I Found the Water Level Gauge!

Yes! I knew the thing was down there somewhere. I remembered having seen it several years ago. My memory was correct in that it turned out to be on a bridge piling. It’s on the far eastern piling of the railroad bridge, on the south side of the piling (downriver side). The railroad bridge is almost directly behind the Ironworks Trade and Convention Center, very near the Riverwalk Arch. Look closely at about the middle of this photo. See the white area? That’s part of the gauge. (Click on the photo to enlarge it.)


The reason I hadn’t seen the gauge earlier is that, obviously, it’s hidden behind that mass of small trees and bushes and kudzu growing on the bank there. Because of this mass of vegetation, there’s no way I can get close enough to read the gauge. I tried going around the vegetation, but the bank is too steep right there.

And I’m not about to step out onto a steep bank. No, sirree. This puppy knows better. Let’s just say that I learned my lesson a long time ago. I done done that. Yep, I hereby admit to having once years ago fallen down a steep, 40-foot bank – right into the Chattahoochee – at night. And those of you who witnessed the referenced event had better keep y’all’s damn mouths shut about any further details! ‘Cause, you know, I know things I could tell on you – if I wanted to. Let’s just say that as I was rollin’ and tumblin’, side to side, front to back, head to toe, shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow, knee to wrist, in the moonlight, tryin’ as best I could to grab any little limb that was so kind as to place itself in my path, hopin’ against hope that no copperheadedwaterrattler was stealthily lying in wait for me, I could hear little voices calling from the edge of the bluff above me, “Mama? Mama?”

Truth be told, I stopped on the very EDGE of the water. Half of me got wet and the other half did not. All of me was skinned up, though – for SEVERAL days. I told my students I’d had a bike wreck. And don’t even ask how far I had to walk along the edge of the water – by myself -- to get to a place where I could crawl back up the bank.

Okay, enough about that. Back to the water level gauge. The next time I see the grounds crew in that area, I’m going to ask the supervisor if they might see fit to remove all that undergrowth, thereby making the gauge visible from the Riverwalk – and clearing the way for some fool to take a tumble down the riverbank.