> > I haven't done much rock climbing lately either. But I did a lot of rock climbing as a young boy growing up on Gray Eagle hill in Knoxville near the old Ramsey House Plantation. Gray Eagle hill was so rocky that people would have to park their cars down on Thorngrove Pike and trek up a narrow path to their houses, which were built on rock as well.
> >
> > I recall that it was in 1947 that old Doc Gammon parked his new car down on the pike and walked to the top of that hill to deliver my younger brother John. Except for the Doc, the only other people who ever came to our house was the grocer who always delivered to us a two week supply of groceries in his old International truck. At that time there were already six children and the truck load of food costing ten dollars would last us about ten days.
> >
> > Near Gray Eagle hill was the Gray Knox Marble Co. We used to go swimming in the "quarry hole" as we used to call it. It was a very dangerous place and some of the boys would climb to the top of the quarry and jump fifty feet into the water. There were signs everywhere warning of the danger but every summer the quarry was full of swimmers. I was always afraid of that place.
> >
> > I recently drove up Thorngrove Pike to Gray Eagle and all the old shotgun houses on the hill are now gone, and just a few old locust trees remain. On Thorngrove Pike, the old Ramsey House Plantation is still a popular tourist attraction.
> > Calvin
>
> Living in a special place like that makes a great story these days. Most people now wouldn't think of living somewhere without a paved road. Certainly not if it was up a steep hill! My son, Sam, lives on top of a steep ridge in the south end of the county. His driveway goes 650 feet in a long sweeping curve through the woods. I use first gear all the way up. Because of the curve and the trees, you can't see either end from halfway. He doesn't get many door to door salesmen.
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> How was the view from the top of Grey Eagle Hill?
> Howard

Not much, really. You could look down at the old Knoxville Lime Co. and that was about it. There were tall patches of honeysuckle and kudzu vines just about everywhere, and eventually some of the neighbors got together and made a passable dirt road up the hill from the back side which was not so rocky.

Around 1950 we moved from the hill to a house off Cinder Lane, which was across the railroad tracks from the Lime Co. We cleared about five acres of land and planted corn. In another spot we put a huge vegetable garden where we grew things like tomatoes, potatoes, and green beans. The garden fed us very well in those days.

A big fish pond just beyond the corn field was as I recall, well stocked with catfish. We only had one close neighbor there, so fishing was good.

There were two houses way, way back in the holler behind us, and they always seemed to have a lot of company on the weekends. My Dad warned me to never go there, because those two families had a moonshine still there. I think he visited there a time or two!