WHAT WE HAD. WHAT WE LOST

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Sand Mountain was, as I recall, the only recreational pursuit, among the three natural attractions in Polk County, which cost absolutely nothing to use. And among the three, it was the only one which merited an asterisk before the word, “natural.” While Kissengen Springs and Crystal Beach were bodies of water which had not been dug, Sand Mountain consisted of ton upon multiplied ton of the purest white sand which had been heaped into an amazing pile, by one of the local mining companies; (in the suburbs , if they can properly be called “suburbs,” of Fort Meade).

The second word of its exaggerated title was unadulterated fiction, since if the old English measurement of 1,000 feet was the qualifying height of a mountain, well

… it wasn’t.

But there is nothing all that interesting about a term like, “Sand Hill;” thus it gained the ultimate moniker, “Sand Mountain.”

At this juncture, I don’t have a clue how high the thing was, but any semblance of a mountain becomes higher, and wider for a wee boy. To me, it was nothing short of massive. (And to be fair, it really was).

Sand Mountain was, in all probability, a couple hundred feet high, and almost as wide on all four sides, (if a circular perimeter has sides.) And we loved it. Like the other two natural attractions, we couldn’t get enough. It’s a bit nebulous now, but it seems we often begged to go there, and almost as often, my parents relented.

And really, there wasn’t all that much to do there, except

… climb and roll.

As soon as my parents pulled into the sandy parking lot, my siblings and I scrambled out of the car, and began climbing.

You simply could not stand straight up, and expect to make much headway. Due to the angle of the “mountain,” climbing required us to use all fours. Oh, we could always take a break, and either sit down, or stand in one place, and we often did as a matter of necessity. Even now, I remember the fatigue I felt, but it was a “happy tired,” and I will always treasure this memory.

Eventually, all of us “Mount Everest wannabe’s” reached the summit. So often, when I reached the top, I would check out the other side. As I stood looking down at the West side of the mountain, I noticed grass and weeds sprouting here and there. No one ever climbed up that side. No one ever went down that side. Rather like the back side of the moon.

And then it was time.

It was time to race. It’s an absolute wonder that my brothers and I didn’t break our confounded necks. Down we went. We did our best to remain upright as long as possible, since we could cover more distance, in a shorter amount of time, that way. But it was futile, (I like the English pronunciation of that last word), and we always found ourselves falling, and rolling. I think I got more sand in my nose and mouth, than I ever got in my pants pockets.

My father had a dear friend from Miami named “Frank,” but for obvious reasons, everyone called him, “Shorty.” Shorty was all of 5’5” tall, and he looked for all the world like Lou Costello. From time to time, he (Shorty, not Lou) drove up to Central Florida, and spent some time with my family.

On one particular outing to Sand Mountain, Shorty went with us. And he brought one of the earlier hand held movie cameras along. I have seen a short film of my brothers and I, as we climbed that massive pile of sand. I suppose Shorty still has that old strip of celluloid. To my knowledge, it was the ONLY film footage of my brothers and I, at that tender age.

I have also seen additional video footage of events which occurred on “the mountain.” In one segment, a group of water skiers stands in a line running the width of the summit, holding flags of various shapes and colors. Suddenly, they’re off; (and I think they had to be “off” to do what they did that day). Down the massive hill they went. I would have to review the video segment again to tell you how it all fell together; (with the emphasis on that next to last word before the semicolon).

“The Mountain” is gone now, whittled down by the same industry which first placed it there. It may have dismantled in the early 60’s, (about the time that our beloved President John F. Kennedy was taken from us). I suppose the local mining company found a market for the sand which they just couldn’t pass up.

There is still a “Sand Mountain Road,” but it leads to… nowhere. There’s certainly no mountain, nor even a hill there now. And like that other “Natural Wonder of Polk County,” Kissengen Springs, that self-same industry which deprived us of one, deprived us of the other.

And though its trillions upon multiplied trillions of grains of sand have, no doubt, been scattered to the four corners of the earth, the fun, the joy, the wonder of that place remains indelibly etched into the recesses of my mind.

from "Snapshots," the autobiography of William McDonald, PhD

(Web blog - https://macblogphd.blogspot.com)