More About Macon

My major at Mercer University was called "Community Health Education". As I wrote before, my classes were great fun. I did a 9 month internship at the Public Health Department, because that was the only thing my advisor could think to do with me. I really did enjoy my time at the Bibb County Public Health Department. I started teaching prenatal health classes, and worked with girls and women in the birth control clinic and the school where they sent all the pregnant teens. There were no teaching materials, so I made them. There was no curriculum so I wrote it. I loved teaching nutrition. I threw out the usual food groups and did a color system that was much simpler. I tried to get the health department to get rid of the junk food vending machines. I rode my bike to school. I was all about being healthy.

One of the things that was so sweet about the prenatal clinic was the baby clothes that were made by some women in Macon. Each mother got a little knitted blanket, a onesie, a sleeper, a hat, a washcloth and towel. The clothes were an incentive to come in early for prenatal care.

The director of the facility was nice enough- she was a middle aged woman with an MPH named Jackie. She was always going on about fluoridation. She had campaigns for everything. For my senior project, she asked me to organize and direct a health fair. Boy, was I excited about that! I was going to include all the new and wonderful alternatives I had been learning about. She told me to have the first meeting, and gave me the names of people in the community to contact. She made a point of saying that NO chiropractors were to be invited to participate. Hmm, I thought. This could be tricky. But happily I realized that as long as I excluded chiropractors (to keep the MDs happy), I could include any other weirdness that I wanted. So of course I invited Mary to set up a display of wheat grass, tofu, soysage, and various herbs and potions. It was wonderful.

During that Spring, I started playing softball for the Cottage Cheese. We had so much fun at practice. Games not so much. I played first base because I was tall. I had played a lot of ball as a kid so I did enjoy playing. I was not a great player but at least I knew all the rules of the game and could hit the ball. I wish I was a real writer and could say more about the women on that team. We were all the most rowdy women that hung out at the Cottage in the 25-28 age group. I really like those girls- they were tough and fun. They knew how to have a good time and they did not take anything seriously. Our coach was the typical movie plot drunk who was washed up from some former seemingly legitimate gig, and ended up coaching a bunch of barmaids.

A fellow named Bill had been in my Existentialism and Phenomenology class earlier in the year. He saw me at one of the games and I guess decided to pursue me. I remember vividly the day after one of our games, I saw him come walking up in the parking lot of our apartment building. He said he wanted to borrow something. He came in and wouldn't leave.

At the time, Phil and I had a roommate named Kerry who was a wonderful friend of Phil's. Kerry was very gifted artistically and we always got along great. We made some beautiful cards by carving a design Kerry did and then stamping the paper. I loved that. I remember Kerry and Phil's reaction to Bill breaking up our happy home. They were not impressed. I was about to graduate and had no clue what to do next. Bill filled the void with the magic words: Children!

Transition to Georgia

Life on Southside after 1975 grew routine. What to do? I went back to school. I tried to find something that interested me. It seemed as though nothing was happening. When I looked around the room at night it was full of friends but there was no conversation. Blah. I grew restless. One day I thought up the idea of a beach vacation with my friend Phil who was a quadriplegic. We came up with a plan to go to Panama City for a week. I had a friend with a house for rent, and he had two friends who agreed to drive him and stay there with us. I talked another friend into driving me to Auburn where we met up.

We did have a blast. We went to St Joe and stayed all day on the deserted seashore. We caught crabs and drank beer after beer. I was out on break so I had no other thoughts or worries. At the end of the week, Phil talked me into going to Macon to see it before going back to Birmingham. When I did I fell in love at first site.

The first night there we stayed on Orange Street in a house that was built in the early to mid 1800's. The ceilings were very high, and it had huge white columns on the front porch. It was much older and more elegant than anything I had seen in Birmingham. And there was a whole town full of places just like it.

Macon was truly magical and romantic. I felt something there that I had never felt. I felt the life of the city, the soul of the city, and the rhythm of the city. This new rhythm was very different from Birmingham. You can imagine the feel of Birmingham, with its history of firehoses and marches, the letter from the Birmingham jail, the bombings and intimidation. Macon was much more relaxed and very pretty in a European sort of way. It rose up on the bluff above the river, with little cobblestone side streets and carriage houses. Very quaint. The next night I rode out to Fort Valley in the countryside with one of Phil's friends named Lauren. The moon was full and we drove past the pecan tree orchards to her little house. I became enamored of everyone I met there. Somehow, I thought, I must live here.

Because Phil was a quad, he was getting money from Vocational Rehabilitation to go to law school at Mercer University. Since I had experience as a rehabilitation nurse, I qualified to be his attendant. He worked out an agreement with his Voc Rehab counselor to pay me a salary to take care of him. I worked out a transfer to Mercer to finish my bachelor's degree in my self designed major. At that point I had already been going to college for about 5 years, and had my RN plus the time I spent at Auburn and at UAB. I ended up having to go another 2 years to finish, but it was worth it. I was so poor I qualified for a Basic Educational Opportunity Grant. That's right kids, back then they gave you the money to go to school.

So I went back to Birmingham and finished the fall quarter, got everything in place, and moved to Macon in 1977 I think. At that point I had no income and no vehicle (having sold my truck to use the money to live on).

Phil and I rented a Victorian gingerbread house on Arlington Avenue. The house was next door to Paragon- the booking agency that booked all the Capricorn recording artists. Down the street was the house that Wet Willie lived in previously. The Allman Brothers Big House was a few blocks away on Vineville Avenue.

We used to go the the H and H to eat soul food. The H and H is home to owner Mama Louise who used to cook for the Allman Brothers. The H and H is still there, and you can see the painting of Dwayne Allman playing his guitar in heaven on the wall. The H and H is on Cotton Avenue where the Capricorn Recording studio was located. I was sorry to have missed all the action. Everybody had some connection to the Brothers and Sisters.

Phil did go to law school, and I went to Mercer. I loved Mercer. The faculty was liberal even though the student body was not, but I was a little older, and so had a different group of friends through Phil and through some of the faculty.

There was so much going on there, and I was introduced to all the things that have made a big difference in my life and how I live my life. With that, I will close for now, savoring the lovely memories of sweet Macon life.