80s Bolder to Birmingham

Yes I know how to spell Boulder as in Colorado. Even though that was the place to be in the 80s, I never made it there. I was back in Birmingham, back in the Magic City, but there was little magic to be found. I was in shock when I realized I had three children under the age of five. I was in shock because I also knew that this was going to my responsibility and my responsibility alone. I tried unsuccessfully to get my in-laws to see what was happening with their son, the father of my children. He and I were really both in a downward spiral as result of previous choices and the seeming inability to reverse course in spite of best efforts. I saw the abyss and decided that I was not ready to plunge in there just yet. I still had the audacity to think I could overcome this situation, so I set out to find out how.

No coincidence that there was not much music to speak of. We had the Police, some Dire Straits, who else? It is hard to remember. The music that got through was like the flame of a small candle at midnight. There was not much money either, so it was back to creating ways to survive.

 I found some of the people who were remnants of BreadTree, the storefront food coop that had closed. We got together and started a food co-op buying club like the one in Macon.  I taught Pre-natal fitness for one of the big hospitals during my last pregnancy, and then got asked to design a Mommy and Me class based on the classes I taught in Macon. That was fun, but then that was the last baby, and then the last class. Other than that I kept various kids at my home and tried to make ends meet. I still had my dog JC from time to time, and that was a joy! I was outside a lot walking with JC, strolling kids around, going to Homewood Park and the swimming pool. We had a ping-pong table set out back and always had friends around, playing ping-pong and shooting the breeze.

Southside was still the hub of any action, but there was not much action in my world then. I remember going to a very cool Halloween party in 5 Points that just served to remind me how far removed I was from any happening scene. I was getting old, and I had 3 kids! I did love to visit the old hippie freaks on Southside that also had children. There were people carrying on- they weren't me though.

So, I got pretty desperate and started trying to find counseling, self-help, books, groups. It took awhile, but I did finally find some things that I could grab on to. I began to find strength, and to understand my self and my situation much better. Then a series of events transpired that are still hard to believe.

I decided that I was going to get a divorce and called a lawyer to discuss and set up an appointment. I had no idea how I would pay for this or how I would get by if I did file for divorce. As I hung up the phone, before my hand left the receiver (no cell phones in those days!!) the phone rang. It was a friend from Macon who called to say she had gotten a large grant and would I be interested in coming to work on the grant, and head up the project? That was the strangest experience I have ever had. It was like a call from the Universe saying yep- go ahead. I said ok.

My decision was not an easy one. I probably would not have said yes without the synchronicity to bolster me. I was giving up being home with my children, with at least the financial basics covered. I was giving up any hope of a mom and dad family dream. But I was reaching for freedom, for something better for me and the kids. This was actually saving my life.

I made my plans to move back to Macon, Georgia.

Further On Down The Line

The days spent in Macon were healing for my soul. What was missing was some stability in other affairs. Instinctively, I knew that with a baby I was more vulnerable, and had to depend on someone I found to be increasingly undependable.

What happened next was predictable- I got pregnant and had another baby. This time I was able to plan a little better, and had a beautiful birth in the birthing room at a local hospital with a lay midwife in attendance just up to the point of delivery. My son was born at sunrise on Easter morning in 1983.

Soon after that we decided to move back to Birmingham so that my husband could go back to school at UAB in engineering- I guess a last ditch effort to meet the very real challenges of two young children. It was a noble gesture, but one that was only that- a gesture.

All this in perspective of age and experience, along with the accumulated wisdom of other women who went through the 80s and the childbearing and the realities, makes for empathy. At the time, survival was the predominant mode.

The nice part about returning to Birmingham was that we lived in Homewood, in a great place for raising children. Our neighbors also had young children and the support that offered was at least equal to the support I had in Macon. My children also got to interact with grandparents and their cousins. Somehow though the melancholy of Birmingham began to creep back in, and I began to feel rather despondent. When I had my last baby, a fussy little girl, I was ready to throw in the towel.

That was the place in my life when I quit running - both from what I didn't want and toward something I wanted -and looked squarely at the facts of my life. I took inventory you might say. As hard as it was to look at the deficits and the baggage, I found I could not take another step forward without doing so. I found that I would have to have help to do this, and I reached out. This was a huge turning point in my life. That was 1985.

Happy hippie life in Macon

Reality comes in the form of a sweet little baby. I found that I loved motherhood. I had read so much about baby care, prenatal care, postnatal care and early childhood education that it was great to put all that knowledge to the test. I had the luxury of being home, not working, and being inventive enough to find ways to live to the fullest without much money.
  First came food. To find really good quality food was not easy in the early 80's. The food coop was the center of my life for many years just out of necessity. At least the people that were involved were of like mind and spirit, and there were no real hassles. Coordination and cooperation just happened, at least from my point of view. I learned a lot about how to help without having attachments. It worked out. It was convenient that the coop shed where the food was delivered, broken down by order and picked up was close by. Brown rice, huge wheels of cheese, gallons of unfiltered apple juice, spices, herbs, bulk teas, medicinals, and of course fresh tofu that I could now make myself. We even had a go at honey bees with hives- too messy for me.
  Next came fun. I started going to the YWCA for an exercise class after my daughter was born. I took her with me and the instructor noticed. She asked if I would consider teaching a class for mothers and babies and that is how my baby class was started. It was very popular and wound up getting us a story in the newspaper. I still have the very cute photo of my happy baby daughter cradled in a swing position. The moms got to talk to other moms, got a little exercise, and learned how to hold and touch their baby while having fun. I like to think that the combination of baby massage, therapeutic positioning and movement and spatial exploration that I combined in my class contributed to the development of physical, mental and emotional intelligence in my children- they all are well endowed.
  My neighbor also had a new baby son and we walked and walked with our babies on our backs in Snugglies. I never owned a baby carrier- they are vile things. Carrying a baby on your back so they can see really stimulates development of spatial awareness. They are also close to your own body, and so they feel secure. Yes- I loved every minute of all that. Life was pretty simple. The neighborhood was interesting and no one had much of anything material, but there was always music and laughter. It was so easy to be happy in Macon.
  I just finished reading Gregg Allman's autobiography and it brought back so many memories. In terms of my own survival, I was lucky to arrive in Macon after the gold rush.

More Maconga

Macon was a very, very hot and humid town on the Ocmulgee River. In the summer the air would choke you, and it never cooled off at night. Days were longer than in Birmingham, and it stayed light until after 9. We tried to cool off in the Ocmulgee one day and found that it was like a hot tub. There was really no escape. Bill and I lived on the river for a few months and had a hellacious wedding party there. I found life at the river very lonely, however, since I was newly pregnant, had no car and was cut off from the party scene in Macon. I was also very nauseated and could not stop throwing up.

Bill liked to do weird stuff with food. He cooked a road kill raccoon one day when I was in the nausea state and was unable to get up and move around. Since he never cleaned anything up, the cooked and uneaten raccoon sat on the stove until maggots were swarming around in there. I could not even go near the kitchen, and had to beg one of my girlfriends to come over and clean up. I think I had to ask her several times, literally begging and promising to pay her if she would do it. She did, but I think that was the end of the friendship. She was kind of horrified. I should have been, but I was too sick to think about it.

Because I was so obviously miserable, Bill moved us back to town. There we lived in the most dilapidated house on the block but it was a palace to me. The neighborhood was just great. We were a block from the Big House where the Allman Brothers had lived, now a museum. There were lots of nice couples there, also with babies and young children. The school was right down the street. It was a perfect place to raise a family. Eventually Bill's brother and his wife also lived down the street.

I had come into contact with some Sufi women who were very educated regarding childbirth and early childhood education. One of the women, Rahima Baldwin, had just written a book which I loved. The other woman, Ann Frye, was a midwife. She was very professional, and I was invited to attend a couple of home births that she facilitated in Macon. Those experiences made a huge impression on me, and I started reading everything I could find about alternatives. Ann gave me some advice about how to prepare to have a healthy pregnancy and how to take care of myself. I followed her advice.

I made plans to have a home birth even though by then both Rahima and Ann had returned to parts unknown. I attended a Lamaze class and went to the Public Health Department for prenatal care. In spite of the bad start, I was actually very healthy and had a normal pregnancy. I went into labor right on time.

My friend Mary had birthed her second child at The Farm with Ina May Gaskin. She was a good childbirth coach and attendant, and was willing to help me at home. Another friend, who was somehow connected with or owned the natural foods store was also going to help me. I thought it would be like a party or celebration. I invited friends.

The day I finally went into labor we went out to the Jarrell Plantation and walked around to try to get things moving. It worked. I started having contractions on that Friday night and was still stuck at 9 centimeters by Sunday afternoon. The baby was ok, no problems with heart rate. I got very tired and dehydrated, so I decided to go to the hospital for an IV. I walked into the hospital, to the astonishment of the staff who pronounced me 91/2 centimeters dilated. The MD broke my water and I had a face-up, stubborn little girl named after her two great grandmothers. She was fine- sunny side up as they say, which accounted for the slowing in progress I had. I went on home from the hospital with that sweet little girl, and was the happiest I had ever been.

Unbelievably we were living without any air conditioning in that house. My daughter was born at the end of April, and by the end of May I could not tolerate another minute. I went to Sears and found a unit for $100.00- all I could afford- and stuck it in the window. I had to stuff towels under the door to keep the air inside cool. It was all that poor little unit could do to keep that one room halfway cool. So I managed to stay in there, keep the baby nursed and happy, and make it through that Maconga summer.

Maconga

That spring in Macon-1980-was the official end of my youth. I thought that I was still in my twenties because I was not yet 30. I felt compelled to do something drastic. For the first time, I could not see what was ahead and it bothered me. I guess I wanted security or something like that. I was graduating, my biological clock was ticking, and everything was about to change.

The courtship by Bill was short and tumultuous. I was never much of a hard drinker, liked beer, and had already stopped experimenting with various substances. Been there, done that, so what. He only had a motorcycle, and we rode around town oblivious to the fact that our heroes Dwayne Allman and Berry Oakley were both killed in Macon on motorcycles. We even went to their gravesites in Rose Hill Cemetery to meditate at their memorial. We continued to hang out at the Cottage. Softball season came to a close. Bill managed to graduate, too.

We got married in Macon sometime that summer. I was determined to have all natural foods, and we found a caterer who agreed to make cakes with whole wheat flour (what was I thinking?). She agreed to do so on the condition that we bring her the flour, as she did not know how to get it. We got it from either the food coop or from the natural foods store. I had to hold a 50 pound sack of flour while riding on the back of the motorcycle to her house. Needless to say, the cake was fairly heavy, but it was passable for the wedding. I made my wedding dress for $10.00 worth of beautiful cotton linen, and did a cut work embroidery at the neckline. That was that.

Bill decided he wanted to go to the Rainbow Gathering in West Virginia. He got a car from his parents, and we went to the Three Forks of the Missouri River gathering. It was really mind blowing to see how hundreds of hippies could organize chaos, protect the water supply, engineer sanitation and feeding, provide security, and effectively handle garbage, including clean up of the site after the festival. There was so much richness there. Music, arts, healing, drumming, cooking, child care, education, color, fun and all in a beautiful mountain setting.

We did some work demolishing a barn for the man whose land was used to access the National Park where the gathering was held. Our friend stepped on a nail and had to be taken to the ER in the nearest town when his foot became infected. We rode with him to the ER since I was a nurse. On the way back, we came across a very bad accident in the middle of nowhere so we had to stop to help. The fellow had run off the rode down a very steep embankment. The nurse, me, was again summoned to help. We had to scramble down the steep wooded hillside, and then found the man was unconscious. I knew to secure his neck, and was able to do so with some effort, so that we could walk him out to a railroad bed where we handed him off to the paramedics. That was a pretty weird episode.

I did enjoy the Rainbow Gathering, and am pretty sure that that was where my daughter was conceived. Especially since I had been given a special fertility dress to wear by my friend Mary!

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!

Georgia on my Mind- 1978-1980

So we started a little community on Arlington Avenue in Macon. Our house was divided into the bottom half- one apartment, and the top half- two apartments. Our upstairs neighbor was a very well educated fellow from New York who was studying the historical aspects of Macon. He got very excited, for example, when he "discovered" an old mill in Juliette (where some of the Fried Green Tomatoes movie was filmed) that had lots of grits bags lying around. To John they were like finding buried treasure. He shared my love of all things romantic and Macon/Middle Georgia. Macon is also close to Atlanta, on I-75, and thus was not really off the beaten path. I met so many interesting people there, who were far and away more worldly than most of the people I grew up with in Alabama.

Phil and I hung out at The Cottage a lot. We went to Atlanta to see Bob Marley at the Fox. We went to hear Barry Commoner speak at Emory about energy solutions. We started an anti-nuclear group. We ate at the H and H and were treated like part of the family. I enjoyed the pace and relaxation in Macon, and left behind all the uptightness and uncertainties of Birmingham. I met a very unusual teacher named Al who was head of the sociology department at Mercer. His classes were unusual as well. Since I was doing a self designed major, and had really completed all the heavy courses at UAB, I was free to dabble in whatever interested me. All the classes I took were top notch. Only Bob Penny's English class at UAB could compare.

Al's class was a community sociology class, and the assignments involved doing something in the community. I chose a class where I would learn to make tofu at the home of Mary and Pat. Mary and Pat were true hippies and their home and lifestyle were amazing. Pat was a jewelry maker and junk collector. Mary knew everything there was to know about organic and whole foods, herbs, vegetarianism, alternative medicine, etc. I learned how to make tofu in their kitchen and still make the barbecue tofu that Mary used to take to pot lucks. Later I joined the food co-op and pursued a full education in healthy alternatives. I felt like I was in graduate school, and indeed I really was. I loved the philosophy classes, the excellent psychology classes and the lack of repressive moralizing by the faculty. Here people seemed genuinely interested in the pursuit of education. What a concept!

Life was so easy in Macon. Phil and I did not have much money, but we had great friends, lots to do, and no real obstacles to achieving our goals. He did well at Mercer Law School, and I did well at Mercer. I was not allowed to graduate Magna Cum Laude even though I had a 4.0 grade average because I had transferred from UAB.

What happened? Well, as best I can tell, my resolve to drink less fell by the wayside, I began to see that graduation was approaching, and I met someone. It all started with the women's softball team- The Cottage Cheese. And that, is a whole other story.

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.

Beyond- The Journey Continues

I know I've been gone a while. It has been a year of hard work, which is paying off now! My original intention was to write about and explore the 70's in Birmingham. I have done so, and enjoyed every minute of the reminiscing. My children loved the stories and have encouraged me to continue the saga, even though my travels took me to Georgia and back. So I am going to pick up the thread and move on through the wastelands of the late 70s, and into the 80's in Macon, Georgia. The music was getting harder to come by, although there were some bright spots. More to follow...

The Wooden Nickel

I would like to tell some stories about the Wooden Nickel, just because there is a reunion next weekend. I am going, and hope that I recognize someone. I used to go there almost every day during the mid 70s. I can't remember going there to hear bands, but at some point I think that bands started playing there. I usually went there in the afternoons and early evenings. It was a great place to drink a beer. I think my best story is about the day they cut down the trees and I went off the deep end. I remember very clearly sitting at the bar and drinking myself into oblivion. The rest is a blur.


Otherwise, I was pretty well behaved and unbesotted for most of my visits there. Maybe after the reunion I will recollect something more memorable and interesting.


The Wooden Nickel (which was very laid back and earthy) morphed into The Nick (edgey and grungy) at some point while I was living in Macon. The building is still there but the vibe is no longer the same. I am glad it wasn't just abandoned or torn down. It has resiliance just like some of its patrons, those of us that survived.

Red Volkswagon Bus and Adventures on the Gulf Coast

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is just another reminder that we had paradise just a few hours away from the Southside of Birmingham, a paradise that has been slipping away for the last 30 years.

I recall: In very early childhood, my mother would pack me into the back seat of the car, and my parents would drive down to Ft. Walton late at night to a house on the bay. We went often so they could deep sea fish and relax. The beach getaway was a natural counterpart to the stiff, churchy, regular life-style in Alabama. Happy times those! The house was a free perk that came along with my father's job, so when he changed jobs, we had to go elsewhere. We started going to Destin.

My most favorite childhood memories are of the pure white beaches at Destin. Destin was completely undeveloped back in the early and mid 60s. There were only two motels that I remember, the Cornado and the Silver Sands. We always stayed at the Silver Sands.

I can recall in detail ocean swims in pure azure waters, softly lapping waves and purest white- crunchy sand that squeaked when you walked on it; the wondrous swimming pool that felt especially good at night- the lights in the pool, and the feeling of being suspended in that heavenly place or practicing dives over and over and trying the most daredevilish back dives, somersaults and even backwards somersaults! The shuffleboard court and the horseshoes court, the fresh seafood for dinner and the strange, strange music that I found on the radio- must have been New York cosmopolitan. Sometimes we drove over to Panama City and went to the amusement park or to play Goofy Golf.

I could go on, but I was going to write about the last road trip in the VW bus.

The VW bus was purchased in 1976 after I sold my camper truck, before I moved to Macon. I made some custom curtains for the bus and we were ready to roll! It was a perky red and white minibus camper- a little late on the curve but still a sought after sign of a bohemian lifestylye nonetheless. It had all the amenities- a little stove, a sink, a refrigerator, beds, and a port-0-potty.

We had a friend who owned a piece of property at Laguna Beach in Panama City and we were going to park the bus there and camp out. Panama City Beaches were gorgeous, but the area was more redneck than Riviera. There were lots of homes on the beach, along with small motels, assorted restaurants and bars, and lots of trashy touristy attractions.

I had been going to the gym for a while at that point, and I was at my most buff. I was hanging out in my bikini, just enjoying the atmosphere and setting up camp when we were ousted from the property. Evidently the rules are that you only stay inside a place, not out in the yard (the trailer was rented to someone else who did not want us to stay- imagine)

Ok, ok, so we moved on. It turned out to be even better though. We drove down to a park at St. Joe where there was no one in sight. The beach went on forever, and we found ourselves in perfect solitude amongst the dunes and sea oats. Thousands of sea shells washed up on the beach. The only drawback was the no-see-ums (tiny biting bugs that would eat you alive). We had to get inside the bus as soon as the sun started to go down to escape them. I felt so very much alive and in perfect peace there at St. Joe in the outdoors.

I must point out that we were in a 60s VW bus. You practically had to drive it like the Flintstones with your feet, using every muscle in your body to strain it forward. Happily we did not have to climb hills, so it ran along smoothly in its VW puddling way. It had a huge steering wheel and a long handled gear shift that was impossible to manage. It was always a roll of the dice everytime you shifted- kind of like a key that has to be tilted or jiggled in a certain way to get the door open. Riding or driving in one can't be described- it is a matter of feeling (and smelling). Ah, such sublime joy.

It is hard to recognize the areas that we used to visit on the Gulf now. I still am shocked when I see huge high rise condos and million dollar houses on the beach. There are a lot of pretty places like Seaside that want to look like they are not bespoiling the landscape. At least up until now the beaches have remained beautiful, in spite of erosion and construction.

I hope that the Gulf is not destroyed. It is still a bit of paradise just a few hours away from Birmingham.

Allman Brothers (and Sisters)

I was priviledged to go to the homecoming show at the Macon Auditorium to see the Allman Brothers perform for the extended family last Friday night. It was also the grand opening of the Allman Brothers museum- The Big House- in Macon, Georgia.

What does this have to do with Southside? Well, after my Southside days began to wither and wane, I met up with someone who asked me to come to Macon to visit. When I saw Macon- especially the area around Orange Street where I spent the first night in an antebellum mansion with 18 foot ceilings- I knew I had to move there, so I did. I arrived just past the peak of the brothers, and that is a whole 'nother story.

I was a fan of the Allman Brothers when I lived on the Southside. As I may have said before, the first time I heard them, I didn't know who they were but I knew they were fabulous. The music was instantly captivating. I never lost interest in them, and with the relatively recent addition of Derek Trucks to the band, they are still compelling.

Needless to say, the concert was great, the museum a must see for all Allman Brothers fans. The Big House has been restored, and the displays are lovely. In addition to being a musical hub, the museum will partner with local schools and other community folks to provide musical instruments, musical education, etc. to those who may not otherwise have the means to explore the arts.

I think that the lingering essence of what was happening in Macon in the early 70's was part of the attraction for me, albeit not on a conscious level. You can still feel the magic there. Really.

The Last Rafting Trip

I mentioned before that whitewater rafting was one of my activites in the mid-seventies. We knew no one doing this kind of thing, and had to search out everything we needed to do it- without the internet, of course! The raft had to be ordered from out West- from Montana I think. The huge gray rubber raft was like a creature from another time and place, far, far away.


In addition to the raft itself we had to find life jackets- they were beautiful, lightweight and bright yellow. They were nothing like the heavy orange canvas lifejackets I wore as a child on the lake. This was a new exciting time for outdoor gear. I used to ponder and ponder the REA catalogue as if I were studying a sacred text. The oars were also lightweight and nothing like the heavy wooden oars used for canoeing. At the time, plastic river sandals were hard to find, but we finally scored some. They were just right for protecting your feet, and the rubbery texture was essential for jamming your feet under the sides of the raft to help anchor you and keep you inside and seated. Then you could wedge yourself and use the leverage to increase the power of your stroke with the oar. I learned a most valuable lesson on life on that raft: "Keep your oars in the water". Think about it.

So off we went to try it out. We never attempted the Locust Fork of the river nearest to us in Birmingham, since it was only navigable after heavy spring rains. We went off to North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee to raft. I think we did Section 4 of the Chatooga River first. It was challenging- it took all day, and there were Class III and IV rapids. We had no guide, and no real idea of what was around each bend so to speak, but we were foolhardy and adventurous enough to go for it. The river in that section alternates between rapids and calmer stretches. Some areas have to be walked around. There was also a deadly rapid that had claimed many lives- sucking people down in a hole that held them until they drowned. It was off limits, and we abided by the rule. We made it down the Chatooga just fine, and at the end of the day paddled blissfully across the placid lake back to my truck/camper. Ah, what a feeling!

The Nantahala River is nice and easy compared to the Chatooga, so after getting that one under our belts we tried out the Ocoee. The Ocoee doesn't mess around. You get on the section of the river with the Class III's and IV's and you don't stop or even know what has hit you until you come out the other end. It was killer, and also didn't take as much time as the Chatooga. The Chatooga is nicer in that the scenery is gorgeous, and you are rafting through a wilderness area. The Ocoee runs next to the road a lot of the way, so it is different- but the ride is so wild you don't know or care if you are in the wilderness or in the middle of Manhattan- there's no time to think about it.

So we went back to the Ocoee a lot and took along unsuspecting friends to enjoy the experience with us. We needed a 4 person crew for each trip. We also camped out, enjoyed the outdoors and explored the areas nearby. We spent every available minute outdoors in those days.

The last trip was like any other. We brought along our Ananda Marga friend and crashed and plummeted down the river as usual. By this time we knew the river and where the big hidden rocks were and knew how to avoid them and also get the best ride. As we were nearing the Class III rapid near the bridge, we were coming up on a big hidden rock and for some reason we hit it too dead on. The front of the raft rose straight up and I remember thinking "this is gonna hurt". It threw all of us out backwards into the rapids, then hurled us down an 8 foot drop.

Oh yeah, another good thing about the Ocoee is that there were usually other people around- sometimes watching from the road, and sometimes fellow travelers who were also rafting, canoeing or kayaking.

I distinctly remember going under for the third time, thinking "this is it", when a kayaker yanked me up to the surface. I was happy to be alive, and then I looked back at the bridge and saw where my raft was- wrapped around the pylon with tons of water rushing at it, pinning it to the pylon. It was hopeless to try to get it, and we all knew right then and there that that was the end of the rafting trips.

We had done it, had mastered it, and the river had reclaimed the vessel for itself and we respected that.

Worbs just worbs

I started thinking about the expressions we used back in the 70's. They were far out man. It's a gas!


There were many ways to try to get across what was going on- like the term mind expansion! or that we were blown away, ripped, tripped out, tripping, freaking, freaked out, gorked, zonked, blasted, high, gassed, juiced, bombed, righteous, flying, turned on, rushing, out of sight, groovin, in the groove, digging it (can you dig it?), mellowed out, stoned, stoned out of your/my/our gourd(s), smashed, flipped out. You were either tuned in or tuned out, turned on or square, on the bus or off the bus. You made the scene, and were part of the happening, the teach-in, the love-in, the be-in, or the sit-in. You were blown away or maybe you just split. You might be ragged on or hassled by the unhip or by anyone or anything's bad vibes. Good vibrations, however, were a magnet. You could grok the vibes, man and just groove with it. The hipsters became hippies. The beatniks became beatles.

We snorted, toked, bogarted and stepped on various substances. It was cool to drop. It was also ok to drop out. It was a bad scene when someone got busted. Uncool to get caught holding. Some people were narcs!



The term psychedelic was invented to describe the effect of mind expanding drugs. It was easy to go over the edge- spaced out, freaked out,uptight, bummed or bummer, bad trip, rip off, and downer described the trip or tripper when it was not going so well.

We were in a new game with new bags to get into or out of. Hang ups were to be avoided, hanging out was what you did. You did your THING.



Words that referenced women were also curious. Old lady is my favorite- at once hip and quaintly precious. We were chics and birds, too. Not very liberating. Women were also heads, but that term was reserved as a reference to men only. Hmm. We wore granny dresses, Native American beads and love beads, macrame vests and bags, bell bottoms, India cloth shirts, embroidered clothes galore, and costumes of all imaginable types.



Things were hip, cool, rich, far out, freaky, kinky, geaky, weird, strange and free. Our minds were to be open- thus the term head. We tried to set our souls free. We let our hair grow and refused to wear bras or make up (didn't need it back then anyway). We raised our consciousness. We protested and marched. We took to the streets. Theatre and politics were one. Guerilla theatre! Bring it back!

We had the Gong Show- have you ever seen it? Compare to Idol. Says it all.

We had black lights and strobe lights. We painted everything Day-glo colors. We flashed the peace sign and posted the peace sign.

You know what is striking about the birth of all these new ways of expression? The only way to say love is still love. All you need, after all, is love.

Drop back again

Let's back up to around 1974. Setting: Crestline ultra-hip bohemian pad with assorted characters and misfits, intelligentsia and academics, dead-heads, pot-heads and pin-heads, and just plain Heads.

One of the nicest and most talented people I ever met was Howard Cruse, the cartoonist, who was from Birmingham (later moved to New York). Howard was just publishing his Barefootz comic books. He was a starving artist at the time, so I gave him $50.00 to do a large piece of cartoon art. It was splendid. It had a strange conglomerate creature looking rather bewildered at the top of an existential staircase that opened up into a universe of everything imaginable and then some. I managed to hold on to that maserpiece all these years until my son begged it from me to put on his wall in his own Southside apartment. That was the last it was seen. I guess it is only fitting that it has disappeared on the Southside. I can only hope that it is still hanging on the wall in some ultra-hip bohemian pad being admired by various characters and misfits that one always finds, even to this day, on the Southside of Birmingham.

From the Ashes

The timeline is a bit fuzzy now. Somehow, I have reported on 1973-75, and am now heading into 1976- 77. I am getting into the glory days (for me) of Southside.

I went back to work, and moved into a very nice one-bedroom apartment on Highland Avenue.

I remember that it had one black wall that I hung my large vanity lights on, with posters underneath. I put my 50's style chaise in front. It was kind of glamorous.

I was getting better physically and mentally. My own rehabilitation coincided with the rehabilitation nursing I was doing at the University of Alabama's Spain Rehabilitation Center. I worked on the spinal cord unit and found that I enjoyed the pace of rehab much better than the crisis-like atmosphere of intensive care. I was still in my early twenties so I could relate to the mostly young guys with injuries suffered as a result of car, motorcycle and diving accidents. They were the risk takers and the partiers that weren't so lucky. In those days, patients could stay at the hospital for months, so we had long term relationships with them and their families. It was all about teaching and creating independence- what a far cry from today's insensible medical "care".

One day near the hospital after work I ran into a friend's younger brother that used to come by the enclave in Crestline. He was working in the pharmacy at UAB as a tech. We started hanging out a lot and decided to go in together on a large apartment near one of the parks further down Highland Avenue. It was the top half of a big house, and it included a large attic that could be used as a room as well- later the site of many late night jam sessions.

In the back of the house was a large concrete courtyard that backed up to the side of the steep hill behind us. The hill was covered with gorgeous 60 foot tulip poplars. Sitting in the kitchen looking out the back of the apartment, all you saw was trees and a small cottage that housed an older man who had lived there for many years- he was a holdover from when his family took care of the house and grounds that we were renting. He had a hat collection and he rode a bicycle. He was very quaint but very quiet. We were respectful of him and his little house. God only knows what he thought about us and our raucous parties. I guess we were somewhat acceptable- we both had good jobs and were not dealing drugs!

The house was great, and just called out for parties and gatherings. We had them a lot. We would have double keggers- one would be out back in the courtyard and one on the first floor of the house. I can't remember any of the crowds of people that came to those parties other than my close friends. I had acquired so many record albums that we got several large heavy duty plastic tubs. I could stand the records up in the tubs, and then could easily flip through them to find what I was looking for. Unfortunately, when we had parties and guests over, they must have helped themselves to my records, because many went missing.

The place also had a claw foot bathtub. I loved getting in there and soaking.

Sometimes things were rather straightforward, sometimes things were crazy. In that one location, upstairs and downstairs, with all the people who were in and out, there were enough stories to fill several volumes. Two of the more endearing and interesting roommates we had were Ananda Marga devotees. One gave me a cookbook called Cooking for Consciousness. He saw more potential in me than I was showing at the time I am sure. He was raising his little girl, Angel, and she lived in the house, too. The next door neighbor worked in nuclear medicine but he knew everything about plants and had tons of them. It was a renaissance kind of culture and we were in the middle of it all.

I bought a Chevrolet pick-up truck with a camper top. We outfitted it with everything we could- carpet, curtains, and electrical outlet, speakers, a porta potty, and all our camping gear. We went camping and hiking everywhere within a days ride. I bought a raft and we started going white water rafting on the Chatooga, the Nantahala and the Ocoee Rivers. No guides, no lessons- we just started riding the rivers. We hiked the Appalachian trail.

Our dog JC (Joe Cool) was as much a Southsider as any of us. He was part collie, part border collie and part Gordon setter. He was beautiful and just the right size. He was so friendly and smart that he was genuinely loved by all, so he could go anywhere he wanted to. I imagine he fathered some Southside puppies, too.

We started having regular musical gatherings that would last for hours into the night. We would sing John Prine songs, Neil Young songs, Crosby Stills and Nash songs. Once a week we had craft night, and my girlfriends would come over and do macrame and needlework. See the twin peacocks shirt embroidery that I did during this time. I started listening to reggae music. We would put on Bob Marley or Toots and play their music all day. Katy Lied by Steely Dan and Sweet Forgiveness by Bonnie Raitt also stand out from that time.

Our neighborhood was a succession of parks so we could walk down on Sunday afternoon and play volleyball or play with the dog or go for a stroll. It was a relatively safe and pretty serene scene (discounting the night we had a party that got so wild that everyone started howling like wolves).

The trees, the people, the times were wonderful, but the times they were a-changin.

Mostly Madness - The L& N Cafe

I am sure there are people with unclouded memories who can say a lot more about the L&N- who owned it, who worked there, when it opened and closed. I keep hoping that these folks with find my blog and fill in some of the details someday. I will keep plugging away meanwhile with what few fragments I have remaining of a very fragmentary time of my life.

It is hard to describe a dreamscape. Having just seen Avatar, I realize that words on a page are hardly adequate. I am going to try.

Playing in the background are leftover riffs and phrases- Al Kooper, Staple Singers - and I am jamming with Electric Ladyland on the piccolo. The telephone and all the telephone wiring is flung into the frontyard. The sound of napalm bombings and cries of wounded soldiers and Vietnamese on the television provides the drone sound. I remember the exotic feel of the cassette tape spoken tour of American Samoa that John sent.

I tried to reconnect with some of my friends who had scattered, running from the craziness that I had fallen into. They had also descended into their own madness. Everyone was wasted. I think that is why the L&N was so appealing. It was the most "anything goes" place at the time. So I started going regularly with Caveman and friends. His household included his very smart artsy girlfriend, his roomate and my best drinking and hanging out buddy Bobby, some monkeys and other assorted creatures. He was actually an intelligent guy who went on to get several degrees-don't know where he is now. We payed Go and Mastermind and listened to Miles Davis and Charlie Parker when we weren't at the L&N.

At the L&N we would get a booth and start drinking huge mugs of beer that soon slopped all over the table. Each table had a large candle. We started a tradition of making melted wax art on the table top that was easily picked up and then plastered on the wall. After a while we could sit at our favorite booth with our own wax artwork surrounding us. That was carousing at its finest. How I drove after that is a miracle and something that still sends shivers down my spine. I was in a blackout most of the time. I do remember looking up at the bar one night just before closing, and a la Ugly Coyote, there were dancers up there, but all guys, who suddenly as a group- mooned us all.

I don't know why I quit going, or if the bar just closed. The curious thing is that I cannot recall a single memory of music from the L&N. It remains a dark and mysterious chapter in my life.

Creativity and Madness

During the strange time period I have just described, I became exposed to many ideas and issues. We interfaced with the Birmingham Reporter, later the Paperman. I wrote a music review of a Jerry Garcia album that was published. I started reading Chomsky and Foucault, became engrossed with semiotics and other exotic subjects.

I also started reading Southern Exposure and fell in love with its oral storytelling journalistic style-it was folk history combined with stories about the real players in power politics- an early version of Rachel Maddow. I read Global Reach and was introduced to globalization and its consequences.

After it got so intense that I quit my job, we left Birmingham to move to Victoria, British Columbia and got as far as San Francisco- at least my horizons were broadened somewhat. That was a crazy trip! We came back to Alabama when we ran out of money.

I am afraid that after this all ended so tragically, I did not know much what to do with myself. I started hanging out at the L&N Cafe downtown. That place should have been preserved as a museum. There never has nor never will be such a place as that again in Birmingham. I will describe it in detail in my next post.

Nexus

It was 1973 and all things seemed possible. I bought a Subaru that year, but first I have to tell you how I came to buy it.

It was maybe April, 1973. I was weeks from graduation from nursing school. I decided one evening to visit a friend and I brought along a new album to share and listen to. It was Fragile by Yes. A new horizon was barely visible and Yes music was perfect. This friend was someone I had met through my ex. He worked at the only computer business in Birmingham at the time, so I was impressed with his knowledge and cutting edge-iness. When he answered the door and I showed him the album, he pulled out the same album from his collection- Yes met Yes. It was an Event.

It turns out the this person I will call D was a frickin genious. The real thing. I could relate to him in some ways, but mostly I felt that I was learning at an accelerated rate. Remember the movie with John Travolta where he starts learning languages, learning everything, faster and faster. It was like that. The atmosphere was rarified with energy and real knowledge- not just philosophy and conjecture but actual stuff- mathematics, physics, biological sciences, architecture, music, acoustics, art, history, politics. He was talking about getting a personal computer. People did not have personal computers in 1973.

We ended up setting up house in Crestline Village. His parents owned the house. I finished nursing school and started work at the VA. For some reason he quit working and just stayed home. I made enough money to live on and then some, and it was fun to have someone take an interest in me. I was pretty much on my own in the world, not much in the way of family, so I enjoyed being taken in. I failed to notice that I was the only one working. I worked hard, and then had lots of time off to go on short trips, go to the beach, whatever. D held court all the time at the house in Crestline. We had all sorts of people dropping by to take part in the scene there and it was quite a scene. I was educated, but my folks were like the best of the hillbillies. D's family was well off, and well connected. I guess they tried to accept me- I was never treated unfairly by them at all. Everything was so loose back then, it was hard to know what the "norm" was.

We traded in D's van and I sold my Opal. I bought the Subaru. The subaru had an "airplane engine"- the newest thing. And it was lime green. Too bad we burned up the engine.

One of the most astonishing things I remember about that time was a trip to see the Grateful Dead in Indianapolis. We went with a strange group of unlikely people in a van. We all took some kind of acid and D drove without any problem. It did not seem to affect him at all. We were incapacitated for hours, some people worse than others- I mean really nonfunctional- and he just drove on, talked with me, in the most nonplussed fashion. It was like riding the jet stream. I knew then something was very different about D. It was a great trip, and the show in Indianapolis was fantastic in every way.

Initially then, everything was fun and very stimulating. I met some wonderful people who are still good friends today.

I will never forget our house. On the wall behind the sofa was a huge color graphic painted on the wall by one of D's friends who was an artist. We had orange plasic parson's tables with small orange plastic lights. At the time, it was ultra hip in a kind of futuristic way- not the hippy stuff I was used to. The house was in a small village so I could walk to the grocery store or library. It was a nice change from Southside, although most everyone who came over was living on Southside. We were just sightly removed and safe there, ie I did not feel like the police might bust in at any moment!

I made elaborate macrame plant holders and we bought huge lovely plants for the porch. It was the nicest place I had lived in thus far. We talked about everything, especially politics. I started reading the New York Review of Books.

We started a company to do software. We went to Atlanta and finally acquired something like a prototype of a computer. We could run it by connecting by modem to the main frame at the University. Just as that started to take off our partner the software writer moved to California. That was the end of the company.

Then other things started to shift. Our newspaper friend, J, moved to American Samoa to work for a paper there, and to have a South Sea adventure. D had started becoming more vociferous about various events. Of course we all were more and more concerned with the Vietnam war and the horrible things we saw on tv on a daily basis. It was a paranoid time, a time for paranoids. It was hard to separate things out.

The first strangeness was American Samoa. Coincidentally, Doonesbury was all about American Samoa at the same time- not before-at the same time that our friend arrived there. I cannot describe what was happening in my head then. It was all aswirl. The best analogy is Apocolypse Now! I was losing my footing in reality, and it was not from too many drugs. I rarely did anything at that point except smoke pot. Everything was too real- I did not need anything "recreational" to enhance what was going on.

So, to this day, I have no explanation for the things that happened in 1973 and 1974. I wish I did. From then on, things got crazier. There were more unexplained connections and coincidences. D was getting more manic. It became, and indeed was, just like A Beautiful Mind. None of us knew it, but D was descinding into Schizophrenia. It was tragic.

There was an intervention eventually, and more strange events that included Humphrey Osmond. What he was doing in Alabama at Bryce Hospital I will never understand. I survived somehow and had to remove myself. I moved back to Southside.

Early 1973

Life was happening fast. I could see the end of school coming. I was single and directionless, unless you count as a direction the direction of whatever fun was going on.

I did graduate in the spring, and took a job in the Intensive Care unit at the Veteran's Hospital in Birmingham. I was making big bucks, had 4 weeks of vacation yearly, and had nice benefits, none of which meant a thing to me. I was suprised to find that I was good at nursing, and did well on the job. I do have some funny stories about working there- and it was intense to say the least! The medical center is part of the Southside so I was right in my element.

We did everything as nurses at the VA- the more experienced nurses ran the place-instructing the docs (they were all Residents from the University of Alabama medical school) who were always just passing through. We had male "orderlies", there were no techs. We did our own respiratory therapy, were our own pharmacists, made up all the IV's, peritoneal dialysis, etc. We had people on drips with no IV pumps at all, ventilators, cardiac monitors- we did it all. We even had a lab on the unit for putting in transvenous pacemakers. Have you ever sat and twiddled a knob to capture a heartbeat or run a dopamine drip rate up and down to keep someone alive? I scare myself when I think of what I was doing at 21 years old.

I loved the nurses there- they were such great role models for me. They were confident, well educated and kind to me. Firm, and kind. That is, the nurses I worked with were kind- not the administrative nurses. They were a whole 'nother animal.

One story involves a young guy that was in a coma. One day he was on a gurney coming back from a test and as I was wheeling him back on the unit he opened his eyes, looked up at me and said "kiss me"! In my astonishment and youthful enthusiasm I gave him a kiss on the cheek. I was of course immediately called in and given a lecture, and written up. Another time I slept late. I was called within minutes of not showing up, again lectured up one side and down the other. Nurses don't just not show up. I learned that lesson really well that day. Another evening our usually horribly busy unit just emptied out. We had three stable patients. In those days they did not send nurses home if "overstaffed". The young doc that was on the unit said "let's play some cards". Next day we all got lectured and written up.

One day we had 4 Code Blues at the same time. Another evening, I was the lone nurse in the MICU with 9 patients, 2 orderlies and had to prepare and administer 4 peritoneal dialyses at the same time. If anyone reads this that knows what I am talking about- is that even humanly possible? In spite of all that, I did learn a lot there, and the things I got to do were exciting. I worked back and forth in the CCU and the MICU so I did get a lot of training that always served me well.

So I was working. And at the same time I guess I needed a little more excitement in my social life so I started seeing someone that I had met through my ex-husband that had piqued my curiosity. That is the beginning of a story of epic proportions. It will take a while to figure out how to tell that story. So much of it is ineffable. to be continued