GYPSY

I came to the Strip as a runaway in '67 at 15 years old.  I remember meeting a guy named Mike Ash

and crashed with him and a bunch of folks at an apartment on 15th Street I think it was.

I was  "located" by my family and had to go home, but my parents allowed me to return weekends and hang out, simply because they knew I would run away again if I had to.

 

The Catacombs was the place to be at that time. I became friends with the guys from Celestial Voluptuous Banana. Good times.

 

I remember a few years later walking down 14th Street and folks talking about going

to Woodstock.  Everybody thought at the time it was just going to be a few bands.

Nothing special...

 

My best experience?  The whole time period.  I basically spent the years from age

15 to 18 in the Midtown area.  We had a house over on Vedado Way we rented for

a while... I wish I could remember all the people who hung out there.  I remember

Buddy and Roger...  but, well, I must say, there were quite a few drug induced hazes

from that time period.  One of my good friends at the time was a gay guy called "Snowball".

He was my 1st encounter with a cross-dresser and I loved him totally!

 

I'd say the worse thing was the cops.  We were hasselled all the time!

I remember one confrontation behind the Catacombs and one cop attacking one of my friends.

I remember jumping on his back but running away-- and getting away amazingly

before back up came!  Getting things thrown at us from passing cars wasn't so great either

but hey, we were who we were and we were proud of it!  We were the Age of Aquarius!

 

Oh and panhandling was so much fun. (yeah right) I got more money one day saying

my dog was in the pound and I needed to get him out than I ever got when I said I

was hungry...  of course, now that I'm an adult I understand that mentality.

 

All the concerts at Piedmont Park were great. I saw the Allman Bros there.

I  had a couple of girlfriends were very close to them. The horror of the day

Duane died is still so very clear in my mind. "Little Linda" introduced me to

quite a few bands in those years.

 

I attended both Atlanta Pop Festivals. Not that I remember a whole lot about them.

I do remember popping some bad Mescaline and being sick as a dog while I listened

to my favorite man, Terry Reid doing his set...

 

Saw many wonderful -- and not so wonderful --bands at the Ballroom and Sports Arena. 

Matter of fact, I got my 1st and only tattoo after having a few too many Sloe Gin Fizzes at the Ballroom!

Oh and remember the Krystal on Peachtree?  Use to hang out there alot...

and the Clermont Hotel... stayed there a while.  Hard to believe they are just now

closing it down... it was a real dump back then!!

 

Every time I smell Patchouli oil, I think of the head shop on 8th Street!

 

The memories from that time are some of my best.  How I lived through it I'll never know.

How I had two beautiful and perfectly healthy children is a miracle!!

 

Known then as GYPSY because of the large hoop earrings I always wore.

I can truthfully say that if I could redo my life, I would repeat that part time and time again!

 

Thank you for listening,

Pat Rhodes Pursley

Re This Photo at Carter Tomassi’s site

Dave Hoffman writes-

The photo in Piedmont Park is me, Curtis Winfrey, Stoney Mae (Priscilla Star Hunnicutt) and I think thats Abe aka (Roger Wilson & Edward Brown), behind Curtis. (I’d love to hear from any of these friends from  The Zoo. Found Topher!)

I came to Atlanta in 1965 after graduating NYU film school. I had gotten a job with Georgia Public Television. I moved into a stable/garage on 14th street, behind the house rented by WRFG co-founder Harlan Joy. When the shack burned I stayed a month at Bill and Linda Fibben's further down on 14th street which became a center for counterculture activities. 

In 1967, having attended dozens of experimental film showings in New York I decided, with help from friends, to try to bring them to Atlanta. I rented the Art theater on 14th street for Friday and Saturday midnight screenings, booked films from the cinemateque in New York, and from October to January showed the works of Stan Brakage, Gregory Markopolus, Ed Emshwiller, Ken Jacobs, the Kuchar Brothers, Jack Smith, Adolpus Mekas, etc. It cost a $1.50 to attend and we sold out every night. (Local film distributors thought I had discovered a gold mine and wanted to know how to get in on the action.) 

One night I showed an hour documentary on Lenny Bruce- the other hour the Hampton Grease Band performed. Another night I showed the actively enjoyed trippy feature "Lovers of Teruel". The eclectic series ended when the backers, Diane Berger and Justice Randolph, realized that even though we were selling out, the costs of advertising and booking the films and the rental were losing us money. Alas, it was much fun while it lasted, and the theater itself soon followed us under. The attached is a poster that I stapled to trees on the Strip and the Emory campus. In 1969 I made a film for Vista featuring a buying cooperative in Cabbage Town for which I filmed the Fulton Cotton Mills in operation. I believe it is if not the only, certainly the last, film footage of the Mills up and running. The film is noteworthy also because of the interviewed Cabbagetown locals. Later, I established a film production company, Synapse Films, where I introduced numerous ex UGA art majors into the art of making money as grips in the motion picture industry. David Moscovitz

I was just sitting here on this drab Saturday thinking about some fond memories of my youth. Although I wasn't born in Atlanta, I've lived here since I was 5.  I've seen Atlanta grow and grow and grow.  I truly believe that air-conditioning was the ruination of the South. 

My hippie experience started when I was 15 and went on a family trip to San Francisco.  My aunt would take me down to the Haight-Ashbury look at the "hippies".  WOW! I felt such a connection with them.  One day while visiting my family, I struck out on my own and went down to Golden Gate Park.  They were having some sort of concert there.  The people were unlike any others that I had met in my whole young life. I spent all day there.  When I returned, my Mom had our car packed and they whisked me away.  I was changed for life.  From then on, I didn't care what people thought of me because I knew there were some people out there who were totally accepting. 

Fast forward to 1969.  I had heard rumblings of hippies down on P'tree St.  I had to check it out.  My girlfriend and I would make up stories to our parents. We dressed "respectably" in their eyes and have our "hippie" clothes in our trunk. We changed at a gas station and we would head straight for the strip.  I spent many wonderful afternoons and nights there.  I remember getting thrown out of the Waffle House on 14th St. just for the way we were dressed. 

I remember the riot in the Park, the overturned police car and the big clash on the baseball field between the "freaks" and the cops.  When I went home that evening it was on the news and I was in a panic that my parents would see me there.  My Mom watched and said "see what could happen to you if you went down there".  I just kinda smiled.  I saw Canned Heat at the Sports Arena, The Allman Brother, Alice Cooper, The James Gang and many others at the Municipal Auditorium. Grand Funk Railroad, Ted Nugent at the Agora Ballroom.I love the "strip" and all the things that went along with it.  Met my first lover there. 

I felt that things started to go bad around 1971 or 1972.  You couldn't trust just anyone anymore. The park became dangerous after dark.  You had to watch out for thieves. It just wasn't the same anymore.  But it was so much fun while it lasted.  I miss it.- Deborah Taylor

I have MANY fond memories of the Strip. I used to hang out with my friend and brother "Mad Dog"(alias Ruben Crawford). One memory that surfaces is when I used to go up on a hill in Piemont Park and get one hell of a "shotgun" from Pops or High Pockets! If you could take one of those powerful shotguns you did good not to pass out! Another memory is when the Atlanta Cops hit the strip with a vengence. They had that store they took over and called it the "Pig Pen". I remember they enacted the "Street Walking Ordinance". If you  stood in one place too long you got busted! There was a time when we had a little camp in PIedmont Park. You went down that concrete ditch to the end and up the hill. Mad Dog and I used to stay there. it got busted up by the cops, but was fun for a while. I almost drowned once in Piedmont Park Lake. We tripped all nite and for some reason everyone jumped into the lake. I ran out of gas and started drowning. I was embarrassed to ask for help as stupid as it was. I saw a piece of wood and grabbed it. That piece of wood save my ass! Once I was walkiing with little guy called Mouse. We had just gotten some mad dog 20/20 and were headed back to out camp. Well the cops pulled up, they wanted Mouse real bad. He took off into the Lake! I stood there with 2 bottles of wine in my hand like a dumbass. Well the cops busted me for the beer and wine ordinance. I spent the nite in jail. While they were trying to get Mouse I sat in the squad car and ate some window pane I had in my pocket! Mouse was never caught, he swam around in the dark cussing them out big time. I tripped in jail all nite long in the drunk tank. But I found several other "brothers" there as well. We watched out for each other thru the nite. I got out the next day and went back to the strip. I saw Mouse and he felt so bad about me getting busted, from that day on, "the buzz was free!" Anytime I saw him after that he would trun me on to the latest acid. So there are some fond memories for you from me! I got many more, but have to go for now.                                                                                                                                                                                                        Peace and Love,                                                                                                                                                                                             Rod Tweedell

I volunteered at the Community Crisis Center on the Strip, back in the day.  Mostly we held hands with folks who'd taken something bad (we called it "talking them down"), answered the phone and generally tried to serve our subculture (not that we thought of it that way at the time).

 

One night around midnight, I left the Center through its back door, walking toward my MG Midget to go home, when I noticed an odd shadow.  I hollered out, "Hey! You! Behind the tree!"  A large and imposing man stepped out to say, "Who, me?"

 

"Yes!  Can you  help me?  It's late and I'm a little scared that the boogie man might get me.  Could you please walk me to my car?"

 

And so he did.  And ordered me to lock my door.  And sternly announced, "Don't ever do that again:  I AM the boogie-man."

 

To which I simply replied, "Yeah, I knew that."

 

I learned that night that folks tend to live up to what you expect from them.

 

I hitched innocently and safely all over the country, encountering people who are my friends to this day.  My late lamented godchild once remarked that he wished he'd been born in our time, it was much better then.  He was right.

 

Kent State changed everything.  We were gonna change the world, but hell, they started shooting at us!  But we did make a difference:  I recently participated in the Texas Tea Party.  Because of us, people know that you can come together peacefully for change.

 

In a sad way I'm glad to have mourned JFK, his brother, and Dr. King.  Talk about changing the world!  I think we have lived in the best of times.  I have buried way too many people, but oddly have no regrets.

 

We made a difference.  What a legacy!

 

~Kate