Category Archives: Community

Phooey!

time7-5-68phoo Why is the word Phooey associated with segregationist governor Lester Maddox?

Phooey was Maddox’s all purpose cuss word.  Remember Lester Maddox had been elected Governor because he was a segregationist. He was nationally known for having used axe handles, ‘Pickrick Toothpicks’, to threaten any “colored” people who would come to his restaurant. His other talent was riding a bicycle backwards in parades. Really. Those ‘talents’ got him elected Georgia governor.

Maddox leading Ga. into the past
Maddox leading Ga. into the past

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Lester made Georgia a national joke, so

some had fun with it.maddox2

 A musical comedy about Maddox made it to Broadway.

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Then Lester moved from the Ansley Park Governor’s Mansion into the new Governor’s palace  just finished in Buckhead.droppedImage_2

 

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phooey017“The guest list of 400 includes140 negroes”.!! Actually the chicken came from Pascals which fed the Civil Rights leaders, not Maddox’s Pickrick.

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Mother David legend

Atlanta Gazette Nov. 12, 1978 vol. 5 # 11, pg. 8 

excerpt from The Catacombs is Reborn!

…A major factor in the beginning of the end [of The Catacombs] was the arrest of Mother David.  According to many, he was framed for allegedly selling drugs to a minor, getting him a five-year sentence in prison. Many people maintain that he was not locked up because of drug dealings, but because he was about to expose new Information on the assassination of John F Kennedy.

According to legend. Mother David came into possession of documents supporting Dallas District Attorney Jim Garrison’s prosecution of Clay Shaw on conspiracy charges in connection with the Kennedy shooting. Mother David supposedly got the papers from someone who picked up a briefcase belonging to a federal agent who was shot in the Catacombs parking lot one night. Mother David bought a Harris- Seybold-Potter Co, offset printer to reproduce the documents. Coincidently—or purposely according to legend—Mother David was arrested and jailed on the drug charge before he was able to raise the money to convert the World War II surplus map-making machine into a press.

The club was then taken over by a man who ran the club at a gross of what he claimed to be $100.000 on coffee, cokes and cheese plates. Much of the money was used to get people out of jail and help reestablish others.

In late ’68 the Catacombs property. owned by Howard Massell. was purchased by Selig Realtors. Selig decided the club was not befitting of their image, claimed the basement lease between Massell and the leasee invalid, and closed a chapter in Atlanta history.

Now. a decade later. Mother David, after a brief visit to Atlanta following his release from prison, has completely vanished. ..

Mother David convicted

Mother David Convicted!

Great Speckled Bird vol. 1 #4 April 26, 1968 

CONVICTED

ATLANTA, Monday, April 22 — Fulton County Courthouse, local hall of justice. David Braden, 30 years old, is to be tried this morning on charges of selling marijuana to a minor—the possible penalty, life imprisonment.

The elevator up. Lawyers, talking, joking about affairs of court. “Well, what’d you get for that woman? ” “Oh, she got off with eight years.” I marvel at the efficiency of Justice.

Fulton Superior Court. “ALL RISE.” All-American conditioned reflex, I rise. Enter Judge Emeritus Boy kin, known by some as a “hanging” judge. Defender of State, Solicitor Roger Thompson, hulks over his desk, ready for prosecution. The court seems anxious to get Braden, and dispenses quickly with other cases, mostly blacks. (“Boy, come over here.”) Black men are lead out chained in parallel.

A sense of inevitability seeps into the courtroom as Thompson reveals his talents and Judge Boykin renders his justice. (I set up counter court in my mind. Decide absolutely that Court is on trial, not Braden.)

Richard Koren, Braden’s lawyer, returns a special plea of insanity. The trial then is to determine whether Braden is mentally competent to aid his attorney in preparing a case. Selection of jury. Thompson systematically eliminates all blacks. He strikes anyone with more than Readers Digest experience with psychology. Braden sits oblivious ; to the trial, a slight bitter smile punctuated by a flicker when he recognizes the few friends who show.

Braden’s plea for insanity moves quickly. Dr. Wyatt, psychiatrist for the County Lunacy Commission, and Dr. Wiener, Georgia State psychologist, testify at length on Braden’s incapacity to aid his attorney. Korem testifies. Then three deputy sheriffs conclude, from their two to five minute observations of the prisoner, that Braden is perfectly normal.

Prosecutor Thompson moves into his summation. He reminds one of a slick small town car dealer, clinching a sale un a lemon. “Of course this man is too sophisticated for us Georgia rednecks. And now, you, the jury, representing the moral atmosphere of the community, and the welfare of our kids …” In five minutes the jury returns a verdict against insanity. Braden will be tried.

Tuesday morning. Braden attempted suicide the night before. Korem decides that Braden should try the leniency of the court, Braden pleads guilty. The court reduces the charge to possession. Sentence; seven year’s imprisonment. For possession of marijuana.

David Braden has been in solitary confinement in the county jail under$25,000 bond since March 12,1968 when he was indicted. I don’t recognize him—the pictures I have seen show him with a satanic intense smile, an actor. Now he sits, ashen, in pinstripe suit, unresponsive to the court.

Braden came to Atlanta in 1962 after completing most of a college education. He worked at the Atlanta Art School for a while. Since then he has set up several coffee houses. In 1966 he started an art gallery, the Mandorla. In the summer of 1967, Braden opened the Catacombs, originally a quiet coffee house.

When the young people started flowing in great numbers into the Fourteenth Street area, Braden fell into the role of provider for a large number. Hence his title, “Mother.” Then the media discovered him and set him up as the leader of the “hippy” colony. Now the court was condemning him as a “hippy.” ^

Braden had a particular charm that attracted many people while many disliked him intensely. However, the fact that Braden faced life imprisonment made his personal eccentricities seem irrelevant. The Mary Worth minds of the court seemed to see David’s elimination as the beginning of the destruction of the “hippy colony,” the threat to their “moral order.”

Braden has been harassed frequently by the police since 1962. On November 3,1967, he was arrested on the charge of possession of narcotics and on January 30,1968 he was given a one year suspended sentence.

On March 12, Braden was indicted by the grand jury for selling to a minor, 19yearold Chip Burson. According to newspaper accounts, “concerned parents” had forced the indictment. The Solicitor said at that time that “narcotics” seized in a January marijuana bust were allegedly purchased from Braden.

Four persons from the January 23 bust were listed as State’s witnesses, including Chip Burson. Since it was widely known that Burson sold marijuana, many wondered why Burson would have bought from Braden. It is also rumored that Burson was in New York on the date of the alleged sale, though witnesses to that effect were unavailable. There is no record of any court action thus far on Burson’s possession charges of January 23.

Braden’s lawyer Korem had talked to many people who said that Burson sold marijuana, but no one was willing to risk testifying to help Braden. Not more than a handful contributed to defense funds. Korem, with no funds and only a week to prepare, had virtually no case.

Braden was mentally unable to deal with the trial. Friends had received confused disconjuncted letters with no mention of his case. Dr. Wiener, psychologist at Georgia State, had visited David and found him severely depressed and unable to cope with the consequences of his trial.

Braden’s case is uncertain. Pending substantial contributions to a defense fund, Braden will probably spend at least 23 years in jail or hospitals. If he is certified for psychiatric treatment, there is no guarantee that he will not stay longer at Milledgeville.

The Georgia Uniform Narcotics Act of 1967 classifies marijuana with “addictive narcotic drugs” such as heroin, opium, cocaine. A first offense for selling marijuana can receive a minimum of ten years and a maximum of life. The death penalty is possible for a second offense.

Federal agencies and other established institutions have begun to receive scientific information concerning the non-addictive characteristics of marijuana. February Play boy reports that a paper circulating in the Health, Education and Welfare Department indicates that “so far as an objective analysis of the problem is possible, to that degree one can only conclude that the case against marijuana does not hold good.”

Dr. James Goddard, chief of the Food and Drug Ad ministration, recently stated that marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol. Many who have used marijuana, claim that, in fact, marijuana is much less harmful to one’s health.

The guilt rests not with David Braden, but rather with a puritanical community and a brutal, ill-informed law. —jim gwin

Oh, these Places I Remember

The Twelth Gate

Twin Mansions and French Embassies on 14th

The Bird House

Mary Mac’s Tearoom

19790617 - ATLANTA, GA -- Exterior of the popular Atlanta landmark Mary Mac's Tea Room on Ponce de Leon Avenue. (CHERYL BRAY/AJC staff) 1979
19790617 – ATLANTA, GA — Exterior of the popular Atlanta landmark Mary Mac’s Tea Room on Ponce de Leon Avenue. (CHERYL BRAY/AJC staff) 1979

Atlantis Rising

Laundromat Crafts Co-Op shapeimage_4

Chili Dog Charlie’s

Tom Jones Fish&Chips

Bowery

Roxy’s Deli

Eng’s Kitchen

The Dump on Peachtree (Maragaret Mitchell House)

American Lunch

Sexy Sadie’s

Gay’s Men Shop

Pig Pen on Peachtree at 10th

Mother’s Music

“The Poster Hut” on Cheshire Bridge

Club Centaur

!0th St Art

Stein Club

Funochios

Backstreet

Palinurus Gallery, 27 15th st

Community Crisis Center. pg1

If you a had a bad trip or sought advice at the Community Center, you probably were handed this informative booklet.  Knowing it was intended for a people with first hand knowledge, the booklet collected the best facts AS KNOWN AT THAT TIME!  booklet courtesy of Diane Hughes

drug-usage pdf download

 

 

Inman Park Ma Hull’s

Little Five Points

People’s Place

The Zoo on 8th at Penn

The Fox Theatre

The Morning Glory Seed Head Shop

Onion Dome

Merry-Go-Round

Comes the Sun

The Bistro

Bottom of the Barrel

The Bridge

Tropical Fruit Jungle on Ponce

19790617 - ATLANTA, GA -- The Tropical Grove Fruit Stand at 421 Ponce de Leon Avenue. (CHERYL BRAY/AJC staff) 1979
19790617 – ATLANTA, GA — The Tropical Grove Fruit Stand at 421 Ponce de Leon Avenue. (CHERYL BRAY/AJC staff) 1979

Mother’s Tire Company

Mother’s Music

Municipal Auditorium

Emory Village Ed Greene’s – Morningstar Inn – Eat Your Vegetables-  Downstairs headshop

Decatur – Clarke’s Music

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The Electric Eye

Great Southeast Music Hall

Electric Ballroom

The Catacombs

Richard’s was on Monroe approximately where Landmark Theater sits.    richardsad2       Little Feat at Richard’s Feb 1973 free download

The Sports Arena was a wrestling arena where some amazing party / concerts were held.

 

What’d I miss?

Sports Arena

sportsarenaelvis55ATLANTA, GA – WARREN ARENA

Located at 310 Chester Avenue, it appears to have been owned by L.C. Warren.  He rented it to promoter Tom McCarthy in the 1930s, who began referring to the building as the Sports Arena.  It was used for wrestling again during the 1950s by various promoters, but in the 1960s, Paul Jones bought it and began using it when his cards conflicted with events scheduled at the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium.  Murray Silver began holding concerts. By the 1980s, the building had been demolished. 

 

 

The Dead held a Working man's dance party
The Dead held a Working man’s dance party 

The community turned out to dance in circles and twirl as the air grew smokey and dense.

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Cheerful lines anticipate a Sunday afternoon and night with The Hampton Grease Band, The Allman Brother’s band, and The Grateful Dead – for $3.

Sports Arena stage used the wrestling ring platform
Sports Arena stage

 

 

 

The stage used the wrestling ring platform.

 

Thanks to Dennis Eavenson for this picture of The Hampton Grease Band  at the Sports Arena.

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Photo by Bill Fibben

Great Speckled Bird V. 3 No. 20 (May 18, 1970) pg. 7

HAMPTON TWICE If you were one of the few people who wasn’t at the Sports Arena Sunday afternoon for the Grateful Dead concert, you’ve probably heard by now just what went down. Frankly, this was one of the greatest musical / sensual experiences the Atlanta hip community has ever had, rivalled only by another Dead offering in Piedmont Park after last year’s Atlanta pop festival. Except that this year’s big blow-out had more to do with where we are at now. Imagine it: THE HAMPTON GREASE BAND, forever associated with Atlanta/Piedmont Park/Twelfth Gate/Sports Arena/ everywhere we have needed their weird, hilarious brand of heavy Rock: THE GRATEFUL DEAD, the West Coast Rock band most closely associated with the spirit of community, a band that has most consistently served the needs of the people and helped to raise their political and sensual consciousness, evoker of high-powered acid and swirling colors and hair, good times and free music in the streets and parks from the old days of the Haight (before HARD DRUGS and media- induced EGO TRIPPING), come like Pied Pipers to our own Piedmont Park to spread the word of what community can mean, back again but this time with another Rock group to tie together the experiences of West and South – THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND, the folks who took a lot of the hype and bullshit out of “white blues” and put a lot of their own grace and dignity and soul into the music, more in love with Atlanta than ever after successful excursions into Fillmore territory, East and West, after a beautiful album of some of their best of last year (a new one waits around the corner and it’ll be better, just you watch), back in Atlanta for an unannounced jam with the Dead … And who here in Atlanta will ever be the same? What we felt (and what other sense could you invoke to turn people on to the event?), inside and out, head and body, was the power and beauty of the many strains of our own community coming together, after another year of paying dues and fucking up, coming together in a few precious, explosive hours of what, for want of a better term, we will call Ecstasy!

SOME OF THE NICEST THINGS OF ALL: a big crowd – most of us back together again after a series of bummers No chairs on the dance floor No reserved seats Pigs that you could count on the fingers of one hand and still have some fingers left Total absence of uptightness and Atlanta paranoia Down home, sweaty, funky, sleazy, good ole Atlanta Sports Arena where nobody gets busted Announcement by Ed Shane that the Allman Brothers were present and would jam with the Grateful Dead Outasight stage built by community people for the Community Benefit Community staffed stage crew New material by the Hampton Grease Band, including more trumpet than usual, and probably the strangest setting for “Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey” we can imagine “Evans,” as usual, bringing down the house – Jerry and Holbrook (drums and bass guitar) leading the group in a building Spanish progression while Hampton shouts “Evans! Evans! Evans!” Jerry Fields doing some  singing The Allman Brothers lending their equipment to replace the Dead equipment left behind in Boston by the airline Dope and more dope and very good dope, too Sam Cutler, former stage manager for the Rolling Stones (he is one of the individuals that the Stones and everybody else involved in the Altamont disaster, including you and me, are singling out to put the blame on instead of recognizing what Capitalism and Ego-tripping can do to crush the world we are trying to build, serving as stage manager for the Dead Murray Silver, turned on to Kent State, and hinting that this “may be my last concert”, shouting “Power to the People!” ACLU lawyers arid freaks playing pickupsticks on the floor during breaks Instant replay of the Atlanta International Frisbee Contest Red fists on strike T-shirts worn by Sam Cutler and Dead stage crew The music of the Grateful Dead Vibrations that kept building and building until we moved on up to a whole other level Jerry Garcia’s twanging, singing guitar, and the look on his face, and on the faces of the rest of the Dead as total communication between music and people was established “Mama Tried” by Merle Haggard, one of the first straight C & W songs to be picked up on by Rocklovers The first appearances on stage of Duane, Greg, Berry Oakley and Butch Trucks. The first soaring blue notes played by Duane Allman – and what it did to the crowd; the duo riffs he played with Garcia and how the jam turned on the musicians participating in it Murray Silver in the crowd, wearing on his head a wreath of green, looking like a Bacchus figure from the Satyricon An incredible, unbelievable, destroying Southern hymn played by The Grateful Dead and the Allman Bro-thers Band: “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” Most accurate theme of what was happening Brief burst of terror at the very end of the music as a firecracker exploded with an incredibly loud BAM!, a bright flash, and a cloud of smoke a perfect audile exclamation mark for this most profound musical/community statement at the Sports Arena.      miller francis, jr.

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Check out Beefheart at the Sports arena for another party. Also McGrease.

sportsarenaclosingHey , Thought that this might be something that you were interested in seeing. This was the only job that we played. I had hepatitis at the time of the gig and was bedridden for the next two months. The band was comprised of John Ivey (b), John Fristoe (g, vocals), Wayne Logiudice (rhythm g, vocals) and me. Dana Douglas sang with the band also when Wayne had left. We played at the River House (where John I, John Fristoe, and Wayne Mcnatt and I  were living) constantly, but no gigs. Mostly for free for the dope dealers. When the Hog Farm was in Atlanta after the first pop festival, they parked their bus at the River House. This was  the time that they promoted the first mini pop that was held in Piedmont Park. Berry Oakley and Dickey Betts were frequent visitors. Two young men who later became the Bellamy Brothers were there often as well.  Many bands used to come out and play or rehearse there, B J Royal, Will Boulware and Booger, Hydra, Spencer Kirkpatrick, Bethlehem Asylum, Sweet Younguns et al.

A couple of notes on the Sports Arena gig. Fleetwood Mac was the loudest band that I had ever heard. Even louder that sitting next to the speakers at the Dallas or Atlanta Pop Festivals. I think that all of the River People were tripping on some unknown substance(s) during the performance. I don’t remember it very well, other than just being real sick. Wayne L said he looked at me and I was completely green.
Ricky Bear

Emory Village

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Steve Abbott cartoon ad

Many of The Great Speckled Bird’s founders met at Emory. The gathering place of Emory’s counter culture, and a center of life around Emory was the MorningStar Inn, formerly Ed Greene’s . Many Anti-War protests gathered here before or after actions.

Beneath it was Downstairs, a small head shop run by Elaine and Drew, friends from Oxford. Drew and Elaine were high school lovers from different sides of the tracks. Drew followed her to Oxford and freak students gave him places to stay and let him eat on unused meal tickets. The administration took a while to figure out Drew was a working man who just spent the evenings at Oxford. By that time we had all moved on.

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If anyone knows how to reach Elaine or Drew, please tell them to get in touch.

The Laundromat Co-Op

the Laundromat Co-op. 

There were a wide variety of crafts. I made handwrought jewelry and silk screened t-shirts. Patti made embroidered jean dresses. They also worked with the Atlanta Art Institute to offer hippies classes in marketable crafts such as silk- screening and jewelry-making. Craftspeople sold what they made through the store.  The Laundromat opened to provide a non-profit outlet for community-produced goods. About twenty people opened the Laundromat as a cooperative in which all decisions would be made together. Community residents could sell their wares through the Laundromat with only a 10% charge for overhead.

In a small world detail, Shar, formerly Charlotte, a woman I had dated in high school became the Laundromat store manager! Two people from a small town in the big city.

Community Center opens

Early in November a private social service agency, the Community Council of Atlanta, announced that it had received funds to pay the rent on a Community Center for six months. A community meeting was called. Kids. Bird people. Twelfth Gate folks, Harkey Klinefelter from the Street Ministry, and Universal Life Church ministers came together to form the Midtown Alliance to plan the community center. Late in December the center opened on Juniper Street providing a home for the free clinic, a place to took for crash sites, help with legal problems and jobs. For the first time lots of kids were in the community over the winter and the community center helped them stay.

Ma Hull’s in Inman Park

mahull1The first reason most people in Atlanta had to visit Inman Park during the 70s was to eat at Ma Hull’s Boarding House was across from where the Marta station in Inman Park is now. the building still exists, but it is not the same.

Seal Place remembers Ma Hull

The Great Speckled Bird  Jan 7, 1974 Vol. 7 #1 pg. 19

A Conversation With Ma Hull 

She came to Atlanta from Ashland, Alabama, with her husband Ross, back in the early years of the Depression. She raised nine children and now has “30 some-Odd” grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Over the years she lived in different sections of Atlanta and worked in factories and kitchens to eke out a living for herself and her family.

Around 1958 she began taking in boarders and six years ago moved her household to the present location at the corner of Edgewood Avenue and Hurt Street in Inman Park.

Two years ago her boarders began bringing their friends home to supper, and word-of-mouth advertising did the rest. Friends came, then friends of friends, and today Ma Hull is something of a legend as she continues to serve up an incredible variety of down home Southern cooking: ham, ribs, roast, chicken, string beans, yams, butter beans, dressing, greens, casseroles, banana pudding, cheese cake, pies, cakes, corn bread, biscuits and iced tea.

mahull2Matching the variety of food is the variety of people: working families, students, long-hairs, uniformed policemen, elderly people in the neighborhood.

Participating in the following conversation with Mrs. Hull were Bill, a long-time boarder with Mrs. Hull, Kathleen, who recently began working there, and Ross Hull, her husband, who alternately sang hymns, cracked jokes, and joined in the conversation while snapping a bushel of string beans during the interview.

BIRD: I suppose you ‘re doing this as much because you like to do it as to make money.

MRS. HULL: I don’t make no money. We just have a living place to stay. As far as making our dime, we do not. We just have a shelter over our head. I cannot hold down a job with this heart trouble and sugar diabetes, ’cause it’s all I can do to breathe sometimes,  just ordinary breathing. And he can’t work, so that’s it.

I just don’t know if I can keep it up much longer. Now I’m go’n tell you, I worked, all the week.

Paid the ones that helped me, paid for my groceries. I didn’t have anything left. Well, I just can’t sit here and not have a dime.

BIRD: How long have you been doing this?

MRS. HULL: I’ve been keeping boarders for 16 years—not, you know, a crowd. I’ve got three that’s just like the family. They’ve stayed with me for 16 years. And then we moved over here six year ago. Then I took in others. I’ve had six in this house, maybe seven. (It was) a pretty fair living until things went up so high.

BIRD: You’ve been serving meals all that time?

MRS. HULL: No, just about two years. I made it real well with the boarders, then I got where I didn’t have—they wasn’t any here. You say anything to ’em about drinking and they’ll leave. And I’ve done had one to put me in the hospital and cost me $3,369.

BIRD: What did he do?

MRS. HULL: Well. he caused me to have a heart attack-he was drunk-showing out. And the doctor said I just could not have no excitement. And every one of ’em knows it. So, it’s a hard ole life to go, ’cause you know this day and time there’s not many people you see that don’t drink, men and women.

I just can’t stand it. My husband was the biggest drunkard you ever seen until three year ago. And I went through a livin’ hell with it. And he froze down here in a car. His feet busted open. He ain’t had a shoe on his feet in almost three years—for liquor. I cannot stand it.

BIRD: Just seen too much of what it can do?

MRS. HULL: That’s right. It’ll tear your home up. It’ll cause you to tote cussin’s. It’ll cause you to do peculiar things you never in this world thought about. I just haven’t got any use for it.

ROSS (MR. HULL): . . . stringing beans, that’s all I do.

MRS..HULL: Well, I think when you marry you’re supposed to not be studying nobody else.

ROSS: I ain’t studying nobody.

MRS. HULL: Well you just then said you did, didn’t ya?

KATHLEEN: Are y’all fightin’ again? What’d she say?

ROSS: I’m afraid to talk now.

KATHLEEN: You’re afraid to talk?

ROSS: H’mmm.

MRS. HULL: They ain’t none of ’em in this house got me a’scared. I never seen but one man I was scared of. We lived on Washington Street. He came in and boarded one week. I made him move. He had to stoop down to get in at the door. And he had a voice, I’m go’n tell you what’s the truth, now you think I’m telling you a story, but it’d shake the floor. He didn’t talk normal like nobody, and I was natural born a-scared of him. When that week was up I said, “Find you a place to move.”

BIRD: Mrs. Hull, what do you think about all the changes going on in this neighborhood?

MRS. HULL: I think it’s nice. Now you take when we come here, like the fourth house down, it just looked like a nothing. You couldn’t walk the sidewalks or yards, and now it’s beautiful.

BIRD: They ‘re threatening to put a freeway in right over here (the 1-485 corridor is right across Hurt Street from the Hull’s house.)

MRS. HULL: Well they not go’n do it. They gettin’ along enough now. We been here six years and that’s been tore down and they ain’t done nothin’ and they not going to. 1 wish they’d put up a shopping center or something.

KATHLEEN: How come?

MRS. HULL: ‘Cause.

KATHLEEN: ‘Cause why?

MRS. HULL: Simply because!

KATHLEEN: Haven’t you heard that song about tear down the trees and build up a parking lot? That’s what you sound like.

MRS. HULL: I don’t care. I’d rather they was a shopping center over there than like it is.

BIRD: A lot of the houses in Inman Park have been sold and re-sold, and the prices are rising. How has this affected your situation here?

MRS. HULL: I’d just love to know. I guess this one’ll be sold again. In the last two years it’s been sold I don’t know how many times.

BIRD: And ya’ll have just stayed on here getting different landlords? ,

MRS. HULL: Different men to come collect the rent and different men to come collect the rent and. .. (Ross interrupts)

ROSS: And they say stay on, stay on, and I ask em if they want us to move. No, we don’t want you to move—yet.

MRS. HULL: I’d like to have it painted inside but I can’t get nobody to paint it, and I can’t do it myself.

BIRD: The landlord won’t fix it up?

MRS. HULL: Well, they’ve sold it again. Haas has it now. I believe that’s his name, but he fixed the bathroom upstairs and this little place in the kitchen. I look to get up in the morning to find my Frigidaire sittin’ down in the basement, the floor’s so bad. So you don’t know what to do.

ROSS: (singing)? What a friend we have in Jesus

MRS. HULL: Now, when I was in pretty fair health I enjoyed it (cooking meals), but now I just got to where it don’t make no difference to me if I do or if I don’t. Nothing in my house don’t mean nothing to me. It’s just that I’m sick. I can’t do what I want to do. I can’t keep my house like I want to keep it.

BILL: You can’t when you get old! You can’t stay young all your life!

MRS. HULL: I ain’t all that old! I’m just 65, that ain’t old! Lord, my Momma is 80-some-odd years old and gets about, and Ross’ Momma is 110 years old, and if she could see, she could walk all over me and stomp me!

BILL: I bet your Momma hadn’t done the work you done either.

MRS. HULL: No, Momma ain’t never had to work. I worked all my life.

My daddy had three or four families of colored people that done the work. Us girls hit it, though, now don’t you think we didn’t. There was five of us, and we went to that field from sunup to sundown.

KATHLEEN: How did you and Ross meet?

MRS. HULL: Well, he was on a saw mill camp. My dad built a… what do you call it, Ross. Those boilers?

ROSS: Dutch oven, dutch oven. Mother, dutch oven, dutch oven.

MRS. HULL: And Ross met him, he come up there buying watermelons, and my Dad went back down there and done some work, and Ross got a place and boarded up there and we run away and got married.

BIRD: You eloped!

MRS. HULL: Yeah. Whew! They said my Momma was toppin’ them trees. (Laughter)

BILL: I run away and got married, and I wish I had kepa running, too. – –

MRS. HULL: She (Mama) went off that morning, – wasn’t nobody there, Papa went somewhere. So, we left. Ross had to go back and face the battle, though. He had to carry the car back. A man and woman went with us, they said Momma was down there toppin’ them trees when dark come and I hadn’t come home. See, it just worked so good.

We stayed at his Daddy’s a week and then I went back home to get my clothes. I never will forget what my Daddy said. He said, “You played hell.”

I’ve had a rugged ole life, I’m tellin’ ya. I’ve worked like a dog. 1 raised my family here in Georgia. I had seven girls and two boys. And I’m thankful I can sit here and say that I never went to jail and got nary one of my children out of jail, and I’ve never had nary a one of ’em in trouble. And they ain’t many mothers can say that.

BIRD: Mrs. Hull, what is your first name?

MRS. HULL: Vernon.

BIRD: Vernon. Oh, Vernon is your name? I thought maybe his name was Vernon Ross or something.

MRS. HULL: No, his name’s Ross. My name is Vernon. I worked in a meat packing house one time for about six months where they cut meat, you know? Big Boss come in there one Friday giving out checks. He said, “You’re a woman drawing a man’s pay!” I said, “Well, my God, you know’d I was a woman. I wear woman’s clothes all the time!” He never said anymore. I go by the name of “Ma” everywhere I’ve ever lived. Everybody calls me “Ma.”

BIRD: Do you follow politics very much?

MRS. HULL: No, because I get too mad. They don’t do justice of it. Now Nixon’s not done right, and you know he ain’t done right. I’m 65 years old and I have never seen this country in the mess it’s in today. And they’ll—I don’t want to get started on it. That’s the one thing I don’t mess with; cause I don’t know whether I’d be votin’ for the right man or the wrong man, ’cause they’ll all promise anything ’til they get in there, and they don’t do what they say they’re going do. So I just let ’em run it and dab-it.

BIRD: What do you think about young people?

MRS. HULL: Well, I think some of ’em has lost all the morals they ever had. I may be a-saying a mouthful, I don’t know how you believe; I do not believe in men and women living together without being married. If you can’t go with one another long enough to trust one another and find out what kind of person, leave ’em alone, ’cause that is not right laying up together as man and wife.

A girl that will lay up with a man, let him use her body, she’s a-growing older every day. She gets old, who wants her? I say, be a lady, marry and get you a true husband, somebody that loves you and will take care of you in your old days. ‘Cause this here man that lays up with you, he ain’t go’n do it. He go’n walk off and leave you; he go’n get tired of you. He won’t trust you. That’s just the way I feel about When in your old days. ‘Cause this here man that lays up with you, he ain’t go’n do it. He go’n walk off and leave you’, he go’n get tired of you. He won’t trust you. That’s just the way I feel about the younger generation. I might’ve said something I oughtn’t to have said, but that’s just the way I feel. I believe, if you play around, get pregnant, I believe you raise that baby. Don’t take it out here and kill it, or give it to somebody else. You had the pleasure of gettin’ it, now you have the pleasure of raising that baby and take care of it.

ROSS: Kneel at the cross.

BIRD: Are you a member of a church?

MRS. HULL: No.

BIRD: What were you raised?

MRS. HULL: Baptist. That’s what I believe in. I’ve been saved. But I don’t live like I should. But I’m thankful for this, I can set here and look you straight in the face and tell you I’ve never been in a beer joint. I have never run around on my husband. I didn’t run around as a girl. I can say I have never did out one thing that I’m ashamed of: When 1 get mad I say bad words, which that’s wrong. But I tell ya, some of these people right here will make you say it. Now they’ll make you say it.

BIRD: You ‘ve been in and out of the hospital a lot lately?

MRS. HULL: Yes. I’ve had four heart attacks and two blockages in the last two years. Now for the last two weeks, I can’t even stoop over to get a bread pan. I can’t do nothing. I don’t hurt, but there’s no strength, and just all I can do to breathe. And the doctor said my heart was tilted down and said the load I was trying to carry was too much for my heart.

I know I ain’t got but a short time here, and I want to go to a better place. Each day I get worse and worse.

I know my Dad went in just in the shape I’m in. They found him out in the chicken pen dead. And they go’n find me in the bed dead, ’cause they’s times I can’t hardly get off the bed to breathe. 1 know from the last two weeks I can’t last much longer, ’cause I just can’t make it, that’s all there is to it. And when that water comes up in my lungs, if I wasn’t close where I could go to the hospital, I couldn’t stand it.

BIRD: Well, you ‘ye touched an awful lot of people in the two years you ‘ve been doing this work.

MRS. HULL: Yeah, I have lots of friends. I’m really thankful for that, I have got lots of friends.

ROSS: If you could get it through her thick head to go to that doctor, he could help her some. Now I don’t say he could cure her, but he could help her. But she won’t do that. I’ve begged that women, and I’ve begged her, and the young’uns have too, and she won’t do it. She’s so hard-headed she will not do it.

MRS. HULL: Well, I’ll go when I know I have to.

ROSS: That’s where you’re wrong. If you’d go before you had to, ( it wouldn’t be so bad).

MRS. HULL: Well, why don’t you take some of the same advice. I’ll tell you right now, it’s not fun to go down to that hospital. And this doctor and that doctor and this doctor—you don’t know who to listen at and who not. And I don’t have the money to get another doctor.

I’ll tell you what, when I was in Georgia Baptist, Doctor Taylor said to me not to turn my hand to do nuthin’. But, I have it to do. He sent the welfare out here. She said she would give me .$38 a month. Well, you know I can’t do nothin’ with $38. If I’d leave Ross, they’d give me $80. What can I do with $80?

Grady has been good to me. When I go down there, they’re good to me. I’d just rather be at home, and if I got to die, I’d rather die at home. I know I have and I want to cook ’til I do so that my children can’t say, “Well I had to take care of my mother.” I don’t want ’em to have it to say.

I enjoy cooking if I’ve got something to cook with, and I’ll do the best I can as long as 1 can.

I enjoy cooking if I’ve got something to cook with, and I’ll do the best I can as long as I can. When I’m through, then I’ve fought the battle to the end.

Mrs. Hull’s failing health has caused her to quit serving lunches, but she is still serving supper at 6 pm Monday through Friday for $2.50 and Sunday dinner for $3.00 at 12:30.