I don’t know if I’ll be there, but…Rock City?
It’s OK, I know how this one ends. We win.
What’s this “We”, Kemo Sabe? I’m a Canadian! 
Opal is moving to Ohio.
To avoid confusion, I’m branching off the discussion for the Atlanta-area 'fest here, so those who want to come to that one, join me over there. Somebody wants to take over the Chattanooga part, might be easiest to start a separate thread for that one, too.
SPLITTERS!!!
I didn’t even realize there was such thing as Cleveland, Georgia. I’m moving to Ohio.
Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People’s Front.
I thought we were the Judean People’s Front?
DO.NOT.TRUST.THIS.WOMAN.
I met her the last time I was in D.C… I have some memory of going into a restaurant in Maryland and a much hazier memory of going back to the Metro station. The next thing I remember is waking up in a bathtub full of ice and both of my kidneys and one of my 7-Ups missing. Luckily I carry blastocytes and a Fix-a-Kidney just-add-water stem cell kit (best $8 I ever spent) so that wasn’t such a problem, but the closest place to replace the 7-Up was an all night convenience store and it was damned near $2.00! (Add in the Fix-A-Kidney and that’s $4 more [it’s 4 to a pack]).
Yeah, but wasn’t the food awesome?
Where else would Cabbage Patch Babies come from? 
Good luck on your move!
My doctor tells me I need to be far more self-referential, so I feel compelled to mention I have a job interview very close to the Cabbage Patch Hospital at a college that could be a "gold"en opportunity.
For those not familiar with Cabbage Patch’s origin, Xavier Roberts was one of 6 kids of a single welfare mom who loved sewing from an early age and rediscovered a German folk art that he used to make the first “Little People” dolls he sold at craft shows. When they got super popular he bought an empty actual medical clinic in Cleveland GA, renamed it Babyland General Hospital, equipped it with “nurses” who wore white and brought the “newborns” into a nursery where you could look at them through a window and apply to adopt. The birth certificates were based on color copies of his own and all signed by him. He owns a mansion in Cleveland with a circular slide from his bedroom to the indoor pool, not bad for a poor sissy boy from Appalachian Georgia. (I say sissy but I don’t know that- for some reason I just assume a guy who grows up sewing and making dolls and markets it with brilliant camp is gay.)
He also has a wicked sense of humor, or at least did one time: all of the original Cabbage Patch dolls came with a warranty of sorts. If you tore the doll you could bring it back to the hospital and they’d “operate” and return it to you. One little girl tore her doll immediately, it was sent to the hospital, “healed”, and returned, and she immediately ripped off a limb, and it was mailed back to the hospital, repaired/healed, returned, and she tore it again, and again, and again, until finally the family received not the doll in the mail but a manila envelope.
Enclosed was the doll’s death certificate
the first and possibly only one ever issued for a Cabbage Patch doll.
I went through that ‘hospital’ on my way to/from Helen, GA back in 1999 and they were wicked expensive dolls. I still have the Preemie I got back during the craze; I use it as a papoose in my Sacagawea costume.
Is anyone thinking of going to both Fests?
Thanks for the mini history class. I lived in Atlanta during the craze and knew* of *it but never participated.
Good luck with that interview! It is a very pretty area! Are you going to stay at the Gateway Motel? 
Or does the ‘golden’ hint mean you are going to Dahlonega?
(I’ve always like the idea of the Gateway Motel, as in, this is where people pass by on their to really good places…)
Sampiro, be ashamed of yourself! A Doper, of all people, spreading an urban legend so easily debunked!
OpalCat, Cleveland, Georgia was founded by the Cleveland family, and was the first Cleveland in the U.S. Part of the family later moved north and founded Cleveland, Tennessee, and still later more of them moved still further north to found your next hometown in Ohio.
Same Clevelands as Grover, too.
Not the same Grover as on Sesame Street.
Oh bummer (and I heard that from somebody from Cleveland too). Pity.
Well, it is true that Cabbage Patch dolls were used to replicate the Slaughter of the Innocents in a Bible school play once. It was in Wetumpka, AL ca. 1984, so at least that involves death of the wee beasties. (The minister had people volunteer their dolls but only under the express promise no harm would come to any of them- he wanted the children to understand the horror of what went on by having men with plastic swords pretending to kill them; I think the kids were far more terrified by being told “a long time ago a bunch of men killed every child under 2 in Bethlehem” and too concerned with the “can I have my doll back?” instinct to care.)
Cite?
I was there.
I can’t speak for TN and GA, but Cleveland OH was named for Moses Cleaveland and was originally spelled Cleaveland. Supposedly the A was taken out because there wasn’t room for it on the city’s first newspaper heading (The Cleaveland Advertiser), but I’m not sure of the truth value. (It is in wiki but not cited.)
Thwarted!