Decades ago on most sunny afternoons, one could usually hear the laughter and excited shrieks from children playing games in the recreation lot at the First Presbyterian Church of Julep, GA. The lot was enclosed on all sides by a historic, tall, thick row of privet hedge. Local lore is that the hedge was planted by the founder of the town, Cornelius Julep, more than a century ago. There was just one entrance directly behind the church, presumably so the pastor could observe the coming and goings from his office and detour the riff raff. Of course in order to do that the pastor would have to be awake and if he was in his office those odds were slim. “The best scripture was written from dreams.”
The favorite of all games that the children played was Red Rover. They would line up on opposite sides of the lot and run at each other full speed. It was always a great time...until the day Michael ‘Little Mike’ Collinsworth ran toward Paul ‘Snap-finger’ Smith and Andrew ‘Andy’ Thompson. The two acted like they were holding as tight as possible creating an impenetrable barrier of arm flesh, but the minute Little Mike got to their arms they released and he went flying into the wall of privet. Paul and Andy had a good laugh until they heard the screaming from inside the hedge. A sharp branch had managed to go directly into Little Mike’s tender young spleen.
Mike survived with nothing but a scar but his mother Peggy ‘Peg’ Collinsworth was quite upset. “That Smith boy and Thompson boy don’t even go to First Presbyterian, they shouldn't have been in there to begin with…they don’t belong there” The boys were punished accordingly but it wasn’t enough for ol’ Peg. She raised a stink so foul that the deacons of the church had no choice but to destroy the hedge. “In the name of safety and the Lord.”
Before the hedges could be cut the “Cherokee Rose Garden Club” got wind of the slaying of the iconic privet and another controversy started brewing. “Y’all cain’t just destroy them hedges. They was planted by Cornelius Julep, that’s history, y’all”. Names were called. Nasty letters were written. The town held a meeting, but neither side was backing down. Peg Collinsworth vs. The Cherokee Rose Garden Club vs. First Presbyterian. Nail biting small town drama.
A solution was finally agreed upon late one evening over a few cups of Sanka. The hedges would be dug up and replanted in different spots of Julep Park. “Ain’t nothing there but ol’ Crepe Myrtles anyway. Need a little variety.” Unfortunately the strife that occurred during the ‘Battle of The Hedges’ had caused some infighting in the Cherokee Rose Garden Club and the group disbanded leaving nobody to care for the hedges. They became unruly and wild and started taking over the park. “It’s like they just ate the dang see-saw overnight…”
Little Mike, now an adult, remembered the the controversy he caused in his youth every time he passed by the wild and overgrown Julep Park. That incident had changed the trajectory of his life. He actually ended up running his own landscaping and lawn care business. One day as he rubbed the scar on his abdomen and reminisced he decided he needed to do something. He took his family down to the park with some of his gardening tools, adopted a part of the hedge, and trimmed it into a topiary of a catfish in honor of the town college mascot. The idea took off like wildfire and other families adopted other parts of the hedge and made their own sculptures. Over time the park started holding festivals and became again, a beautiful place for people to gather...except for Paul and Andy, who could occasionally been seen brooding by the Crepe Myrtles in the First Presbyterian lot...even though they didn’t really belong there.