Category Archives: tell your story

Miki Foote and Jeannie Muse

Bird People, tell your story

Hi,

From 2 old Hippies who have both lived in The Dump — now living in San Diego — Miki Foote (now Miki Davis) and Jeannie Muse (now Jeannie Canaday) !!!

 Bud Foote and I lived in The Dump (ground floor in what is now the back of the house) from 1961 to late 1964 – early 1965, when Gino Venzani bought it so the House of Eng Chinese restaurant that sat back-to-back with The Dump couldn’t buy it, tear it down, and turn it in to a parking lot.

Gino is also the one who had it declared a National Historical Site so no one could tear it down. He loved that old building. I was living there when Gino first renovated it.  He kept it as apartments for quite some time.

Our son Joseph Nathaniel Foote was born in October 1964 while we were still living there. He now lives in Decatur.

Would you like some pictures of our family taken in The Dump when we lived there?

Hope you got some of Jim Bray’s Art for display.  His studio was on the ground floor in the center in the rear.  Bud Foote and he were great friends.

One night Jim was having a family fight, got drunk, came to The Dump, took all of his paintings out in to the yard, piled them up, poured paint thinner over them and set them on fire.  A couple of the guys who lived there tried to put it out with the garden hose (not very successfully), Naomi Brown decided to get down on her knees and bow to the Great Fire Gods, and it was altogether quite a bonfire party until the fire brigade got there.

Darn near burned down The Dump that night !!

I could tell at LOT MORE stories … but most of them are unpublishable.

Can you put me in touch with Bill Fibben or any of the others.  Only ones I know how to contact in Atlanta now are Van and Martha Hall.

By the way, my daughter Anna Foote (now Anna Copello) sent me the info on this.  She was only a year old when we moved in to the Dump — she now lives in Atlanta near the Plaza Drug Store and will be at the “gathering” on July 26th.

Jeannie and I would give just about anything to be able to be there.  We’ll be think of you all.

I’ll be sending out the info on this to some more of the old crew and I’m sure you all will be hearing from some more of them.

 “Mother” Dave Braden — knew and loved him well.  He lived in The Dump when we did.

Will confer with Jeannie and we’ll send you some info.

If I remember right, he was one of the driving forces of the underground coffee house “The Catacombs.” I remember it well, too …. all black walls, black-light artwork, great wooden platters of cheese and fruit.

So dark in there you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.  Seemed to be a forerunner of “Gothic”! It was in the basement of a house on 14th, between Peachtree and Piedmont, if my memory is still working right.

You really should include info on The Castle in your Web page.  You familiar with it?

How about Baltimore Block.  These were both very much a part of the 60s Hippie community.

Jeannie also has some great pictures — but they’re in her son’s house in Las Vegas.  We’ll try and get them to you soon.

Sorry to hear about Bill Fibben.  Many of the old originals have died:

Bud Foote

Dickie Espina (just last month), wife of Jeff Espina, now a sea captain out of Tampa, FL

Naomi Brown

Ernie Marrs

Jim Bray

(and many more I’m sure I’ve lost track of)

I’ve sent the message on to some of the old timers:  Eleanor Walden, Bill Hoffman, Pat Sky. You may hear from them, too.

Love,

Miki

little Bob / cheshire T. cat

Community, tell your story

Greetings!

I have been waiting for the Internet to provide this project for 12 years!

I was there in ’69. Tried the Orange Sunshine, stayed with (biker) johnny Reb, next door to the catacombs, up the street from white columns, Ate Thanksgiving dinner in Piedmont Park before being returned to my home.

Spent much time on the strip between 1970 and 1972.

“Worked” at the community with Gypsy (biker) Vick (hippie) and Crystal and many others.

Then the bikers had a meet and the charter changed and Gypsy was replaced with Chains

Remember Bongo and Steve (the guy with the big cross)

Sunshine (was that Bonnie Raitt?)

Spade Bob, Poet, Runaway Richard, Mary (The Bridge) Flower and the other folks who lived in the apartments under the Salvation Army Girls Lodge (127 or 1127 11th street)

Jd, chili dog charley, smokey, marvin gardens (how could I forget that name,ever)

Here are a few places I didn’t see mentioned

General store (down 10th st. next to the alley)

G.B.’s an awesome restaurant for us (corner of 11th and peachtree after the Drag club closed) owned by Golden Boy I finally figured

The Bridge (metro atlanta mediation canter)up 11th street

Salvation Army Girls Lodge (behind G.B.’s)

The Bowery (a club I wasn’t old enough to enter) next door to the community center

our place outside the strip area – SHOTWELL

a couple of bands I didn’t see mentioned

celestial voluptuous Banana

Eric Quincy Tate

I hope this project really takes off!

I was little Bob. Now my friends call me cat as in

cheshire T. cat.

Gena

Clubs, tell your story

I worked at the The Twelfth Gate starting in the summer of 1969 untill 1972 I think, and lived on 14th street. I was also in Daryl Roades and the HaHavishnu Orchestra from 1975-1976. I went to The Atlanta College of Art, the guy who ran The Catacombs went to the school also. I think he was called Mother David. He had a run in with one of the teachers and scared the teacher to death. He aimed a gun at him, the teacher started trying to talk him down, he shot it and out came pink flowers.There was also another coffee house called The Grand Central Cafe(something like that)on 9th St. I saw The Hampton Grease Band there for the first time in 1968. I lived in a sort of commune on 14th and then on 15th with Robin Feld, she, Ursula and I worked together after the church pulled out of The Twelfth Gate. It was exciting to see all the jazz bands come through, Elvin Jones, The Weather Report, Larry Coryell, Oregon, Macoy Tyner as well as Little Feat, Radar and The Grease Band, etc. You might want to contact Tony Garstein. He was the drummer for Radar and I’m sure he would have some pictures for you.

Gena

Jimmy M

tell your story

Well, I was rather rebellious as a teenager to start with. Out of control sexually, hated to live at home, and I guess you could blame it all on the Beatles.HA HA My mom took me and  my sister and a friend to see them August 18, 1965.. I was 12! They were at the Atlanta Stadium. From that time on I was hooked. I started smoking pot when I was 13/14 and started tripping on acid at 15.I was a wild child. Older friends took me to the strip and one experience led to another. My sister was a groupie to several bands at the time. I remember a club named Richard’s…. Lynyrd Skynyrd first played there.

How could I ever forget?  Piedmont Park whose various bridges I slept under as a 14 year old runaway.  On whose grass I lost my virginity one humid southern night to a big hippie girl who went by the name Wild Honey Sunburst.  The park’s fountains became bathtubs for the homeless young freaks of the day.

This big blond was constantly in the company of small slim brunette named Canary- a self-professed “coal-burner” from Memphis.  They had a room in a boarding house.

Hey do you remember that Fish and Chips on the Strip?  It was open 24 hours I think and was shelter for many during bad weather and that movie theatre that showed that movie theatre that never took down those Funny Girl posters.

Then there was the live Drag Theatre on the corner (or maybe a bar)….    I stayed with a dope dealer for awhile who had an apartment in a cool brick building.  There were French doors inside and he hid the dope in the …..   I remember it was a big place and the rent  was something like $75.00 per month.  He didn’t beat me up when he discovered that some of the MDA was missing.  He was a much older man… about 27!

Who didn’t at one time or other sell “The Bird”.  I used to sell somewhere on Roswell Rd. at the city limits I think.  Some guys were turning tricks in the parks for $5.00 (bj only) and others were “rolling the queers” as they sought sex partners at night.

What was it all about?   Freedom? For me think so.  There was in those times a collective spirit of change and love and revolution which hasn’t been matched since.  It was as if everyone was tuned in to the same psychedelic channel.  The free concerts in the park… the headshops with hand-written signs “no-rip-offs”.  There was that old victorian house that the Black Panthers used as their headquarters.  Just so many memories.

Thank God for guys like Carter Tomassi whose black and white photographs let us step back in time for a moment to remember where we’ve been.

Jimmy M

adavi

tell your story

I remember those days so very well. I’m now 54 years old. At that time I was an impressionable young 16/17 year old. I went to both pop festivals. I lived off 13th street in a drug rehab house…….named Renewal House. I met a guy there named Robert Straight, But everyone called him “Decent“. I married him in Piedmont Park in the gazebo June 21, 1970 or 71. A guy named Michael Spraidlin? or Spraitlin? married us. The Allman Brothers played in the park that day…….

Someone later told me the wedding was filmed by one of the local news channels and to this day I wish I had a picture to show my daughter. There are alot of memories of those days. I thank the Lord I made it through. I have scars from those days and the old saying  goes–if you play you may end up paying. Wish I had a picture of that wedding………

Thanks

adavi

Mike Flores

tell your story

Ahhh Peachtree and 14th street- Atlantis Rising.

I saw Jim Morrison read his poetry in front of 100 people at the museum and he was sober and wore a suit and tie .How many saw him sober?

Tripped with Duane Allman.

Met Russ Meyer at the age of 13- because he was auditioning my 18 year old girlfriend at the Festival Cinema run by George Ellis, aka Bestoink Dooley the TV horror host.

Organized a sit in against mandatory ROTC that 80% of the student body joined and resulted in a police riot. Grady High School.

Got laid like a s.o.b. and was the only person ever fired from The Great Speckled Bird– for writing a piece in which I said The Black Panthers should not threaten cops with guns as the cops have more guns. – Mike Flores

http://www.planetbettie.com/flores.htm

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-05-19/features/0405190027_1_acid-test-vietnam-war-improv

Schroeder & Renée

Festivals, tell your story

My wife and I were there. I have more memories  than I could think about typing. I started at the  Catacombs, lived at Middle Earth and vaguely  remember a head shop on W P’tree at 14th…I  think. That would have been ’66 or ’67. It seems  like the strip started when Atlantis Rising got  established…the place to be. I lived all around the park. By ’68 I was living at “The River  House” up on the ‘Hooche. Brought Renée, my wife,  up from FL in June of ’69. We were married  07/07/69 at the “Free Concert” in the park after  the 1st Atl POP. I got popped in early ’70, which removed me from the scene, but didn’t kill the  memories. Sadly, only 2 pictures have lasted as  long as my marriage.  Bob Oldsroyd, red headed Bob, was always taking pictures. Has he turned up?

 Schroeder & Renée

[When Schroder was arrested the headlines named him ‘Acid King of the SouthEast’.  We were lucky enough to get an interview with Schroder. Due to double jeopardy, he was able to talk openly. He and Renee had a great hippie love story. Married before the Grateful Dead played Piedmont Park, they remained in love until his death in 2011. Listen to his interview.]

Sally Vanderwerf

history, tell your story

1. I first moved to Atlanta in the summer of 1968.

2. I moved to Atlanta to see what the whole Hippie movement was about and also to spread my wings and fly after two years of Jr. College in Bradenton, FL.  Five of us drove to Atlanta from Bradenton.  We got there in the early evening and started looking for a place to “crash.”  We tried house after house on 14th St.  Finally we went to the Catacombs, a blues bar on the corner of 14th St. and Peachtree St.  We ran into a man called PaPa John.  He invited us to dinner at his home way out somewhere.  He had about 3 or 4 children and his wife made spaghetti for supper.  We went back to the Catacombs after that and met a biker named Monkey who said we could crash at his apt. because he wasn’t going back there.

The next day I rented an efficienty apt. at 181 14th St.  I met a lot of very nice people living there.  While there I sold The Great Speckled Bird at various street corners.  I also would spare change people for some cash.  I remember meeting a guy named Beano who was somehow my cousin many times removed.  He was from Mississippi.  Two guys named Charlie and Stevie were acquaintances of mine then as well.  I remember going to a 4th of July Parade and a bunch of us stopping the parade in a protest.

3. My best experience associated with the strip was the people.  There was a community there that was caring and felt safe like a family.

4. My worse experience was moving out of the community to Peachtree Hills.

5. I learned from that time in my life that all people are family members waiting to be met.

6.  Like I mentioned above, I lived at 181 14th St. for several months.

Peace,

Sally Vanderwerf

Here’s Sally’s 14th Street Poster and Sally today

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

~Kate

Community, tell your story

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 

Rod Tweedell

tell your story

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 saved 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