There are a lot of reasons why Atlanta has pollen counts well over 8,000, and I don’t think all of them are connected to the trees. There are grass pollens and lots of flowering things and the ever present pollution from the cars. Once a year, everything seems to come together to form this green cloud that hovers over the city for weeks. I have come to believe that the doctors preprint allergy perscriptions so they can just hand them out at the door during the months of March and April.

The other day I went to see my doctor for an allergy med, and as I was parking my car I noticed this nearby towering “bank” of wisteria. This is only a portion of what was actually there. I did not have a lens wide enough to capture the entire scene, and I was using a 12mm lens! After taking photos for few minutes and after attracting a crowd of onlookers, I decided to look over the side of the parking deck and this is what I saw.

Yikes! A river of pollen looking back up at me. I know everyone likes to say that no one is allergic to “pine pollen” and this is what is in this photo. But it just looks dangerous. And I don’t know if I believe we can walk through clouds of this stuff and not feel something. Cars leave “pollen tracks” in the blacktops of parking lots. Some of you, who have lived and worked in Atlanta, know exactly what I’m writing about. You have lived in it. Right now, we don’t have haze, we have a cloud of green hanging over the city.

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