the poem over the years.)
It goes like this: “Out of the hills of Habersham,/ Down the valleys of Hall,” — (referring to Georgia counties) — “I hurry amain to reach the plain,/ Run the rapid and leap the fall,/ Split at the rock and together again,/ … The wilful waterweeds held me thrall,/ The laving laurel turned my tide … .”