THE ROBERTOREG READER
published in 2020
dedicated to S.
for all the wrong reasons.
"Wrong can't ever be right. Be good, Bob." Grandma Register
"EAT CORNBREAD. RAISE HELL." ~ Chukker graffiti
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:
- Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
- Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!
- ~ W.H. Murray
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
THE LORD'S PRAYER
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
THE SERENITY PRAYER
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
taking, as Jesus did,
this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it;
trusting that You will make all things right
if I surrender to Your will;
so that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.
Reinhold Niebuhr
THE OPTIMIST CREED
PROMISE MYSELF!
#1~ To be so strong that nothing can disturb MY peace of mind.
#2~ To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person I meet.
#3~ To make all MY friends feel that there is something in them.
#4~ To look at the sunny side of everything and make MY optimism come true.
#5~ To think of the best; to work only for the best; and expect only the best.
#6~ To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as I am about MY own.
#7~ To forget the mistakes of the past, and press on to greater achievements for the future.
#8~ TO WEAR A CHEERFUL COUNTENANCE AT ALL TIMES AND GIVE EVERY CREATURE I MEET A SMILE.
#9~ To give so much time to the improvement of MYSELF that I have no time to criticize others.
#10~ To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
Reinhold Niebuhr
THE OPTIMIST CREED
PROMISE MYSELF!
#1~ To be so strong that nothing can disturb MY peace of mind.
#2~ To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person I meet.
#3~ To make all MY friends feel that there is something in them.
#4~ To look at the sunny side of everything and make MY optimism come true.
#5~ To think of the best; to work only for the best; and expect only the best.
#6~ To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as I am about MY own.
#7~ To forget the mistakes of the past, and press on to greater achievements for the future.
#8~ TO WEAR A CHEERFUL COUNTENANCE AT ALL TIMES AND GIVE EVERY CREATURE I MEET A SMILE.
#9~ To give so much time to the improvement of MYSELF that I have no time to criticize others.
#10~ To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
I begin this book with an introduction to guide the reader.
(to be continued...)
DOWN TO THE BANKS OF THE WARRIOR
The odors as we walk down the hill from River Road change with each step. John is the first to notice the tiny toads hurriedly jumping away from our muddy trail. There are no footprints. John and I are the first ones to come down since the flood.
Creek warriors fought the Choctaws for this riverbank. The Muskogee Nation claimed as far west as the east bank of the Tombigbee but they were lucky just to get Choctaw permission to stay on the east bank of the Warrior. A few city blocks from the river birch log upon which I sit, Chief Eufaula humbly made his farewell address to the Alabama legislature in 1836. He was about to take a long walk to Oklahoma.
Bald eagles once nested on this riverbank. Maybe they will nest here again. Maybe one day we can sit in a restaurant on the crest of River Hill, clink a few ice cubes together and watch the sun go down through eagle's wings.
There are no boats on the river this afternoon. I sit here and supervise my son's Tarzan tricks. He is climbing upon the leaning trunk of an old willow tree that stretches out over the water. I make him climb down and then wade out to check the bottom for trash. He points to the willow limbs above him and asks,"Can we build a tree house there?" I don't answer him.
He walks over to me and exclaims,"Daddy, look what that beaver did! He tore down that whole tree with his teeth!"
"What kind of tree is this?," I ask.
"I don't know. I sure don't know."
"Look at the bark."
He peels some off and says,"It seems like it's paper."
I say,"It's named after a place we used to take you when you were a little boy."
"River Birch?"
"Yeah."
John goes back to the willow tree and again climbs out over the river. He counts his footsteps. After twenty-eight steps he asks,"Should I go any farther?"
I don't answer. He goes out three more steps. "You're gonna bust your butt!," I yell.
"I'm not trying to. You know how I learned to climb so good?"
"How?"
"I watched Discovery Channel."
"What does the Discovery Channel have to do with climbing?"
"The monkeys. But I don't climb exactly like them. I move slowly."
I hear the traffic on River Road. The noise never went away. The novelty of the Black Warrior caused me to ignore it for awhile. I wonder how many people think about the river as they drive by.
My son had now penetrated the sandy peninsula that juts out into the Warrior here at the mouth of Marr's Creek. He is building a fort with logs deposited by June's high water. John returns with a piece of driftwood. "Look at this cool piece of driftwood, Dad."
I have now changed my desk. I did this by moving my clipboard from the beaver-downed river birch to the leaning willow. My son prepares to climb out on the willow once more. He needs to get by me. "Daddy! Daddy! Excuse me, Dad," he says politely.
I move back over to the river birch and John climbs all the way out to the very end of the tree. He calls to me,"Hey,Dad, look at me!" He gathers leaves in his hands and drops them into the water. "Daddy, why do people always say, 'God help me' ?"
"Well, 'God help me' is just a part of it. What they mean to say is, 'God, help me to do it.' 'It' being whatever they're trying to accomplish."
"I don't get it."
"Let me put it to you another way: God helps those who help themselves."
"So you have to try to do something before God can help you to do something."
"Rome wasn't built in a day."
"Oh, I get it. That's what we pray for each morning."
"That's right son." I sit on my river birch and John sits on his willow branch. Both of us look out over the river.
I yell, "Let's go, Buddy."
"Dad, will you bring me here tomorrow?"
"I don't know, son. We'll see. We'll see."
CENTENNIAL
Voice over of Coach Bryant:
"I've said this before, of course,
I've said anytime I've had the opportunity that I wouldn't trade places with anyone in the world because of the privilege of being here at The University & passing my time here.
I WILL never put anything against your education. We want that to come first.
ON THE OTHER HAND WE WANT FOOTBALL!!!!
To be second!
We want football to be second!
Because we feel a very strong obligation to you and we feel like you should to The University because it works both ways.
First of all,
we want you to write home!
THANK YOU!
lyrics of "The Day Bear Bryant Died" by Buddy Buie & Ronnie Hammond
I'll never forget the day
That I heard the news
Bear Bryant has died!!!!
Funny, I thought he'd refuse
I watched as they laid him to rest
In Old Alabama
OH how I cried
The day Bear Bryant died
ROLL TIDE!!!!
ROLL TIDE!!!!
The Nation Cried
Friend and Foe Alike
The Legend Lives On
THE HERO IS GONE!
Oh how I cried
The Day Bear Bryant died.
The day he was born
GOD gave us one of a kind
& I'm glad he did
'Cause heroes are so hard to find
Many a fine young man
He led into battle
He taught them to win
He turned boys into men
ROLL TIDE!!!!
ROLL TIDE!!!!
The Nation cried!
Friend & foe alike
The Legend lives on!
The HERO is gone!
OH! How I cried
The Day Bear Bryant Died.
ROLL TIDE!!!!
ROLL TIDE!!!!
The Nation cried
Friend & Foe alike
The Legend Lives On!
THE HERO IS GONE!OH! How I cried
The Day Bear Bryant Died.
This article was published in the FALL 2013 issue of CRIMSON MAGAZINE, The Magazine of the TIDE NATION Volume 5 Number 2
CENTENNIAL
"This is the beginning of a new day.
God has given me this day to use as I will.
I can waste it or use it for good.
What I do today is important as I am
exchanging a day of my life for it.
When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever.
Leaving something in its place I have traded for it.
I want it to be a gain, not loss--good, not evil.
Success, not failure,
in order that I shall not forget the price I paid for it."
I can waste it or use it for good.
What I do today is important as I am
exchanging a day of my life for it.
When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever.
Leaving something in its place I have traded for it.
I want it to be a gain, not loss--good, not evil.
Success, not failure,
in order that I shall not forget the price I paid for it."
~ a poem found in Coach Bryant’s wallet on the day of his death
On Wednesday, September 11, 2013, Bama fans around the world will celebrate the centennial of Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant's birth. Everyone else will also have an opportunity to commemorate this important anniversary with the premiere of a documentary and the publication of a coffee table book dedicated to our beloved coach's life. The Bryant Museum will open a new exhibit by holding a reception and many of the authors who have written Bryant books will be in attendance. Although these events are significant they really can't compare to the last time Alabama football celebrated a centennial.
In 1992, Bama saluted 100 years of Alabama football. The music group ALABAMA kicked it all off on A Day with a big concert in Bryant-Denny. There was a black tie gala hosted by ABC-TV announcer Keith Jackson at the civic center in Birmingham honoring THE TEAM OF THE CENTURY and to cap off the successful sales of CENTURY OF CHAMPIONS commemorative calendars, Daniel Moore prints, card sets, limited edition books, audio tapes and video collections, the University of Alabama football team went out and won the first ever SEC Championship game, creamed Miami 34 to 13 in the Sugar Bowl and won the National Championship.
Let's all hope some of that centennial success from '92 rubs off on this ‘13 team and THE INVINCIBLE SPIRIT OF THE MIGHTY CRIMSON TIDE makes history once again this season and the Bear Bryant Centennial ends appropriately with Bama winning an unprecedented three National Championships in a row and breaks the "three in a row" jinx that plagued Bama teams in 1927, 1966 and 1980.
Back in 1892, the inaugural season of Crimson Tide football, Amos Alonzo Stagg, the man whose record for most college football wins would stand until November 28, 1981 when Coach Bryant broke it with a 28-17 defeat of Auburn, joined the faculty at the University of Chicago and became the first person in human history to be hired and paid to be a college football coach. Right off the bat, Stagg understood that college football was a coach’s game and a highly successful and lucrative spectator sport. Stagg recognized that discipline and order put points on the board and he also understood that the best way to promote a great university was by fielding a championship football squad.
It took Bama a few years to figure out how to build a championship football program but in 1912, the year before Coach Bryant’s birth, the University of Alabama Board of Trustees hired Dr. George “Mike” Denny as University President and the rest is history. Dr. Denny had served as head football coach at Hampden-Sydney College in the late 1890s and recognized the game’s potential to contribute to both the enrollment and the actual physical expansion of the Alabama campus. During Dr. Denny’s tenure, Bama appeared in four Rose Bowl games and the first section of the stadium was constructed and named in his honor. Paul “Bear” Bryant played in the 1935 Rose Bowl and helped Bama claim another national championship during the last year of Dr. Denny’s tenure.
This season our team will pursue its 16th national championship as Bama celebrates the centennial of Coach Bryant’s birth. The 52 years that elapsed between the time Paul Bryant arrived on campus in 1931 until the day he passed away in 1983 represent almost half of the history of the team and Coach Bryant had a significant impact upon almost every year of that half century of Alabama football. Various authors have focused upon the forces which shaped Coach Bryant’s formative years and led him from his birthplace in Smith Chapel, Arkansas on the Cleveland County side of Morro Creek to the University of Alabama on the south bank of the Black Warrior River but no writer has ever discovered the secret to Coach Bryant’s winning formula and his charismatic mystique.
Of all the authors of Bear Bryant books, John Underwood has come the closest to giving us a blueprint of the man who would do so much to put Bama back on top of the college football world. By turning on his tape recorder and asking the right questions, Underwood preserved for us to this day the impressions Coach Bryant wanted to leave with those who would study him in the future. As he described growing up in Southeast Arkansas, Bryant measured the milestones in his early life by recalling major media events like the 1925 Floyd Collins’ Sand Cave disaster or Professor Snook’s Ohio State coed murder in the summer of 1929 or the radio broadcast of Alabama’ 24-0 shutout of Washington State in the 1931 Rose Bowl. How ironic that many of the conversations Underwood had with Bryant would be recorded while they were sitting beside the swimming pool of Golden Flake founder Sloan Bashinsky’s estate on Lower Matecumbe Key. As a sponsor of the Bear Bryant Show, Bashinsky was partly responsible at the time for producing Bryant’s “Sundays at 4” broadcast replay of each Bama game. The program became one of the most highly rated syndicated television shows in America where Coach Bryant established the powerful bond between himself and all those proud mamas and papas and hometowns across Alabama where most of his players and fans would be recruited. That big old Arkansas plowboy certainly left the mules and the piney woods behind for good and he sure did learn some city ways right quick and by the time he took over the Alabama program, Golden Flake and Coca-Cola allowed him to become a master at utilizing the most powerful mass media tool of his day: the television.
In a recent article about his football career and his present work with the Episcopal Church, former Crimson Tide lineman Colenzo Hubbard described the Bryant magic:
“Then Coach Hennessy said,’ Coach Bryant thinks you can do it.’ Because Coach Bryant thought that. It gave me this supernatural energy. I worked twice as hard to learn the position. I could not let Coach Bryant down if he had that much confidence in me.”
There's a great Bear Bryant story where all his assistant coaches are laid up in the Foster Auditorium ticket office early one morning right after Bama won their first National Championship under the leadership of the Bear. The coaches are back on campus but they're still celebrating. The students haven’t returned from Christmas holidays, Coach Bryant is up in his office and the whole crew is relaxing on the ticket office furniture; feet propped up, smoking cigars and laughing about how they'd showed the whole country what real football was by whipping Arkansas on national television and in front of over 85,000 people in the Sugar Bowl on New Years Day 1962. A 48-year-old Paul Bryant comes through the door and nobody even gets a chance to grin. BAM! He starts kicking ankles and knocking heads. "GET UP, GO TO WORK & LET'S WIN ANOTHER CHAMPIONSHIP!"
The Bear Bryant Centennial is a once in a lifetime opportunity to focus public attention upon this national icon and the cultural phenomenon that his life represents.
The people who knew Coach Bryant best are sadly no longer with us. One of his best friends, Julian Lackey, passed away just a few months after Coach Bryant did in 1983 and Mary Harmon went to her grave the next year. Mae Martin passed on in 1988. It’s been over a decade since John Forney and Coach Ken Donohue departed us. Louise Goolsby, the last living of his 12 brothers and sisters, passed away in 2004 and Charley Thornton the same year. Sloan Bashinsky expired the next year. We lost Coach Dude Hennessey and Jimmy Hinton in 2011. Last year Coach Clem Gryska and Billy Varner both died and we just lost Coach Moore this year.
After the passing of the years, Coach Bryant’s success story will almost seem mythical and soon his accomplishments will be reduced to an abstraction on the cultural landscape of America. We can use this celebration to emphasize the need to preserve the cultural resources associated with this “legend in his own time” and to stress the importance of passing an accurate picture of Coach Bryant’s life down to coming generations.
Most of the folks reading this article consider Paul William Bryant to be the greatest college football coach who ever lived. He experienced unprecedented success in his field of endeavor but in retrospect he may be remembered today as a man who coached a little too long and who did not live long enough. The last chapter of his life should cause each of us to reflect upon just how does one get off this big old rusty hamster wheel of life when the time comes to retire.
Most of the folks reading this article consider Paul William Bryant to be the greatest college football coach who ever lived. He experienced unprecedented success in his field of endeavor but in retrospect he may be remembered today as a man who coached a little too long and who did not live long enough. The last chapter of his life should cause each of us to reflect upon just how does one get off this big old rusty hamster wheel of life when the time comes to retire.
Consider Coach Bryant’s words in this excerpt from former Michigan Coach Shembechler’s autobiography, BO :
"Bo, I don't wanna go back to the office. I don't wanna recruit one more kid. I don't wanna coach anymore."
…"You are going to find this out someday. I hired 47 people at the University of Alabama athletic department. If I quit what happens to them? What happens to those assistant coaches and office people and all of them that I brought in here? ... Here's what. They're out in the cold. The new guy will replace them. Now how can I do that to them? ... You'll face that someday, Bo. You will. And, damn it, I hope you are smart about."
As we consider the mythic spirit and great legacy of Coach Bryant during this centennial year, it is a bit disconcerting that we began the year with our star quarterback feeling comfortable enough to tell al.com’s Izzy Gould, “I was never an Alabama fan. I don’t know the history, at all.” And concerning Coach Bryant, he said,” I heard he was tough to play for.” These statements, published two days before the national championship game with Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl, produced headlines like: A.J. McCARRON DOESN’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ALABAMA’S HISTORY OR BEAR BRYANT and AJ McCARRON SAID HE WAS NEVER AN ALABAMA FAN AND DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT BEAR BRYANT. Maybe, in the future, A.J. should either avoid Izzy Gould or discuss statements such as these with his media consultant before making them because this ain’t exactly the best way to endear yourself with some of the most loyal and passionate football fans in this country. AJ ought to take a few precious moments out of his extremely valuable time, walk across the street from the football complex, and take an extended tour of the BEAR BRYANT CENTENNIAL exhibit in the Bryant Museum before he begins this historically significant season.
100 years ago September 11, Coach Bryant was born a hungry Arkansas country boy who lived his first eleven years in a small house located on a wagon trail that didn’t even have a bridge over the creek you had to cross in order to get to town. When he died 69 years later, the police closed 55 miles of the eastbound lanes of two major interstate highways for his funeral and not a single car was seen in the westbound lanes heading from Birmingham toward Tuscaloosa. Every westbound motorist voluntarily pulled over onto the side of the road out of respect for THE BEAR. Let us dedicate this football season to the celebration of THE BEAR BRYANT CENTENNIAL and to the commemoration of the accomplishments of A TRUE GIANT OF THE GAME as our MIGHTY CRIMSON TIDE pursues another national championship.
This article was published in the September-October issue of PANAMA CITY LIVING MAGAZINE Volume 8 Number 5
ROADHOUSE BLUES AT THE OLD DUTCH:
Good Time Memories That Last A Lifetime
And just a few you might want to forget…
“Yeah, keep your eyes on the road,
Your hands upon the wheel.
Keep your eyes on the road,
Your hands upon the wheel.
Yeah, we’re going to the Roadhouse.
We’re gonna have a real
Good time.”
~ ROADHOUSE BLUES by The Doors
The Old Dutch was the first bar ever built on Panama City Beach and for thirty five years, from 1940 until 1975, billed itself as “The Oldest Recreation and Pleasure Center On The Beach” and was the first on “America’s Finest Beach” to advertise to the public to “Eat, Drink, Dance & Make Merry In The Cool Gulf Breezes.” By the 1960s, the kitchen had all but closed except for short orders and the old bar and dance hall had gained fame as a Spring Break and summer vacation destination for college students all over the Deep South. In the words of Wilbur Walton, Jr.,” It was a Mecca for dancing, fighting and music; like the Wild West but without the guns.” Simply mention the three words “The Old Dutch” to most any aging Baby Boomer who went to college in the Deep South during the Sixties and you’ll put a smile on their face. There are exceptions to that rule as well. Many a relationship met a premature end in the alcoholic excesses that characterized The Old Dutch.
When you walked into the barroom of The Old Dutch, you felt as if you’d just stepped into a rustic Florida roadhouse time capsule lifted out of some Forties film noir classic. The bare cypress log walls were covered with various clocks, curios and stuffed hunting and fishing trophies; all crowned with a high ceiling of exposed rough cypress beams. As you entered you faced a huge stone fireplace, constructed from 113 tons of rock that could burn logs five feet long. The anchor of the old 160 ft. coastal freighter, Tarpon, sunk off Phillips Inlet in 1937, stood mounted on the mantelpiece. To the left was the unpolished bar made of cypress lumber and blackened by the tobacco and whiskey it had dispensed since 1940. Not only did The Old Dutch offer its hospitality to the Sixties college student but it had done the same thing for their grandparents in the Forties and for their parents in the Fifties.
The story of The Old Dutch began over 75 years ago when Sylvan Beach, New York’s Frank Burghduff pulled his “palatial” nineteen-and-a-half foot mahogany and steel travel trailer down Highway 98 for the first time and fell in love with Bay County’s beaches during the winter of 1936-’37. Burghduff and his wife, Etta, parked at the newly opened Sea Breeze Hotel near the Y. They made their headquarters in this first hotel on the beach to offer hot and cold running water and began meeting “the powers that be” in the St. Andrews Bay area.
Burghduff could not have chosen a more perfect time to arrive on the soon-to-be Miracle Strip than in the winter of 1936-’37. On the Panama City beaches time scale, this was equivalent with the “End of The Ice Age”. The Phillips Inlet Bridge had been recently completed in ’35, finally opening the Coastal Highway. J.B. Lahan had begun development of his Laguna Beach and Gid Thomas held his grand opening for his Panama City Beach on May 2, 1936. When the Coastal Highway Association was formed a few years later, Burghduff was recognized for his pioneering achievements to promote tourism and was elected secretary while only two other men were selected to represent the interest of the beaches: A.W. Pledger who was the son-in-law of deceased Panama City Beach founder Gid Thomas and J.E. Churchwell, the owner of Long Beach Resort.
Burghduff returned to the beaches in the winter of ’37-’38 and by 1939, after purchasing a piece of beachfront from Wells, Dunn, Hutchison, Bullock & Bennett, was ready to begin fulfilling his dream of building a one-of-a-kind beachside roadhouse. Unfortunately, while construction of The Old Dutch was underway, Burghduff’s wife, Etta, whose family was also from the Lake Oneida, N.Y. area, developed a partial paralysis and passed away in September after being transported to a hospital in Dothan. She was buried in Greenwood Cemetery along with Frank where both of their grave markers bear similar inscriptions, “Etta Burghduff -Wife & Pal” and “Frank Burghduff-Husband & Pal”.
When the summer season of 1940 commenced, The Old Dutch opened its newly constructed doors for the first time but with little fanfare. The first advertisement we find in the News-Herald is printed on September 28, 1940, inviting “Panama City Folks” to come out to the beach for “low winter prices” and listing “Special Meals, Cocktail to Dessert 75 cents, Seafood Grille 45 cents, Real Italian Spaghetti 35 cents, Western Steaks $1, $1.25, $1.50” This ad is significant because it’s the first time a Bay County restaurant ever advertised “Western Steaks”. At this time, the Florida cattle industry was in its infancy and most Americans considered Florida beef inferior and only good for the Cuban market.
In November of 1940, Burghduff began to purchase small ads in the local papers promoting weekend floor shows but his publicity machine really cranked up in December when he began broadcasting a short Friday afternoon program on radio station WDLP which was still in its first year of existence. Among the first to appear on this radio show promoting The Old Dutch was Neal McCormick and his Hawaiian Troubadours. McCormick, a Northwest Florida Creek Indian who had never even visited Hawaii, felt that the Hawaiian label went along well with his band’s pioneering use of the electric and steel guitars plus discrimination against Hawaiians was far less in the Deep South than it was against Indians. McCormick was the first to hire Hank Williams as a musician and there’s a good chance that a seventeen-year-old Hank Williams played with the Hawaiian Troubadours during the first New Years Eve show ever put on at The Old Dutch in 1940.
The first hint that there was going to be trouble in paradise for Burghduff occurred when a short comment was printed in a gossip column that appeared on the editorial page of the Panama City Pilot on Friday, July 18, 1941. In “Our Town: Off the Record Bits and Views”, we read, “Apparently the sheriff’s office is going quietly about investigating the $700 burglary of
The Old Dutch Tavern last weekend. That office has a habit of going quietly about a good many things.” Not only was Burghduff missing his proceeds from the July 4 holiday but before Christmas, he ran an ad announcing to the public that they needed to “make reservations now for your Christmas party and New Years party”. Also included was the first of many more to come announcements of a change in management. The Old Dutch was now being run by Maud B. Meyers of the “Exclusive Spinning Wheel of Virginia, Specializing in Southern Fried and Bar-b-cued Chicken and Seafood.” More importantly, 1941 ushered in something far greater than a change of management. It brought WWII to the beaches.
A war with Germany put many Bay County tongues to wagging about the tavern keeper at the beach with the “German” name. In January, Burghduff had to take out a large ad in the News-Herald denying the “false and damnable rumors” about him being picked up by the FBI on several occasions because he was a Nazi spy with a short-wave radio. He declared his pride in his “Dutch blood” and emphasized, “I AM AN AMERICAN CITIZEN 100%”.
But big ads in the local paper could not reverse the changes Burghduff faced on the home front due to the war effort. The influx of workers at Wainwright Shipyard and GIs at Tyndall Field could not make up for the fact that pleasure driving had been made illegal and the Old Dutch being located by the Gulf meant that all its lights had to be extinguished from sunset to sunrise. Being located ten miles out of town did not help in a world where everyone had to beg, borrow, barter and save ration stamps just to get gas and tires so they could go to work. Even ten buses running up and down the beach from downtown to Sunnyside twenty hours each day was not enough to prevent Frank from having to repeatedly run ads throughout 1942 and 1943 declaring that The Old Dutch really was “Open For Business”. By 1944, the pressure was too much and Burghduff packed up and sold out to Cliff Stiles, the manager of downtown’s Dixie-Sherman Hotel.
Cliff Stiles had arrived in Panama City during the fall of 1938 to take over the Dixie-Sherman after his hotel chain had purchased it. Stiles owned hotels all over the Southeast and in 1946, he purchased one of the largest hotels in Birmingham, The Redmont. Much of the talent that later appeared on the stage of The Old Dutch would be recruited from the Redmont.
From 1944 until 1950, not much was heard from The Old Dutch. Stiles kept a low profile and there were no promotions and no efforts to attract tourists. Construction on the beach exploded in the late Forties so that brought in business from the workers and Stiles remodeled the cypress log cabin and began building a motel around it. During its first ten years, this roadhouse was generally known as “The Old Dutch Tavern” and, occasionally, “The Old Dutch Inn” but after 1950, it was known almost exclusively as “The Old Dutch Inn” and by the mid-Sixties, “The Old Dutch Motel and Nightclub” or, more popularly, as simply, “The Old Dutch”.
The “Gala Opening” of The Old Dutch “under new management” occurred on April 22, 1950. The Joseph brothers out of Birmingham were brought in by Stiles to run the show and a variety of talent was recruited from the stage of the Redmont as well as the Joseph brothers own Jack-O-Lantern Club in Birmingham. It is not within the scope of this article to examine the careers of all the entertainers who performed on the stage of The Old Dutch but an excellent insight into the status of show business on the Gulf Coast in the middle of the twentieth century could be gained from a study of this variety of musicians, dancers, acrobats and comedians.
The management of the Joseph brothers may not have contributed to the events of June 1952, but the arrest of The Old Dutch Hotel manager for embezzlement brought Auburn’s H.H. Lambert in as the new proprietor of the “air conditioned” Old Dutch Inn. Lambert lasted two years on the beach and when he turned in his keys in September of ’54, he returned to Auburn where he built the War Eagle Supper Club, an institution that continues to do business in the present day and which remains, in the words of singer Taylor Hicks, “a true southern roadhouse” that promotes itself with a slogan that could have been applied to the Old Dutch in its heyday: “Cold Beer. Hot Rock. Expect No Mercy.”
By 1957, Stiles had begun selling his old properties while acquiring Holiday Inn franchises. After building the first Gulfside Holiday Inn on property adjoining The Old Dutch on the west in ’63, he hired Betty Koehler to manage The Old Dutch Motel and Nightclub. As The Old Dutch acquired its reputation as the classic Panama City Beach bar during the Golden Age of Beach Music, Stiles began to sell his newly constructed Holiday Inns and he ceased to lease out the roadhouse’s premises to managers. Betty and Cliff worked together and formed a team that turned The Old Dutch into “a nickel silver plated money baling machine”.
Exotic dancers continued to perform during the Sixties but the “bread and butter” performers during the season were rock and roll bands composed of young guys in their late teens and early twenties. Any dreams they ever had of a summer filled with sun, surf, sand, beer and bikinis were crushed when they realized their schedule included at least eight sessions a week and as many as twelve a week during the week of July 4. Guitar players regularly changed out their strings every week from the wear that was enhanced by the salt air and sweat. These young musicians had to be dedicated and determined to show the world that they were special. During July 4th week, multiple bands were hired and after 1971, live entertainment began every day at noon and went on in continuous four hour shifts until 4 A.M. in the morning.
There was no such thing as a fire code in The Old Dutch and the dance hall often looked like a smoke filled cavern; packed to the walls, shoulder to shoulder. More than one musician who played there has made this remark using the same words, ”I didn’t know you could get that many people in a room.”
You grew up fast when you played The Old Dutch. Many a teenage guitar player witnessed his first striptease act standing behind the stripper while providing her with the music to which she was dancing. Many of the cocktail waitresses and Go-Go girls didn’t appreciate male affection and many musicians first witnessed their first open “display of affection” between a same-sex couple when the waitress’ short-haired “boyfriend” came to pick her up dressed in madras shirt, pressed khakis and penny loafers. The first time many a Tri-State male saw a woman go out in public without wearing a bra was at The Old Dutch. To craft your first fake I.D. and use it to get into The Old Dutch was a Gulf Coast rite of passage.
During the summer of ’65, a beach music classic was born on the dance floor of The Old Dutch. A band from South Alabama called the K-Otics were playing one week and during their breaks they visited the nearby Old Hickory where the Swingin’ Medallions were performing. The K-Otics loved “Double Shot of My Baby’s Love” and asked the Medallions if they planned to record it. The Medallions said, ”No,” so the K-Otics laid plans to cut the record. Later in the fall, the Medallions had a change of heart and recorded “Double Shot”. Both the Swingin’ Medallions and the K-Otics released their versions in the spring of ’66. The K-Otics had a regional hit and the Medallions’ record went national and the rest is history. Bruce Springsteen called “Double Shot”, “the greatest fraternity rock song of all time.” Columnist Bob Greene called it “the ultimate get-drunk-and-throw-up song. You heard it in every juke box in every bar in the world.” In 1993, Louis Grizzard wrote, ”Even today, when I hear ‘Double Shot of My Baby’s Love’, it makes me want to stand outside in the hot sun with a milkshake cup full of beer in one hand and a slightly drenched coed in the other.”
This article only scratches the surface on the story of The Old Dutch. Somebody needs to write a book about this old roadhouse. This is a story that transcends generations. The events of the four decades when The Old Dutch stood on the beach would chronicle the emergence of live entertainment on Panama City Beach.
This writer will never forget going to see a 60-something guitar player as he lay on his deathbed in a V.A. hospice. It was 2006 and Greg Haynes had published his giant thirteen pound book, THE HEEEY BABY DAYS OF BEACH MUSIC, with its 552 pages and 800 images. My friend forced himself out of his drug-induced coma so he could see the newly published book. He silently gazed at the pictures as I turned the pages for him. He held himself up as long as he possibly could and as I turned the page that had the image of The Old Dutch, he said, “Oh, I remember that place.” Those were his only words and I soon left and a few days later my friend passed away.
The Old Dutch passed away in 1975 due to damage produced by Hurricane Eloise and by the summer of ’76, it was ready for demolition.
The Old Dutch was built on shifting sand, moving each day in countless ways, reforming thousands of times. The beach itself never stands still yet The Old Dutch stood for over 35 years serving the migratory hordes of vacationers each summer. The memories of those excesses of so long ago were made within alcoholic oblivion but those memories of The Old Dutch are not lost. To my dying day, I’ll say, ”Oh, I remember that place.”
Go to my blog , Zero, Northwest Florida http://robertoreg.blogspot.com
& you can see over 50 images pertaining to THE OLD DUTCH plus some comments.
Anyone who would like to share their reminiscences or images of The Old Dutch is welcome to contact me at robertoreg@gmail.com
Volume 8 Number 4
STAYING ZEN : THE ART OF CHILLIN’ OUT AT THE BEACH
“Mother, Mother Ocean, I’ve heard you call.
Wanted to sail upon your waters since I was three feet tall.
You’ve seen it all. You’ve seen it all.
Watch the men who rode you
Switch from sail to steam
In your belly you hold the treasures
Few have ever seen.
Most of ‘em dream, most of ‘em dream”
Jimmy Buffett
“If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.”
~ Zen proverb
Sometimes in our hectic lives even the most ambitious among us desire to turn our backs on the daily pursuit of power and success, to leave the suburban sprawl behind and to embrace the enchanting but unprofitable art of beachcombing. Like our prehistoric hunter-gatherer ancestors who started some of the mounds around St. Andrews Bay, we may choose to begin our intertidal zone scavenger hunt for shells, driftwood or some other part of Poseidon’s treasure on one of Bay County’s many isolated Gulf front beaches [see the BAY COUNTY’S BEST GULF BEACHES box in this article] but even if we don’t get a kick out of having the chance to enjoy Neptune’s blessing by getting something for nothing, a nice stroll on a peaceful beach is a great opportunity to decompress in the salt air, to calm your soul , to “give your head some space” and in the current cultural vernacular, “to stay Zen.”
The word “beachcomber” made its first appearance in print in Herman Melville’s 1847 book OMOO. Melville used the term to describe unemployed sailors who foraged along the beaches of Pacific islands for the remains of shipwrecks. Over the course of the next 166 years, the term has been associated with deserters, free-loaders, bums, drifters and in some cases, the criminal class of wreckers who were known to set up false beacon lights to lure ships onto shoals. Wrecking became such a tradition in the Shetland Islands that Christian preachers there once included this appeal to the Almighty in their prayers, ”Lord, if it be thy holy will to send shipwrecks, do not forget our island.”
Well, times have changed and these days it’s not your Mama’s beachcombing.
Not only do we have “Dr. Beach”, “Dr. Beachcomb” and pricey expeditions that promise “full immersion” within “the beachcombing experience”, we have the annual International Beachcombing Conference, beachcombing autobiographies and self-help beachcombing books that “explore self-being” while bringing a “simplified perspective to beachcombing.” In other words, BEACHCOMBING, INC. (made up of a variety of shamans, neuroconservationists and born-again eco-environmentalists who desperately need copy for their next book or mixed media presentation) is now selling a mixed bag of beachcombing gear and amazing adventures in unadulterated nature.
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Beachcombing is really not a tough sell for the corporate beachcomber because it’s hard to argue with the joy beachcombing brings us. A simple walk surrounded by the beautiful backdrop of shifting sand and shimmering surf, accompanied by the sounds of rolling waves and shrieking shorebirds, somehow has the magical ability to transform us, to bring us deep contentment and to return us to memories of our childhood and our families. In fact, there’s a great deal of scientific curiosity concerning exactly why the sea has this ability to suddenly bring us deep contentment. In the midst of the stress of work, smart phones and deadlines, we often find ourselves daydreaming about our beachcomber life and find ourselves revisiting our excursions in our imagination.
On just about any beach on Earth, beachcombing takes you through some really cool nature but Bay County beachcombing has an added bonus that makes it unique to all of North America. These Gulf front beaches are absolutely, astonishingly beautiful. When clear water comes in with the tide, it doesn’t take a trained eye to see the spectacular display of color produced by sunlight upon the exceeding whiteness of the sandy bottom. Any painter of landscapes who can concoct the right combination of pigment and is able to get just some of that beauty down on canvas, deserves to charge a good price for their work.
From the intersection of Highway 98 and Florida Road 386 in Mexico Beach on the east to the Walton County line in Inlet Beach on the west, Bay County is blessed with over 40 miles of cherished Gulf-front beaches. Even though Bay County is only 100 years old, accurate maps of the area have been available for almost 250 years. During this time the sea has pounded and flattened this strand of sand many times and over the years, geographical terms like St. Andrews Island (1766), Crooked Island (1827), Sand Island (1827), Hummock Island (1827) and Hurricane Island (1855) have come and gone. This is not the place for a discussion about wave erosion and marine geology but, suffice it to say, the form and extent of the sandy barrier between the bay and the Gulf have changed over the years; in fact, there are no true barrier islands in Bay County anymore, only peninsulas. Even with all this geographical alteration, high rise condominium construction and urban beach, much of Bay County’s shoreline remains in the same natural state it was when the Spanish found it: a quartz white sandy beach with a few scrubby weeds in the dunes.
It’s hard to believe that beachcombing would become a potentially criminal activity but that’s exactly what we have in our present day. Everyone knows there’s always been rules and regulations at the beach like “no dogs”, “no glass containers” or “walking on sand dunes or sea oats prohibited”, but now we have the threat of “no shell collecting allowed” or barriers that keep people from walking on the beach such as closing walkways that go through the dunes to the beach. The recent events pertaining to the locked beach walkways at Bid-A-Wee are not the first time this conflict between the private and public has occurred on our beaches. Bay County has seen the horrific results that can occur when private property owners become a barrier between the public and the beach. In the summer of 1930, the owner of Long Beach Resort decided a great way to limit access to this treasured and limited public resource was to pistol whip a man the owner claimed was trespassing “on property of the beach “ when the man decided to relax in the sand just west of the resort. While his entire family stood by in shock, the “trespasser” not only was struck against the head repeatedly with a pistol by the Long Beach owner but was also kicked repeatedly in the groin. This assault resulted in permanent brain damage and impotence in the “perpetrator” and he ended up having to be institutionalized in Chattahoochee but not before May 23, 1931, when someone walked up to the owner of Long Beach Resort as he was getting out of his car on Highway 98 near St. Andrews and sent him to an early grave with a load of buckshot in the face.
The bad arrests on Shell Island during the summer of 2006 were amicably resolved but they exposed the erosion of legal principles as old as the common law itself but you know something’s happening to our right to walk on the beach in the United States when an agency like the Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources issues a standing prohibition that “denies the removal of any natural artifacts from the public beaches of Hawaii.” Could this type of regulation be in some Bay County beach’s future? For beachcombers, the hunt for shells, driftwood and artifacts is as ingrained within us as our own DNA so we bristle when we are permitted to pick up unoccupied shells but not allowed to take driftwood or sea glass. The marine resource enforcement bureaucrats who come up with all this “look but don’t touch” mumbo jumbo, are afraid we might remove an important clue from some ancient shipwreck blown to shore. So next time you find a gold coin on the beach fronting Spanish Shanty Cove, feel free to photograph it but make sure you leave it in the sand the same way as you found it. Always remember that touching anything on the beach could cause terrible erosion or destroy the natural oceanfront camouflage so important to insects and shorebirds.
Falling in love again with taking a stroll down a lonely beach may be the perfect way for each of us to take control of our cluttered lives. In May of 2013, Cruzan Rum took the “beachcomber lifestyle” as the state of mind and the way of life they want to brand onto their rum. In their television commercial, the viewer finds himself adrift within the towering waves of a stormy sea and hears the announcer say, “You are drowning. You are literally drowning in a figurative sea of busyness. When…wait! Is that?” The viewer suddenly sees an island on the screen and hears a greeting from a voice with a strange accent, ”Welcome! Welcome to the Island of Don’t Hurry where life never moves too fast and Cruzan Rum flows freely. For two hundred and fifty years our pastime has been ‘passing time.’ Join us. Come leave your hurried life behind.”
After introducing you to the National Bird, a rapping parrot who “can fly but chooses not to” and showing a domesticated tortoise hauling a cart of rum on the beach, the announcer gives you a preview of the national sports of “Zero K Runs” and “Sleep Yoga” along with advertisements for “Monkey Massages”. Then the announcer ends the ad with the words, “Slow down and enjoy the Don’t Hurry lifestyle wherever you may find it. When you hurry through life, you just get to the end faster.”
There’s is a tendency to underestimate our experiences walking the beach. How much is “pretty” worth to you? The value to the elderly or infirm of their entire life’s catalogue of beach scene memories has not been accurately calculated but a nice testable hypothesis would be whether pleasant memories at the beach are a great predictor of late-late-late life satisfaction. Stay tuned…
BAY COUNTY’S
BEST GULF BEACHES
#11 City Pier Beach – This spot might have made Number 11 on our list but this beach is definitely Number 1 when it comes to memories for the Baby Boomers. This was the location of the old Wayside Park and the site of countless summer picnics and winter walks on the beach for families in the 1950s and 60s.
#10 S. Rick Seltzer Park Beach on Thomas Drive – A walk in either direction introduces you to the Grand Lagoon Peninsula and will lead one to excellent venues where you can take a break from your travels, relax at a bar overlooking the beach and enjoy the eye candy.
#9 County Pier Beach – A two-mile hike east of here will take you along an urban beach under the shadows of towering condominiums. This stretch was once the center of all activity on PCB. Today there are few memories of the “Good Old Days” still standing but Goofy Golf located across from the pier has stood the test of time for almost 60 years. Its theme could also stand for Bay County’s beaches: “This is the Magic World, where the ages of time abide in a garden of serenity, with perpetual peace and harmony.”
#8 Bid-A-Wee Beach- The locked iron gates on the walkways are an ugly nuisance but the 1600 feet of unoccupied beaches and dunes have delighted the entire public since the beginning of time and have been dedicated “for Park Purposes” since 1938.
#7 Laguna Beach- West of the Panama City Beach City Limits, this 7/10 mile of dunes and beach is the first on our list that takes us completely away from the tourist mayhem and traffic gridlock so choose this beach or one of the next six when you are a little cantankerous and having problems “staying Zen.”
#6 Sunnyside/Santa Monica Beach- Put ten toes in the sand and head in either direction. The cares of the world are waiting to left behind.
#5 Mexico Beach- The seventeen miles of beaches between Pinnacle Port and Moonspinner on the west side of the Bay County seem like they’re light years away when you park your car next to this roadside slice of paradise located next to the Gulf County line and with the lack of commercial development, you’ll feel like you just stepped back into the “Old Florida.”
#4 St. Andrews State Park Beach- Gorgeous beaches, the jetties and the gateway to Shell Island but it does have one little disadvantage: an admission charge and the place doesn’t open until 8 o’clock in the morning and closes at dusk. Annual entrance passes can be purchased each year for $60 but they are only good for you and your car. Your passengers will be charged two bucks a head.
#3 Phillips Inlet Beach- You may walk to this beach through Camp Helen State Park and the entrance fee is a little lower than the one at St. Andrews. An alternative is to drive down Highway 98 a bit and park at the Inlet Beach Access parking spaces just across the Walton County line at the end of Orange Street. The beach is only a hundred yards away and the walk from there to Phillips Inlet is one of the most beautiful in all of North America.
#2 East Crooked Island Beach- This a U.S. Air Force property but with no gates and no need for paperwork. Be prepared to show an ID and if you walk over three miles west down this pristine, unoccupied beach, you might get turned back when they launch one of those drones out into the Gulf.
#1 Shell Island- Bay County’s sparkling jewel shimmering in its tranquil, watery seclusion. This subtropical paradise is home to the northern limit of the wild sabal palm tree and even though it can now be accessed by land via Tyndall, it is still functionally an island. Tyndall’s portion is called Tyndall Beach and you can visit it if you have the right kind of paperwork with the Air Force. Leave only footprints. Only trash litters.
This article was published in the MAY-JUNE 2013 issue of PANAMA CITY LIVING MAGAZINE Volume 8 ~ Issue 3
THEODORE TOLLOFSEN: GRAND LAGOON’S SOLITARY MAN
“Don’t know that I will but until I can find one, a girl who’ll stay and won’t play games behind me.
I’ll be what I am: a solitary man, SOLITARY MAN.”
-Neil Diamond
One day in 1954, Claude Willoughby, hired in ’49 as the first manager of St. Andrews State Park, stopped by a ramshackle squatter’s cabin built beside the shimmering blue green waters of Grand Lagoon to check on the condition of the tenant and found the old man unconscious and sprawled out on the floor. Later that same day, the state park’s most legendary resident passed away at a local Panama City hospital; so ended the strange intriguing nautical life of Bay County’s Nordic version of Robinson Crusoe, Theodore Tollofsen.
By ’54, Theodore, better known as Teddy, had lived the primitive solitary life of a castaway for at least 25 years on a spit of sand that is today occupied by one of the most popular state parks in Florida, attracting almost a million visitors each year. It certainly wasn’t so crowded when Teddy first showed up, shipwrecked on Grand Lagoon after a 1929 hurricane. Eighty four years ago, there were no jetties, no full service marinas, no Thomas Drive, no close neighbors and although Teddy’s part of Grand Lagoon was only four miles across the bay south of St. Andrews, it was centuries away from the running water, electricity, telephones and city sidewalks of Panama City.
There are a couple of stories about how Teddy and his boat ended up wrecked on the southern shore of Grand Lagoon but one fact is certainly known: Teddy blamed himself for the demise of his beloved vessel and to the day he died he would affectionately pat the decaying wreckage of his boat and, in his heavy Scandinavian accent, explain to visitors,”The boat wrecked here and so we’ve stayed together.”
During the months before his death, Teddy must have had a foreshadowing of things to come. He’d begun selling some of his possessions to visitors and had told Willoughby about where to find the money he’d stashed in his shack in case he passed away. Teddy wanted the money to be used for the final expenses associated with his burial.
Toward the end of his life vandals and burglars had become occasional visitors to Teddy’s cabin. The thieves were probably attracted by the nearby abandoned army post at the jetties that had manned a gun battery at the jetties during WWII to guard Panama City Inlet. Even with the improvements made by the army during the war, the jetties area was still not very accessible by land and a four wheel drive vehicle was necessary to traverse the six miles of dunes that separated the area from Highway 98. Nevertheless, the army barracks were vandalized and Teddy’s cabin had been plundered. Teddy believed that a box containing his 1911 U.S. citizenship papers and his U.S. Navy discharge papers from WWI had been stolen during one of the crimes. For this reason, Teddy never received any form of a pension during his lifetime.
After Teddy’s death Willoughby found the money in the shack Teddy had told him to use for burial expenses along with a box containing all the personal papers that Teddy believed to have been stolen. Willoughby used the money from the shack along with donations to give Teddy a proper burial. The city donated a plot in Greenwood Cemetery and as many as 100 attended Teddy’s funeral, including some Tallahassee dignitaries. One story goes that Teddy’s grave was at first marked with ballast stones from a foreign vessel yet another goes that the ballast rocks came from the wreckage of the beloved boat which first brought the Norwegian to the watery seclusion of Grand Lagoon. In the present day, the second story seems so much more appropriate as one visits Teddy’s grave and sees ballast stones set in the concrete around his burial vault.
Because of the friendship Willoughby had established with Teddy, visitors to St. Andrews State Park’s new Environmental Interpretive Center can catch a glimpse of the little estate on Grand Lagoon that sustained Teddy for a quarter century. It was Willoughby’s job to demolish Teddy’s dwelling and outbuildings and to dispose of his possessions. This wonderful exhibit of a few of Teddy’s tools and personal items along with photographs donated by Willoughby provides us with a window into Theodore Tollofsen’s life as a castaway.
Norwegian fishermen are world famous for building cabins and cottages on the beaches of northern European islands to house themselves during the summer fishing season. For Teddy a winter on Grand Lagoon was probably the equivalent to a summer near the Arctic Circle so Teddy, who ran away to sea at the age of 14, utilized his nautical experience in the construction of his little home on the lagoon. Not only were Norwegians at the end of the 19th century the most desired deckhands on the world’s sailing ships but they were also famed on the Gulf Coast as wreckers and salvagers so it was understandable that the shutters on Teddy’s cabin would be zinc plated skylight hinges retrieved at low tide from some wreck in the Old Pass. The inside of Teddy’s cabin contained so many nautical items that you felt like you’d just climbed below deck into the captain’s quarters. A wood cook stove was the centerpiece of this Spartan affair with a built in table and bunk. Nine lanterns of various designs hung, stood or rested around the small room along with a battery powered radio Teddy used to hear the news and weather of the day. The inside of Teddy’s cabin contained so many nautical items that it looked like he’d raided a maritime museum. The ornately carved nameplate of the TECUMSEH crowned one window. The Tecumseh was built in Gloucester, Mass. In 1911 and sank in the Old Pass at Land’s End, possibly in the same hurricane that wrecked Teddy’s boat in ’29.
Teddy’s resourcefulness with the driftwood and the wrecked lumber that came in on the tides of the Grand Lagoon Peninsula was also evident in the small structures that surrounded his cabin. From his lumberyard, which included everything from pieces of plywood to massive 10 inch by 10 inch pilings, Teddy constructed a small pier on the lagoon with a fish cleaning house. A single concrete block served as the step off his front porch and salvaged lumber was used to build a smokehouse, a well cover, privy, storage shed, chicken coop and “South Florida,” a raised roofed sleeping platform without walls built about three feet above the dunes behind Teddy’s cabin in order to take advantage of the summer breezes and avoid the season’s heat and mosquitos. Keeping with the nautical theme, Teddy’s hen house was covered with tarred cotton fish net.
In addition to the heat of the summer, the cold of winter and the sting of mosquitos, Teddy also had to adapt to less that crystal clear drinking water. He had hand drilled a twenty foot deep well through layers of sand, muck, shell, clay and hardpan to get to a stream of dark brown, tannic acid stained water. Willoughby told a story about how Teddy’s well water was so brown that Teddy would often forget to drop in tea leaves when he brewed his “tea.”
For refrigeration Teddy dug a root cellar in order provide a cool space to store his chicken’s eggs. In addition to eggs, Teddy’s breakfast often included oatmeal and sea greens. Sea greens are green leafy algae of the genus Ulva that grows on the rocks of the jetties and is exposed at low tide each day. Teddy thrived on the abundance of seafood and his smokehouse was filled with split mullet and maybe a ham or two from one of the wild pigs that inhabited the Grand Lagoon Peninsula at that time.
Teddy was reclusive and lacked any close neighbors but he still needed money so at least once a week he’d make his way into town, either by rowing or by motoring his small boat across the bay and walked the streets of St. Andrews peddling the fresh flounder he’d gigged the night before or searching for odd jobs such as repairing nets or rigging boats in the marina. Teddy may have turned his back on society but he certainly didn’t turn his back on the dollar. He needed cash, not for liquor, he claimed to have given up drinking in Mobile in 1907, “I quit drinking in Mobile after I figured I’d been a fool long enough.”; nor for tobacco. Teddy never picked up that bad habit but he did need cash for canned milk, oatmeal, grits, sugar, flour and tea as well as for radio batteries, chicken feed, lamp oil and outboard motor fuel.
Teddy apparently had little need for human companionship in his sandy solitude but he did have a soft spot in his heart for animals. He kept cats and he had his yard birds and he told Willoughby a story about raising a pet hog. After saving the little pig from drowning in shallow water near Shell Island, Teddy placed the little porker in his boat and took it home to raise. Within a year the pig had become Teddy’s constant companion and had acquired a love of fishing. The moment Teddy picked up his cast net or his homemade rod and rusty reel, the pig clamored into the boat, positioning himself in the bow and placing his front hooves up on the gunnels, ready for a bumpy ride on the bay. Things rocked along well for about a year but by then the pig had grown so large that he’d almost sink the bow of the boat and out of necessity Teddy passed his pet hog along to a fellow Norwegian in St. Andrews. Stories vary on whether Teddy’s pig ended up on the dinner table or lived out his days in the neighborhoods around Beck Avenue.
So how does one come about to choose such a strange lifestyle? Was Teddy’s irrational attachment to the rotting wreckage of his old boat enough to explain a quarter century of self-sustained isolation? Could Teddy have been mentally handicapped? He certainly had the opportunity to experience neurological damage. On at least two occasions during his career as a deckhand he’d been poisoned into unconsciousness before being shanghaied. He’d been struck by lightning on three occasions: once in South Dakota; once on board a fishing schooner in the Gulf; and once on Grand Lagoon near his little shack.
All of these things are clues to why Teddy chose the life of a rugged individualist but Teddy’s secret may exist in a mysterious photo Willoughby found after Tollofsen’s death in the long lost box containing Teddy’s personal papers. Teddy claimed he’d always lived a solitary life and had never married but Willoughby found a photograph of a bride and groom in the box and the picture of the groom bears a remarkable resemblance to what Teddy may have looked like before he became a shaggy gray headed and weather beaten old man. Could Teddy’s story be another Norse legend of the sea, one that includes one last dangerous voyage that left not a widowed mother and lost children but a lost love that asks the haunting, eternal question: “Is it better to have loved and lost or never to have loved at all?”
But in summing up the strange life of Theodore Tollofsen, perhaps the author of the 1950 article about Teddy in the Florida Parks Service magazine describes best how Teddy’s self-sufficiency and independence turned his life into a legend that lives on until this very day:
“For my money he’s a memorial to the frontiersman that has made our country the greatest in the world today, living proof that an energetic person can get his just share of fish and grits come hell or high water.”
Information for this article came from Jeannie Weller Cooper’s PANAMA CITY BEACH: TALES FROM THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL BEACHES, James Burgess’ SAND IN MY SHOES, and page 26, February 23, 1975 Panama City News Herald article entitled, TEDDY THE HERMIT.
This article was published in the MARCH-APRIL 2013 issue of PANAMA CITY LIVING MAGAZINE, Volume 8 ~ Issue 2
SPRING IS IN THE AIR!
Yellow Daffodils and Purple Japanese Magnolia Blossoms!
TIME TO CELEBRATE THE SEASON AND HEAD FOR THE BEACHES!
King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
Ecclesiastes 3:1
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
Much of Panama City has changed over the past sixty years. An international airport, modern highways, shopping centers and high rises have replaced much of what was almost a wilderness just after WWII. Change has been a certainty and our adaptation to change a necessity but some things haven't changed. The sun has its cycle, the moon its phases and the tides ebb and flow and in the month of March, the sun's warmth renews our world once more while the cobia move west just off Panama City Beach's shoreline along their ancient migratory path. As I write this column in the middle of January, most cobia are feeding in deep waters south of Panama City but in the next few days an ancient genetic program will trigger a secret and unique navigational system within each of these fish and the cobia will activate some sort of unknown compass needle to lead them through their spring spawning migration to breeding grounds in the Northern Gulf off of the Mississippi River delta. The sun passing over the equator on the first day of spring; the full moon on March 27th; the gradual warming of Gulf waters; all of these factors probably put the cobia on its path to migration but regardless of why they begin their journey, the maritime trail of the cobia leads through the water just off Panama City's shoreline and somewhere, somehow, exactly the same factors that lead the cobia to our beaches trigger the detonation of a DNA timebomb within each one of us and we drop everything we're doing and HEAD FOR THE BEACHES!
"It started long ago in the Garden of Eden
When Adam said to Eve, baby, you're for me
So come on baby let's start today,
come on baby let's play
The game of love"
lyrics to THE GAME OF LOVE by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders
Everyone has their priorities. College students need to study hard for an exam for that business course called HOW TO SPEND ALL MY PARENT'S MONEY. The family man worries about the possibility of his mother-in-law moving into his house and staying forever. It's spring. The IRS wants to have a talk with you. Your yard already needs mowing. Your kid's failing math. The house needs painting. The air conditioning is on the blink and it's gonna get hot soon. The bills are overdue and the credit card's cancelled. The human race is facing runaway inflation, third world starvation and nuclear terrorism. Another "useless jobs" bill is being passed in Washington, D.C. and to think you could hardly wait to become a grown up but locked within your DNA is an innate impulse that explodes within you at this time of the year and you decide just to leave your troubles behind. You pull out all the beach stuff you stored before Thanksgiving and head across AMNESIA BRIDGE for another new year's adventures at the beach. It's the siren song of the surf, the salt and the sand that draws you back in a seasonal ritual.
Some of you might be wondering where AMNESIA BRIDGE is located in the Panama City area but remember that before the advertising slogan, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," folks have crossed Hathaway Bridge and suddenly lost their memory of the 9 to 5 Suburbatory they just left and 48 or 72 hours later they go back to the same Suburbatory across the same bridge, automatically erasing all the files pertaining to what just recently occurred in Panama City Beach.
Not only does this innate and cherished seasonal urge to merge at the beach occur in the genus species Homo sapiens who are natives and locals from Panama City but it also occurs in our neighbors to the north and the month of March begins a not so ancient migration south by many members of our own species who live as far as 150 miles north of Bay County. It is quite true that no one truly understands what kinds of unique navigational systems humans may have but it may be argued that just about everybody raised in an area as far north of Bay County as Greenville, Alabama and as far east as Albany, Georgia are imprinted with a homing instinct that works like clockwork.
IT'S ALL THE SUNSHINE'S FAULT!
Perhaps you remember the movie CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. It may be contended that like the characters in the film, those raised in Southeast Alabama and Southwest Georgia have cultural influences from childhood that have pre-programmed each and every one of them, imprinting them with a homing instinct to return to the Florida Panhandle when March arrives.
Many tax dollars have been spent to study the migratory corridors utilized by the cobia as they move west through the gully between the first sand bar and Panama City's beaches but little has been spent to learn about the spring migration of our own species back to the panhandle. Could it be possible that we could reawaken the migratory spirit within "the best and brightest" of these springtime voyagers to the Panhandle and channel them this way so that Panama City Beach becomes their destination of choice each spring?
The origins of the spring migration to Panama City by humans is cloaked in mystery, however, as far as we know, it can only be traced back about 60 years. Harvey H. ("Hardy") Jackson, Eminent Scholar in History at Jacksonville State University and a columnist and editorial writer at The Anniston Star, discovered an interesting 1960 Mobile Press-Register article that is an important document confirming that the onset of March's migration of our neighboring teenage "Goths and Vandals" from the north began as early as 1954.
Feb. 17, 1960, edition of the Mobile Press-Register, under the heading “News from Florida.” Headlined “Liquor Restriction,” it read:
“Panama City (Special) — The sale of beer and alcoholic beverages will be curtailed this year at three beach municipalities during the Alabama Education Association days March 15-20.
Panama City Beach Mayor Roy Martin, Long Beach Mayor J.E. Churchwell and
Edgewater Beach Mayor M.C. Buckley have joined in the move to ban the sale during the time several hundred Alabama teenagers are here at the beaches.This will mark the sixth consecutive year when sale of these beverages will be prohibited during the meeting time.”
In researching the veracity of this 1960 newspaper clipping, Professor Jackson interrogated several Bay Countians who lived through many A.E.A. Holidays from the Fifties and Sixties. They concluded that this news article couldn't be completely true and even if it was true, it wouldn't matter because,"Those kids could find cold beer in Saudi Arabia."
This teenage need for fake IDs during the month of March presents unique challenges for any Panama City Beach tourism development executive because it only takes one viral video of Bluto yelling "Go Bulldogs" while urinating off of a PCB balcony to "negatively impact our brand."
Regardless, the month of April will get here soon enough and the job of any self respecting tourism executive is to effectively overcome all obstacles so the challenge is clear. We have a mandate to scientifically identify the SPRING BREAK MIGRATORY PATTERNS of our neighbors to the North and help them get in touch with their "homing instinct for the beach" so they can experience the joy of expectation which occurs when you know that within a matter of less than three hours, you'll have left all your cares behind and that your very own ten toes will soon be in the sand and you'll be looking south over the gorgeous Gulf of Mexico saying to yourself," MAN, I AM SO GLAD TO BE BACK AT PANAMA CITY BEACH!
The following article was published in the JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2013 issue of PANAMA CITY LIVING MAGAZINE, Volume 8 ~ Issue 1
THE WAYSIDE PARK
by Robert Register
One afternoon after school my Daddy came home early from work and asked me this question,
"Bob, how'd you like to go to the picture show with me tonight?"
"Yes,sir, Daddy!" I exclaimed.
"Well, get your toothbrush. Tell Mommy to pack you some warm clothes and bring some books and toys to keep you busy."
"To go to the picture show?" I asked.
"We're going to the Martin Theatre in Panama City, son."
"Hot dog! So we're not coming home tonight?"
"No, Bob, we'll be staying at the Dixie Sherman Hotel in downtown Panama City tonight."
"What about school tomorrow?"
"Tell Ms. Odum you were sick."
"Daddy, won't that be telling a story?"
"You're sick, aren't you?"
"No, sir."
"Aw, I bet you're sick. Sick of school."
"Oh boy!" I ran down the hall screaming, "Mommy, Mommy, Daddy's taking me to the beach!"
There is no doubt in my mind that on that winter afternoon in 1958 I was the happiest eight year old boy in Alabama. Even after over 50 years, the memories are so sweet that they bring tears of joy to my eyes. My most vivid childhood memories are of my father, Earl Register. He was loud and he was strong and he loved his little boy. He'll always be my best buddy. Neither time nor the unspeakable tragedy of his death, nor anything else can take that man's love away from me.
That is my inheritance. (Thank you, Daddy, I love you.)
When it came to going to the beach, it didn't take me long to pack my satchel.
Mommy took care of my clothing and I gathered up Dr. Zim's Insect Book,
my color crayons, my tablet and my shovel.
I've always been ready to get sand in my shoes!
My mother, Kate, hugged my neck in the driveway and told me to "be good" and next thing you know we're heading for Panama City. Our house in Dothan was on Gaines Street and it was located one door down from the intersection with South Oates which was U.S. 231 South, the Panama City Highway. Being eight-years old, I was very concerned about getting to the beach as quickly as possible so I was a little worried when Daddy hung a quick left onto the Hodgesville Highway.
"Hey, Daddy. Where are we going?"
"To P.C., son. Why?"
"But this ain't the road to Panama City."
"What have I told you about saying the word 'ain't'?"
"I'm sorry. But this isn't the way to Panama City."
"Sure it is. Hodgesville is due south of town and from there we can cut over to Graceville or maybe Campbellton or maybe even Grangerburg."
"Daddy, why do you always go a different way every time you go somewhere? You even do it when we drive over to Grandma's house and it's just across town."
"Bob, I'm not like a cow. I don't go down the same trail back to the barn every evening."
"I just don't want us to be late. What time is it, anyway?"
"Confucius say, 'He who work by the hands of a clock will always be a hand.' "
Daddy had already handed me a strongly worded explanation of that little saying before, so I decided to climb over into the back seat of the company car and take a nap.
The next thing I knew Daddy was yelling, "Wake up, Bob. We're about to cross the Lynn Haven Bridge!"
I loved Lynn Haven with its pink houses and views of North Bay.
"Are we stopping by Aunt Estelle's house?" I asked.
"Nope. We're heading straight for downtown. We'll check in and then eat supper at Angelo's."
To this day, I always think of Daddy's Aunt Estelle whenever I eat fried scallops. That woman could cook the steam out of a mess of scallops. Every time we went to Aunt Estelle's house in Lynn Haven, she fried scallops. If she didn't have any, she'd send out for some.
The last time I saw Aunt Estelle was in the late 70s at the insane asylum at Chattahoochee.
Old age had caught up with her and she didn't know where she was from the man in the moon, but she remembered me though. She told me,"Bob, let me go get out of these clothes and put on my apron and I'll fry you up some scallops." That's the last thing Aunt Estelle said to me as the nurse led her back to the ward.
I never saw her again.
Daddy and I checked into a great room on the top floor of the Dixie Sherman.
That hotel was Panama City's tallest building and it wasn't a skyscraper but as far as Bob Register was concerned, we had a penthouse suite in the Empire State Building.
image courtesy ofhttp://www.beaconlearningcenter.com/weblessons/bayhistory/bhis29.htm
I turned on the TV and opened the curtains so I could see the sun going down over St. Andrews Bay.
"Get away from that window and get ready for supper, son. Go wash your face and hands. We're going to Angelo's."
It didn't take me long to follow directions. I laced up my paratrooper's boots and I was ready for action. Everything we needed was right there around the block from the Dixie Sherman. Restaurants, movie theatres, newstands, soda fountains- downtown Panama City had it all.
Soon we were seated at a shiny formica table beside a plate glass window inside Angelo's Steak Pit. We watched the traffic and the people on the sidewalk as we waited for our steaks. Angelo Butchikas was the owner and he knew Daddy real well because Panama City was on Earl's territory route with Goodrich. My Daddy was one of Mr. Angelo's favorite customers.
When we were through eating, Mr. Angelo came to our table. He treated us like we were royalty. I really liked him a lot.
"How was your steak, Bob?" he asked.
"Real good, Mr. Angelo," I replied.
"I noticed that you didn't touch your black olives."
"I eat green olives, but I don't like black olives."
"Please, Bob, try one of these," said Mr. Angelo.
"Yes, sir."
I tried one of Mr. Angelo's ripe olives. It tasted real strong but it went down all right. Just like eating fried bay scallops reminds me of Aunt Estelle, black olives always remind me of the nice man who had the great steak house in downtown Panama City, Angelo Butchikas.
& many times, when I try something new, I think of Mr. Angelo and his winning smile.
After Daddy paid our check, we walked down Harrison Avenue to the Martin Theatre. We took our seats and sat down to watch Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in what was probably the most exciting Western filmed up to that time, "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral."
image courtesy ofhttp://www.panamacitydowntown.com/play.php
image courtesy of http://www.martintheatre.com/history.html
It may have been a great movie but it was too long for this little eight-year old from Dothan. I fell asleep but I didn't miss the good part. All that gunfire at the end woke me up so even though I felt guilty and disappointed for falling asleep and missing the movie, I was sure happy about seeing that gunfight at the end.
When I woke up in the morning, Daddy had already gone to work. The night before he'd told me not to worry, that he would leave early and not wake me up. He told me to hang around the room, draw and color and watch TV so I did. I stared out the window at the beautiful bay. I watched a little TV. I drew insects out of my Dr. Zim book and colored cartoons I copied out of the News-Herald. Before noon Daddy was back and we were checking out of the hotel.
Now came the good part. We were going to Panama City Beach!
It was raining cats and dogs plus it was freezing but that didn't matter to us. We were heading for the beach! As we drove over Hathaway Bridge the weather began to break and the rain slacked up a little, but it was still bitter cold. I had on a couple of sweaters, my windbreaker and my toboggan. [Yankees call them "stocking caps"]
Panama City Beach was a ghost town. Nothing was open except a little grocery store across from Wayside Park. There were no cars on Front Beach Road. No lights were on in any of the motels or in any of the other businesses and not a soul was down toward the Y at the Wayside Park. We had the beach to ourselves. Miles and miles of snow-white dunes & crashing waves abandoned for Bob & Earl's day at the beach.
At Wayside Park, I jumped out of the car and ran straight for the sand dunes. The sand around the concrete foundations for the picnic tables were riddled with ghost crab dens and I immediately began to terrorize those little critters. Down by the water we found plenty of big cockle shells that the storm had washed up on the beach. When we got tired of picking up shells, Daddy chased me down the beach so far that I collapsed in the sand from fatigue. We laughed and walked back to the picnic tables to seek shelter from a fresh rain cloud blowing in from the Gulf.
We sat silently on top of the picnic table & watched the storm come in.
Daddy said, "Son, God knows this is the prettiest beach on the face of the Earth."
"Well, Daddy, you ought to know. You saw lots of different beaches during the war."
"Some of the best. The islands of the Caribbean, the coast of Brazil, North Africa, the islands of the Mediterranean, the French Riviera, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and the Adriatic Coast.
But I still like Panama City best."
Years later, when I was first out of college, I went back to Panama City Beach for a weekend with our family. Daddy was a little mad at me because I'd showed up a day late(blame Tuscaloosa for that), but he forgave me.
(He always forgave us children, but he never forgot.)
At night, Daddy and I buried a light pole in the sand at the edge of the surf behind the Admiral Imperial. This light attracted skates & rays to the shore and we celebrated the excitement of resting our lawn chairs in sting-ray infested waters by toasting each other.
We were having a lot of fun when Daddy made a very serious statement.
He said,"Bob, you've always obeyed me with the exception of three times.
THREE TIMES YOU WENT AGAINST ME!"silence
I was scared to death.
Believe it or not, I was speechless. (quite an accomplishment for someone who's Cloverdale neighborhood nickname was "LUNGZZZ" )"Three times you went against my advice & each time you were right."
"I'm sorry, Daddy, but what times are you talking about?"
"Three times. When you changed your major;
when you dropped out of ROTC;
& when you let your hair grow out.
Three times you went against me and every time you were right.
I was wrong."
OK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I had no idea this would be my last conversation with my father but I'm glad it happened at the beach.
Panama City Beach always brings back memories of my Daddy.
For that reason alone,
Bay County, Florida,
will always be THE HOME OF THE WORLD'S MOST BEAUTIFUL BEACHES.
The Invention of Air Conditioning
How an Apalachicola Doctor Laid the Groundwork for Modern Comforts
The first air conditioning in human history occurred here in Northwest Florida over150 years ago. Back in the 1840s, an Apalachicola physician, Dr. John Gorrie, found that patients suffering from fevers improved when their rooms were cooled by air that moved over ice. There was a major problem with this therapy. Ice was expensive. Harvested in the freshwater lakes north of Boston, the ice was packed in sawdust and shipped to Apalachicola aboard the ships of the Tudor Ice Company. Not only did the ice melt but there were times during the summer when it was unavailable. The solution to this problem consumed Dr. Gorrie and by 1846 his practical creative genius applied known scientific principles and produced a mechanism that made artificial ice. On July 14, 1847, the French consul at Apalachicola was able to celebrate Bastille Day with a toast of champagne chilled with Dr. Gorrie’s ice.
Dr. John Gorrie
had invented one of mankind’s greatest technological achievements, Gorrie soon found that, in his own words, his ice maker “had been found in advance of the wants of the country.” Not only did his investors fail him but he may have been the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by the New England ice cartel. Gorrie was called a “crank” in newspaper articles and accused of “playing God” with his artificial ice. Gorrie’s ice was a byproduct of his attempt to create air conditioning but in the 1850s his attempt to assist his patient’s healing with cooling comfort might as well have been the work of the Devil. No one appreciated the potential of Dr. Gorrie’s invention. After suffering from nervous exhaustion, Gorrie died destitute in Apalachicola in 1855. Today Dr. Gorrie’s achievement is recognized in the U.S. Capitol where his statue is one of two that honor representatives of Florida history. In his hometown of Apalachicola the John Gorrie Museum State Park displays a model of the device that produced the first artificial ice from mechanical refrigeration. Each August Apalachicola honors their favorite son with the Water Street Festival of Ice.Dr. Gorrie’s museum and the grave across the street where he is buried are enough reason to take a short road trip to Apalachicola down U.S. Highway 98 East in your air conditioned automobile on any given evening. Each one of us can show appreciation for Dr. Gorrie’s achievements every time we end a busy day in the air conditioned comfort of our living rooms, clink a few ice cubes together and raise a toast to Apalachicola’s own Dr. John Gorrie, the father of mechanical refrigeration and air conditioning.
The small, glass tile windows show that the Hotel patio was designed to be air conditioned.
Back in 1950, more people lived in Alabama than lived in the entire state of Florida. That’s kind of hard to believe today as Florida’s population pushes toward the 20 million mark. There’s no doubt that residential air conditioning had a major role in creating this mass migration to the Sunshine State and has transformed Florida into one of the most populous states in the nation.
Buddy Buie: MUSIC OF MY LIFE
THE MUSIC OF MY LIFE ~ Buddy Buie
My name is Perry Carleton Buie. Since I was a child, I've been called "Buddy" and that's the name that I prefer. Invariably, when I meet someone new, they say,"What do you do for a living?" and I go, "Well, I'm a songwriter and a record producer." and they say,"Anything we might know?" and I say, "Well, maybe," and they say,"Could you hum a few bars?"
That's one of the reasons I made this compilation. The primary reason is for my kids and grandkids, my family. This is the only time my music has been compiled like this. Here's "Spooky",circa 1967.
SPOOKY
In the cool of the evening when ev'rything is gettin' kind of groovy,
I call you up and ask you if you want to go and meet and see a movie,
First you say no, you've got some plans for the night,And then you stop, and say,
"All right."
Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little girl like you.
You always keep me guessin',
I never seem to know what you are thinkin'.
And if a fella looks at you, it's for sure your little eye will be a-winkin'.
I get confused, 'cause I don't know where I stand,
And then you smile, and hold my hand.
Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little girl like you.
Spooky!
If you decide someday to stop this little game that you are playin',
I'm gonna tell you all what my heart's been a-dyin' to be sayin'.
Just like a ghost, you've been a-hauntin' my dreams,
So I'll propose... on Halloween.
Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little girl like you.
Spooky, Spooky,Spooky,Oh-whoa, all right,I said Spooky!
"Spooky" was recorded by Dennis Yost & the Classics IV.http://crystalhorizon.com/Classics_IV/Main.htm
It was written by myself, J.R. Cobbhttp://www.alamhof.org/cobbjr.htm , Mike Shapiro and Harry Middlebrooks. I know that's a lot of writers but it was an unusual collaboration. Originally a jazz instrumental, later J.R. Cobb and I wrote lyrics and changed the arrangement to make it more appropriate for a pop song and it was one of our biggest hits.
My friend and partner, Paul Cochran http://paulcochran.com
discovered Dennis Yost & the Classics IV in Jacksonville, FL. They came to Atlanta; were signed by Bill Lowery.http://www.lowerymusic.com/index_001.htm
was their producer. He became ill and by default I was declared their new producer.
Dennis Yost hated the way that I wanted him to sing the song. He said,"It makes me sound like a sissy."
So I wanted him to sound real seductive and sexy, you know [singing] "In the cool of the evening," that kind of deal and he went back to Bill Lowery in the office and says, " I'm not recording that song that way! It makes me sound weird. Makes me sound like a sissy!"
Bill said,"Hey man, you do it your way and then you do it Buddy's way and we'll see which one came out best" and it went on to be our first huge record.
"Traces of Love" is the next song. It is the 34th most performed song in the BMI catalog. To put that in perspective: #1 is "Yesterday" and #49 is "My Way". It has truly become a standard.
TRACES OF LOVE
Faded photograph
Covered now with lines and creases
Tickets torn in half
Memories in bits and pieces
Traces of love long ago
That didn't work out right
Traces of love
Ribbons from her hair
Souvenirs of days together
The ring he used to wear
Pages from an old love letter
Traces of love long ago
That didn't work out right
Traces of love
With me tonight
I close my eyes and say a prayer
That in her heart she'll find
A trace of love still there
Somewhere, ooooh, oh
[Instrumental Interlude]
Traces of hope in the night
that she'll come back and dry
These traces of tears
From my eyes
Whoooa, oooh, oh, oooh
EMORY GORDY,JR. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emory_Gordy,_Jr.
"Traces" was written by J.R. Cobb, Emory Gordyhttp://tonysheridan.com/html/tcb.html and me. Emory played bass on the record and arranged it. He later became famous for being Elvis Presley's bass player and he was married and still is married to Patty Loveless who he produced and who he's still producing great songs in Nashville.
seated:Billy Joe Royal; standing left to right: DOWN IN THE BOONDOCKS composer and album producer Joe South, Tommy South, Fred Weller, Emory Gordy, Ricky Knight
My inspiration for the song was Gloria Jane Seay, who later became and still is Gloria Jane Buie.
Buddy and Gloria
Buddy and Gloria
The Atlanta Rhythm Sectionhttp://atlantarhythmsection.com/
was the next big project after the Classics IV.
Atlanta Rhythm Section, 1970- photo courtesy ofhttp://paulcochran.com
Atlanta Rhythm Section, 1970- photo courtesy ofhttp://paulcochran.com
Barry Bailey, Paul Goddard, Dean Daughtry, Robert Nix, J.R. Cobb, Rodney Justo
Our first Top 10 Song was "So Into You" written by Robert Nixhttp://alisonheafner.biz/, Dean Daughtry and myself. Robert was the drummer in the band and Dean was the keyboardist. They both were former members of the Candymen, the band I put together for Roy Orbisonhttp://www.orbison.com/ .
THE CANDYMEN, photo courtesy of http://paulcochran.com
L. to R.- Dean Daughtry, Robert Nix, John Rainey Adkins, Rodney Justo, Bill Gilmore
Here's "So Into You"
SO INTO YOU
When you walked into the room
There was voodoo in the vibes
I was captured by your style
But I could not get your eyes
Now I stand here helplessly
Hoping you'll get into me
I am so into you
I can't think of nothing else
I am so into you
I can't think of nothing else
Thinkin' how it's gonna be
Whenever I get you next to me
It's gonna be good
Don't you know
From your head to toe
Gonna love you all over
Over and over
Me into you, you into me
Me into you,I'm so into you
I'm so into you...When you walked into the room
There was voodoo in the vibes
I was captured by your style
But I could not get your eyes
Now I stand here helplessly
Hopin' you'll get into me
I am so into you I can't get to nothing else
I am so into you, baby I can't get to nothing else, no, no, no
Come on baby
I'm so into you
Love the things you do
Listen, baby You're driving me crazy
Come on baby I'm so into you
Love the things you do
"Imaginary Lover" was another song I wrote with Robert Nix and Dean Daughtry. The was Atlanta Rhythm Section's second Top 10 record.
IMAGINARY LOVER
Imaginary lovers
Never turn you down
When all the others turn you away
They're around
It's my private pleasure
Midnight fantasy
Someone to share my Wildest dreams with me
Imaginary lover
You're mine anytime
Imaginary lover, oh yeah
When ordinary lovers
Don't feel what you feel
And real-life situations lose their thrill
Imagination's unreal
Imaginary lover, imaginary lover
You're mine anytime
[Instrumental Interlude]
Imaginary lovers never disagree
They always care
They're always there when you need
Satisfaction guaranteed
Imaginary lover, imaginary lover
You're mine all the time
My imaginary lover
You're mine anytime
My cowriters are one of the primary reasons for the success I've enjoyed. The first was John Rainey Adkinshttp://www.alamhof.org/adkinsjr.htmfrom my hometown Dothan, Alabama. He was a guitar hero of mine when we were in high school. He was the first person that I told that I was gonna be a songwriter that didn't snicker and say,"Sure." We'd sit in my '55 Chevrolet in front of his house on Main Street; I'd sing my ideas a cappela and he'd pick them out on his guitar. Without him, I might still be working in my family's business, Buie's Restaurant.
J.R. & Buddy back in the Sixties
J.R. Cobb was the guitarist in the Classics IV. He bought into my dream in 1966 and we're still cowriters. "Stormy" and"Everyday With You Girl" are two more songs we wrote for Dennis Yost and the Classics IV.
J.R. and Buddy in 2005
STORMY
Stormy you are the sunshine, baby, whenever you smile
But I call you stormy today
All of a sudden that ol’ rain is fallin’ down
And my world is cloudy and gray
You’ve gone away
Old stormy stormy
Old stormy stormy
Old stormy stormy
Old stormy stormy
Yesterday’s love was alive, the warm summer breeze
But like the weather you changed
Now things are dreary, baby, windy and cold
And I stand alone in the rain
Callin’ out your name
Stormy stormy
Stormy stormy
Come back to me stormy
Stormy stormy
Bring back that sunny day
Guitar solo
Yesterday’s love was alive, the warm summer breeze
But like the weather you changed
Now things are dreary, baby, windy and cold
And I stand alone in the rain
Callin’ out your name
Whoa! stormy
Stormy, come back to me stormy
Stormy, come back to me stormy
Come on home! stormy
Bring back that sunny day
EVERYDAY WITH YOU GIRL
Everyday with you girl it's sweeter than the day before
everyday I love you more and more, more and more and more
They say that all the days must come to an end
but girl it isn't true each day with you I fall in love again
Everyday with you girl it's sweeter than the day before
everyday I love you more and more, more and more and more
And when I don't sleep at night time tomorrow's would I wake awl
'cause everyday with you girl it's sweeter than the day before
Everyday with you girl it's sweeter than the day before
everyday I love you more and more, more and more and more
And when I don't sleep at night time tomorrow's would I wake awl
'cause everyday with you girl it's sweeter than the day,
it's sweeter than the day, it's sweeter than the day before
J.R. and Buddy in 2005
STORMY
Stormy you are the sunshine, baby, whenever you smile
But I call you stormy today
All of a sudden that ol’ rain is fallin’ down
And my world is cloudy and gray
You’ve gone away
Old stormy stormy
Old stormy stormy
Old stormy stormy
Old stormy stormy
Yesterday’s love was alive, the warm summer breeze
But like the weather you changed
Now things are dreary, baby, windy and cold
And I stand alone in the rain
Callin’ out your name
Stormy stormy
Stormy stormy
Come back to me stormy
Stormy stormy
Bring back that sunny day
Guitar solo
Yesterday’s love was alive, the warm summer breeze
But like the weather you changed
Now things are dreary, baby, windy and cold
And I stand alone in the rain
Callin’ out your name
Whoa! stormy
Stormy, come back to me stormy
Stormy, come back to me stormy
Come on home! stormy
Bring back that sunny day
EVERYDAY WITH YOU GIRL
Everyday with you girl it's sweeter than the day before
everyday I love you more and more, more and more and more
They say that all the days must come to an end
but girl it isn't true each day with you I fall in love again
Everyday with you girl it's sweeter than the day before
everyday I love you more and more, more and more and more
And when I don't sleep at night time tomorrow's would I wake awl
'cause everyday with you girl it's sweeter than the day before
Everyday with you girl it's sweeter than the day before
everyday I love you more and more, more and more and more
And when I don't sleep at night time tomorrow's would I wake awl
'cause everyday with you girl it's sweeter than the day,
it's sweeter than the day, it's sweeter than the day before
All my life I've believed you should do all you can do to achieve your goals but at the end of the day, when I've done my best, I've always said, "I've done all I can do today. I'll worry about it tomorrow."
Well, Robert Nix and Dean Daughtry shared that philosophy and in 1978, we wrote this song for ARS.
NOT GONNA LET IT BOTHER ME TONIGHT
I picked up the paper this morning
And read all the daily blues
The world is one big tragedy I wonder what I can do
About all the pain and injustice
About all of the sorrow
We're living in a danger zone
The world could end tomorrow
But I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
Tomorrow I might go as far as suicide
But I won't let it bother me tonight
Life on the street is a jungle
A struggle to keep up the pace
I just can't beat that old dog eat dog
The rats keep winnin' the rat race
But I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
The world is in an uproar and I see no end in sight
But I won't let it bother me tonight
I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
Tomorrow I might go as far as suicide
But I won't let it bother me tonight
Lord, Lord, Lord
We got nothing but trouble
I've done all I can do today
So bartender pour me a double, right now
But I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
The world is in an uproar and I see no end in sight
But I won't let it bother me tonight
I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
No I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
Tomorrow I might go as far as suicide
But I will not let it bother me tonight
NOT GONNA LET IT BOTHER ME TONIGHT
I picked up the paper this morning
And read all the daily blues
The world is one big tragedy I wonder what I can do
About all the pain and injustice
About all of the sorrow
We're living in a danger zone
The world could end tomorrow
But I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
Tomorrow I might go as far as suicide
But I won't let it bother me tonight
Life on the street is a jungle
A struggle to keep up the pace
I just can't beat that old dog eat dog
The rats keep winnin' the rat race
But I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
The world is in an uproar and I see no end in sight
But I won't let it bother me tonight
I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
Tomorrow I might go as far as suicide
But I won't let it bother me tonight
Lord, Lord, Lord
We got nothing but trouble
I've done all I can do today
So bartender pour me a double, right now
But I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
The world is in an uproar and I see no end in sight
But I won't let it bother me tonight
I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
No I'm not gonna let it bother me tonight
Tomorrow I might go as far as suicide
But I will not let it bother me tonight
In 1994, J.R. and I wrote a song called "Rock Bottom". I did the demo on the Atlanta Rhythm Section in an attempt to instigate a comeback for the band. This was not the first time I've done that. I've done it a couple of times.
Hey, I might do it again!
Tony Brown, President of MCA, liked the idea but for whatever reason, he never offerred us a deal. I was disappointed but I got a phone call from him about a month later and he said,"Hey man, sorry we couldn't make a deal on ARS but I'm cutting Wynonna Judd and she wants to cut the song. Will it be alright if I cut it?"
Well, I was very excited even though I was very disappointed that is wasn't a hit for the Atlanta Rhythm Section, I was very excited Wynonna http://www.wynonna.com/ was cutting it. Well, she did and it was a huge record for her. She does it everynight at her concerts and she says,"Here's my theme song,'Rock Bottom' " and that makes us very proud.
ROCK BOTTOM
When you hit rock bottom
You've got two ways to go
Straight up
And sideways
I have seen my share of hard times
And i’m letting you know
Straight up
Is my way
Things are tough all over
But i've got good news
When you get down to nothing
You've got nothing to lose
I was born naked
But i’m glory bound
And a dead end street
Is just a place to turn around
(chorus)
When the sky is the limit
Up on easy street
Rock bottom
Ain’t no place to be
Rock bottom
Ain’t no place for me
When the law of the jungle
Is the law of the land
Good luck
Stayin alive
I keep a clinched fist under
This hat in my hand
‘cause only the strong survive
Things are tough all over
But i've got good news
When you get down to nothin? you've got nothin to lose
Anyway, rock bottom
Is good solid ground
And a dead end street
Is just a place to turn around
When the sky is the limit
Up on easy street
Rock bottom
Ain’t no place to be
Rock bottom
Ain't no place for me
Hey, I might do it again!
Tony Brown, President of MCA, liked the idea but for whatever reason, he never offerred us a deal. I was disappointed but I got a phone call from him about a month later and he said,"Hey man, sorry we couldn't make a deal on ARS but I'm cutting Wynonna Judd and she wants to cut the song. Will it be alright if I cut it?"
Well, I was very excited even though I was very disappointed that is wasn't a hit for the Atlanta Rhythm Section, I was very excited Wynonna http://www.wynonna.com/ was cutting it. Well, she did and it was a huge record for her. She does it everynight at her concerts and she says,"Here's my theme song,'Rock Bottom' " and that makes us very proud.
ROCK BOTTOM
When you hit rock bottom
You've got two ways to go
Straight up
And sideways
I have seen my share of hard times
And i’m letting you know
Straight up
Is my way
Things are tough all over
But i've got good news
When you get down to nothing
You've got nothing to lose
I was born naked
But i’m glory bound
And a dead end street
Is just a place to turn around
(chorus)
When the sky is the limit
Up on easy street
Rock bottom
Ain’t no place to be
Rock bottom
Ain’t no place for me
When the law of the jungle
Is the law of the land
Good luck
Stayin alive
I keep a clinched fist under
This hat in my hand
‘cause only the strong survive
Things are tough all over
But i've got good news
When you get down to nothin? you've got nothin to lose
Anyway, rock bottom
Is good solid ground
And a dead end street
Is just a place to turn around
When the sky is the limit
Up on easy street
Rock bottom
Ain’t no place to be
Rock bottom
Ain't no place for me
My heroes in music were Johnny Mercer, all of the Tin Pan Alley writers, Bert Bacharach, Hal David, Roy Orbison, Chips Momanhttp://homepage.ntlworld.com/peter.lewry/chipsinterview.html.
Chips Moman produced Elvis' "Suspicious Minds" and "Ghetto". He and Bobby Emmons wrote "Luckenbach, Texas". He produced Willie's "You Were Always On My Mind"; Waylon, Cash, Kristoferson. He's just a legendary producer.
In 1966, I got a phone call in the middle of the night. It was Chips Moman. He said, "Buddy, I cut 'I Take It Back'!"
I was really excited. It sounds a little dated now but then it was a work of art to me.
My friend and cowriter J.R. Cobb and I were writing this song and J.R. said to me,"Are you aware that what you are singing is 4:4 time in the verse and 3:4 time in the chorus. You're changing from 4:4 to 3:4."
I said,"I didn't notice it but I like it."
And J.R. said,"I like it too." So that's the way we wrote that song.
It was our first national hit and our first BMI award winner.
I TAKE IT BACK
Spoken: Here he comes now. I've got to tell him somehow.
I could put it off till later but it's best I do it now.
Baby listen to me there is something I must try to say
I've put it off so long but I've decided that today is the day
My love for you is dying
Oh no, please don't start crying
I take it back
I didn't mean it
Please forget the things I said
I take it back
I'm sorry
I must have been out
Of my head
Spoken: He's such a man. It must have hurt him a lot if he let me
see him cry. But I must try again...this time I'll say goodby.
Baby you've been good to me you've always been the best you could
So try to understand me now the way you've always understood
I can't go on another day
Oh please, don't look at me that way
I take it back
I didn't mean it
Please forget what I just said
I take it back
I'm sorry
I must have been out
Of my head
Spoken: Sometimes it's better to be loved, than it is to love.
I failed to mention that the last song "I Take It Back" was sung bySandy Poseyhttp://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palladium/9229/sposey.htm.
In 1970, I opened Studio 1. My partners were J.R., Bill Lowery, and Paul Cochran. Rodney Mills, who's been the engineer on practically every record I've ever produced, designed it. Rodney later on produced .38 Special, The Doobie Brothers and Gregg Allman.
One of the first sessions in Studio 1, other than ARS, was theB.J. Thomashttp://www.bjthomas.net/
sessions. "Most of All" was written by J.R. and me. "Mighty Clouds of Joy" was written by Robert Nix and me.
An interesting bit of trivia that surrounds this B.J. Thomas story is that Steve Tyrellhttp://www.stevetyrell.com/03/index.htmlwas B.J. Thomas' manager in 1970. Today he's one of the top jazz and standards singers in the world. From manager and promoter to artist is quite an unusual transition to me. Here is B.J. Thomas
B.J. Thomas with his band when they played The Bitter End in New York City
l. to r.: Rodney Justohttp://www.teddwebb.com/showcase/where_are_they_now/rodney_justo.html, David Adkins, John Rainey Adkins, B.J. Thomas, Jimmy Dean, Charlie Silva, John Stroll http://yourmusicconsultants.com/
MOST OF ALL
Hello darlin', my it's good to hear you.
I'm at the railroad station in St. Paul.
How are all the folks I'd love to see them
but girl, I'd love to see you most of all.
Well I been staring at the rain and I been thinking,
ever since the train left Montreal,
you know I thought I'd always love this life I'm living,
but now I know I love you most of all.
Many times before I know I swore that
I'd come home to stay ,
but it always seems foolish dreams and trains got in my way.
Tomorrow there'll be snow in Minnesota,
but I won't around to watch it fall,
no I'll be headed for an old familiar station,
just hoping you still love me most of all.
And girl you know I love you most of all.
I miss you baby
Most of all.
I miss you baby, most of all.
MIGHTY CLOUDS OF JOY
Those old bad dreams
been sleeping in your head.
Those old dark clouds
been hanging around your head.
But all your hard times
will vanish in the wind.
When the mighty clouds of joy come rolling in.
Ohhhh, Holy Jesus
Let your love seize us.
Oh, let us find sweet peace within .
Hallelujah !
Happiness begins,
when the mighty clouds of joy come rolling in.
Those old storm clouds
are slowly drifting by.
And those old raindrops
are fading from your eyes.
And oh, Mr. Sun,
gonna shine on us again.
When the mighty clouds of joy come rolling in.
Ohhhh, Holy Jesus.
Let your love seize us.
Oh, let us find sweet peace within.
Hallelujah !
Happiness begins,
When the mighty clouds of joy come rolling in.
Holy Jesus
Won't you let your love seize us
Let us find sweet peace within
Hallelujah!
Happiness begins,
When the mighty clouds of joy come rolling in.
By 1980, The Atlanta Rhythm Section was coming apart at the seams. Robert Nix left the group and was replaced by Roy Yeager. The band and I were at each other's throats. We were having trouble with our record label, Polygram, and decided to leave them. They sued us. We won and signed with CBS.
These next three songs were born during that turmoil.
"Do It Or Die" was written by Ronnie Hammondhttp://www.rockforever.com/singers/hammond/hammond.html, J.R. Cobb and myself.
DO IT OR DIE
Don't let your troubles make you cry
Don't waste a moment wonderin' why
When ev'rything goes wrong
You have to go on
And do it or die
Do it or die now
Stand your ground
Don't let your bad breaks go gettin' you down
Even when times get rough
And you've had enough
You still gotta try
Do it no matter what the people say
They don't even know you
Die before you let them stand in your way
(Don't you know that)
You should know that life is a gamble all along
Winners or losers you keep rollin' on
So go on and roll the dice
You only live twice
So do it or die
"Alien" was written by Steve McRay, Randy Lewis and me. Those guys were from the Mose Jones Bandhttp://www.java-monkey.com/remember-mose.htm, the great Atlanta band.
ALIEN
The sun just went behind a cloud again
Down crowded streets he walks alone
He's a stranger out of place
A number not a face
And all day long, all day long
(CHORUS)
He's feelin like an alien
Feelin like he don't belong
Have mercy, cried the alien
Help him find his way back home
The feelin that he feels he can't explain
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, they're all the same
He's lost and all alone
A heart without a home
Standin like a statue in the rain
(CHORUS)
Now, now and then we all are aliens
Feelin like we don't belong
Have mercy, cried the alien
Help him find his way back home
Feelin like an alien
Hes feelin like he don't belong
Have mercy, cried the alien
Help him find his way
Help him find his way
"Homesick" was written by J.R. and me.
HOMESICK
Guitars ring in the dead of night
Sing the blues, sounds all right
Makes you homesick
Listen close to the guitar man
A native son in a foreign land
The boy's homesick
He's homesick
Homesick
For things back home
Homesick
For home sweet home
Yeah he is
Where were you in '69?
Smoking dope and drinking wine!
Just an outlaw, yeah
Distant drums beat an old refrain
Shakes your feet, pounds your brain
Like a buzzsaw
It's alright
In the darkness down the hall
Blacklight posters on the wall
Jimi Hendrix
Someone's lost in yesterday
Hazy dreams of Monteray
And Woodstock
He's homesick
For days gone by
Homesick
Kiss the sky
Don't ya know the boy's homesick
Yeah take him home
Listen to him
Bobby Goldsboro and I went to high school together. He and John Rainey Adkins were leaders of the Webs. Eventually Bobby left the band and started a solo career. Jack Gold of United Artists took an interest in Bobby. He and I went to New York and Bobby signed an artist deal with U.A. and I was offered a writer's contract for $75 a week.
Here I was fresh out of Dothan, Alabama, staying in a cheap motel off of Broadway. Anybody that knows me, knows that food is very important to me. I would pass, uh, I would pass a deli and press my nose up against the glass knowing that I couldn't afford what I saw.
I was hungry and I was homesick and I wrote the song "GEORGIA PINES" from my heart.
When I got home, John Rainey and I finished it.
Later, my friend, Wilbur Walton, and I put together THE JAMES GANG and Wilbur's version of "GEORGIA PINES" is near and dear to my heart to this day.
Hey, Roberto. Here's an old photo that was on my wife's computer that I thought you might be interested in having. It's a picture of the James Gang in one of our more sober moments, obviously. That is me in the lower left corner, most certainly holding a Bud which you can't see. That is Fred Guarino, our drummer, holding a cheap picture he removed from the wall of this motel, wherever it was. Under him is Johnny Mulkey, guitarist, Bubba Lathem (piano player) pretending to talk on the phone, and that is Wilbur Jr holding a lamp on his head. Yes, a lamp on his head. As you can see, our primary interest from the beginning was elevating the standards of Southern Rock and Roll. Well, that and rendering motel rooms unoccupiable for some time after we went to the next town. Don't give Holiday Inn, Inc., my address.
Jimmy Deanhttp://www.ircusa.com/jdean/
GEORGIA PINES
The trees grow tall where I come from
Their leaves are green and fine
I grew up in a one room shack
In a field of Georgia pines
I was young and I grew tired
Of that one room shack
So I went a wandering
And now I wanna go back
Georgia Pines, Georgia Pines
How I miss that home of mine
Up here in the city
Just a wastin' my time
There ain't nothing green
But the rich man's money
The buildings are so tall the sun can't shine
Oh, how I wanna go back
To my Georgia Pines
I remember long ago
Blue eyes and golden hair
When I get home, I'll make her mine
Oh God, please let her be there
Georgia Pines, Georgia Pines
How I miss that home of mine
Up here in the city
Just a wastin' my time
There ain't nothing green
but the rich man's money
The buildings are so tall the sun can't shine
Oh, how I wanna go back
To my Georgia pines
Studio 1 became like an artist colony. You'd find Al Kooper, Lynyrd Skynyrd, B.J. Thomas, Billy Joe Royal, :38 Special and countless other artists other than ARS hung out there. All the local bands who wanted to be a part of it hung there; 24 hours a day, it was rockin'.
There was a little restaurant in Doraville called THE CLOCK. Robert Nix and I would go there at night before sessions and drink coffee until we go a buzz on and finish the songs we were working on. One night we went there and Barry Bailey had been working on a melody that we liked and he and I sat down;Robert and I sat down in a booth and started talking because the melody was like [singing] da dat tah tah dah tah dah and somehow I just blurted out,"Doraville, a little country in the city." and Robert said,"That's it!" So we started writing it and almost finished it that night. We went back and showed Barry what we'd done and Barry played it on the guitar and made some changes and it became like an anthem for us and a very identifyiing song for the Atlanta Rhythm Section. "Doraville" became the signature song for the band in the '74; 1974 period; was very big all of the South; never made that big of a splash nationally but was one of the songs that propelled us forward.
Here's "Doraville"
DORAVILLE
(CHORUS)
Doraville, touch of country in the city
Doraville, it ain't much, but it's home
Friends of mine say I oughta move to New York
New York's fine, but it ain't Doraville
Every night, I make a living making music
And that's all right to folks in Doraville
Yeah, hey hey
Ooh, hot time in Dixie, hey
It's funky but i'ts pretty
Sweet Georgia
Yeah, hey hey
Ooh, hot time in Dixie, hey
Come on down and visit, you'll dig it
Red clay hills, rednecks drinking wine on Sunday
Behind their field getting down in Doraville
(CHORUS)
It's all right
It's all right
Doraville
Doraville, it's all right, it's all right, it's all right
Doraville
Doraville
I met rock and roll empresario Bill Graham in San Francisco when the band was playing some of his venues. I was thrilled when he recorded and produced Carlos Santanahttp://www.santana.com/ and his band on "Stormy."
As I said on the first CD, Roy Orbison was one of my true heroes. I heard him perform countless times. I'd stand listening to him sing from the wings of the stage and there was never a night that the hair didn't stand up on my arms. He was phenomenal. You can imagine how excited Bill Gilmorehttp://crystalhorizon.com/Classics_IV/gilmore_tribute.htm, John Rainey Adkins and I were when he recorded our song "Afraid To Sleep". It's a... In my book, in my repetoire, it was one of my finest hours even though it wasn't a big hit.
photo courtesy of http://paulcochran.com
l.to r.:Alan Diggs, Chris Demarco, Bill Gilmore, Paul Cochran, Dennis Yost, Buddy Buie
AFRAID TO SLEEP
The night is still
The wind is chill
I hear the rain
Falling on my window pane
Can't close my eyes
Afraid to sleep
Cause when I do
I only dream of you
I'm trying to forget
We ever met
But how can I forget
And dream of you
Afraid to sleep
Because I'll dream of you
Afraid to sleep
Because I'll wake up feeling blue
If I stay awake forever
We'll never be together
So I'll close my eyes
Go ahead and dream
Sweet dreams
Sweet dreams
Sweet dreams
In 1999, Bill Loweryhttp://www.talkaboutaudio.com/group/rec.audio.pro/messages/1041590.htmland I sold Lowsal Music, a publishing company we'd been building for over 30 years. For the next three years, J.R. and I were exclusive writers for SONY. We teamed up with Tom Douglashttp://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2822/is_1_28/ai_n9507895, one of their big writers and wrote a song called "Mr. Midnight".
We were in Nashville, J.R. and I were, and the head of creative services called and said,"Hey, Garthhttp://www.garthbrooks.com/ is gonna cut your song but he wants you to come over to the studio."
We went over to the studio and he made some major changes to the song, showed it to us and said,"Hey guys, here's the way I want to do it."
And we said, "HEY, ROCK ON!!!!"
It was... He did a nice job on our song and he's such a nice guy to be such a superstar. Here is "Mr. Midnight".
MR. MIDNIGHT
Rain on the room and time on my hands
It sure seemed quiet out there in radio land
They call me at the all-night station
Make their special dedications
And I do my best to play their request
When it's a desperate situation
This was a desperate situation
I'm Mr. Midnight alone and blue
The brokenhearted call me up
When they don't know what else to do
Every song is a reminder of the love that they once knew
I'm Mr. Midnight,
can I play a song for you
"Caller on the line could you please hold on?"
I recognized her voice the minute i picked up the phone
Should I tell her that it's me or leave it at a memory
Haven't been myself since the day she left
And I'm never gonna be
I'm forever gonna be
I'm Mr. Midnight alone and blue
The brokenhearted call me up
When they don't know what else to do
Every song is a reminder of the love that they once knew
I'm Mr. Midnight, can I play a song for you
Imagine my surprise when she spoke my name
She said, "Could you tell him that I love him
and I wish things could be the same."
Then a voice I never knew
Said, "Honey who you talking to?"
I'm Mr. Midnight alone and blue
The brokenhearted call me up
When they don't know what else to do
Every song is a reminder of the love that they once knew
I'm Mr. Midnight, can I play a song for you
Travis Tritthttp://www.travistritt.com/ was an Atlanta boy. He grew up listening to our music. When he became a big star, he recorded two of those songs. Here's his versions of "Homesick" and "Back Up Against The Wall".
BACK UP AGAINST THE WALL
(J.R. Cobb/Buddy Buie)
I was dealin' up and down the highway
Till they caught me with a heavy load
They sentenced me to hard labor
Workin' on the side of the road
Now I don't deny I was guilty
And I know I broke the law
I was hungry and broke and couldn't see no hope
And my back was up against the wall
Now I'm right outside your window
Honey open up and let me in
I broke out of jail this mornin'
And I ain't never goin' back again
I just had to stop by for a minute
And I can't stay long at all
'Cause I gotta run you see
I'm under the gun
And my back is up against the wall
I was shackled to a three-time loser
A man named Jefferson
One night we got to talkin'
And I asked him what he'd done
He said a man fell over my razor
In the middle of a barroom brawl
But don't you see it was him or me
And my back was up against the wall
Now I'm right outside your window
Honey open up and let me in
I broke out of jail this mornin'
And I ain't never goin' back again
I just had to stop by for a minute
And I can't stay long at all
'Cause I gotta run you see
I'm under the gun
And my back is up against the wall
Now I'm right outside your window
Honey open up and let me in
I broke out of jail this mornin'
And I ain't never goin' back again
I just had to stop by for a minute
And I can't stay long at all
'Cause I gotta run you see
I'm under the gun
And my back is up against the wall
I gotta run you see
I'm under the gun
And my back is up against the wall
Yeah I gotta run you see
I'm under the gun
And my back is up against the wall
"Spooky" 's been a hit now three times. First by the Classics, then by ARS and most recently by David Sanbornhttp://www.david-sanborn.com/ .
His instrumental went to #1 on the jazz charts. Boy, does he play!
Here's David Sanborn's version of "Spooky".
When you think of Herb Alpert, you usually think of Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
http://www.herbalpert.com/ and the great instrumentals they've cut over the years. J.R. and I wrote a song along with Doug Lee called "Save The Sunlight".
Herb heard it. Our publisher played it for him in California and he and his wife were very involved in the ecological movement so the two of them sang this song. Here is Herb Alpert and his wife singing "Save The Sunlight".
SAVE THE SUNLIGHT
Doesn't it make you feel like
Trying to save the sunlight
Surely you feel the way we do
They're not gonna last forever
Blue skies and sunny weather
The problem is up to me and you
We shouldn't be so careless
Think of the things we cherish
Think of them all gone away
And doesn't it make you feel like
Trying to save the sunlight
Doesn't it make you stop and think
Picture without a warning
Rain on a Sunday morning
Think of the way it brings you down
Then think of a rainbow shining
Someone who loves you smiling
Happy the sun came back around
Doesn't that make you feel like
Trying to save the sunlight
Doesn't it make you stop and think
Tommy Roehttp://www.classicbands.com/roe.htmlwas a popstar in the Sixties. He had songs like "Shiela" and "Sweet Pea". I'd signed a deal with United Artists Publishing and I heard Tommy Roe was recording in Muscle Shoals so I drove there, tried to get into the studio, the session, but they told me it was a closed session so I stayed in the parking lot until Tommy and his producer, Felton Jarvis http://www.elvis-collectors.com/strictly01.html , came out of the door. When they did, I accosted them and said,"Guys, I gotta play you a song!"
And they didn't call the cops, thank goodness. My persistence paid off. They recorded the song. Here's the song Bill Gilmore and I wrote. The song is called "Party Girl".
PARTY GIRL
Dance your last, Dance your last,
(Party Girl) Dance your last dance,Dance your last dance,
Party Girl, Party Girl,
Have yourself a time Party Girl.
Because when this party's through
I'm gonin' come to you.
Party Girl, Party Girl.
I realize there's fifty guys,
That you put on a string.
But I'm goin' change all that,
When I show you this diamond ring.
You'll forget that swinging band,
When you hear them choir boys sing.
You're going to trade your dancin' shoes,
For apron strings and things.
So little girl,Dance your last dance,
Party Girl, Party Girl,
Have yourself a time Party Girl
.Because when this party's through I'm goin' marry you.
So just dance your last dance,Party Girl.
Party Girl you laugh and say that love is just a game.
But like they say in story books,Tigers can be tamed.
Won't you be surprised, When you take a second look.
Instead of doing the Jerk,You'll be learning how to cook.
So little girl,Dance your last dance,Party Girl, Party Girl,
Have yourself a time Party Girl.
Because when this party's through I'm could come to you.
So just dance your last dance,Party Girl.
So just dance your last dance,Party Girl.
So just dance your last dance,Party Girl.
Dothan, Alabama's original rock band was The Webs. They were John Rainey Adkins, Bobby Goldsborohttp://www.bobbygoldsboro.com/ , Amos Tindall and Dave Robinson.
photo courtesy of http://www.heybabydays.com
The Webstop to bottom: John Rainey Adkins, Bobby Goldsboro, Amos Tindall, Dave Robinson
THE WEBS: The Roots of Dothan Rock 'N Roll
THANK YOU JIMMY DEAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEFT TO RIGHT: DAVE ROBINSON, AMOS TINDALL, BOBBY GOLDSBORO, JOHN RAINEY ADKINS, GERALD HALL
When the band and I left to go on the road with Roy Orbison, Paul Garrison replaced Amos Tindall. Later Bobby Goldsboro left to pursue his own career and was replaced by Rodney Justo. Slowly but surely they became THE CANDYMEN.
November 1964 photos of Roy Orbison and THE CANDYMEN courtesy of http://www.jlindquist.com/rockit.html
THE CANDYMEN traveled all over the world with Roy Orbison. Once while they were in England, Graham Nash flipped over the band, took them into the studio where the Beatles recorded and cut a song John Rainey Adkins and I wrote called "Hope". We had earlier recorded that song in Atlanta.
The band later left Orbison to start their own career. I produced THE CANDYMEN and wrote quite a few of their songs. They were a great band. When they went to New York to play at THE SCENE, the club there, they were heralded in the local press, actually in the national press.
Later THE CANDYMEN evolved into The Atlanta Rhythm Section so it's quite an unusual story to see a group that starts one way end up another way. Here is "Hope" by THE CANDYMEN.
HOPE
Memories
Running through my head
going round and
Coming back again
Same old circle
Work, play, live my life away
I hope
You're coming back some day
I hope
that you have changed your ways
I hope tomorrow won't be like today
This I must confess
Life is nothing more and nothing less than hope
Words of love
Ringing in my ear
shut them out and they just reappear
same old circle
wake sleep try my sense to keep
{repeat chorus]
Then I read that old love letter that you wrote
And a lump began to rise up in my throat.
seeing all the promises you said
once again I lost my head {repeat chorus}
The next three songs are some of my favorite Rhythm Section cuts. In 1978, 50,000 people packed into Grant Field to see the band perform. The concert is called "Champagne Jam" as was their most successful album.
Combined with their command performance at the White House for Jimmy Carter, these were high flying times for the boys from Doraville and me. "Champagne Jam" was written by Robert Nix, J.R. and me.
Blakeley's Robert Nix from his days with THE CANDYMEN
In 1974, Robert Nix, Dean Daughtry and I wrote a song called "Dog Days". We wrote that song and many others in a single wide trailer on Lake Eufaula, Alabama. The trailer only had a window air conditioner unit and it was too loud to let it run while we were writing. Sweat would roll down our faces and truly gave us inspiration for "Dog Days".
In the second verse, we mention White Oak Creek that is only a short distance from Thomas Mill Creek where I now live.
Last but not least is "Georgia Rhythm", a Buie, Cobb, Nix composition which was also a concert crowd pleaser.
CHAMPAGNE JAM
C'mon mama, give me a break
Me and the boys are gonna stay out late
I can't help it, its in my bones
We'll be jammin' all night long
Gonna play up a storm, ooh yeah sure am
We're gonna have us a champagne jam
We're gonna have us a champagne jam
ooh hooBreak out the guitars and let's play some blues
Don't want no whiskey, gimme some high-class booze
Some cham-champagne, thank you ma'am
We're gonna have us a champagne jam
We're gonna have us a champagne jam, yeah
[C'mon] let's have us some first class fun
[C'mon] everybody gonna play some[12 bar instrumental]
Let's raise a ruckus - let's tie one on
Break out a bottle of Dom Perignon
If they throw us in jail we don't give a damn
We're gonna have us a champagne jam
[Want some] champagne, thank you ma'am
[Thank you ma'am]We're gonna have us a champagne jam
We're gonna have us a champagne jam,
y'yeah, y'yeahSo c'mon, woo hoo hoo[22 bar instrumental]
We're jammin'[32 bar instrumental]
What you say, what you say - oh yeah
Thank you ma'am
DOG DAYS
Paper bags and sweaty hands
Shooing flies away
Reflections on a porch
A shelter from the scorch
When Dog Days came around
Baby squals
As August crawls
Past old folks in the shade
The weather vane would stop
and White Oak Creek would drop
When Dog Days came around
The Dog Days were scorchers
Southern tortures
But we found an answer to the plight
It was the Dog Day's night
Evening brings a front porch scene
A time to rest your bones
And pray you won't be here
This time next year
When the Dog Days come along
Those old Dog Days, oh yeah
GEORGIA RHYTHM
Living out of a suitcase
Sleeping in hotel rooms
Rent-a-cars and airport bars
And Dog Day afternoons
My occupation is a picker and music is my game
Sometimes it makes me crazy
But I would not change a thing
So lay down a backbeat
Crank up your trusty Gibson
Let's give it everything we got
Just one more time
Living the life we're living
Playing the Georgia rhythm
Nothing else even made me feel this fine
4 o'clock in the morning
Waiting for a plane
We passed around a bottle, Lord,
And we don't feel no pain
Life out here on the highway
Has its ups and downs
But last night the Georgia rhythm
Tore up another town
Laughing above the madness
Forward bound again
To normal ways and raising days
And old familiar friends
Some conversation with my lady
Some love long overdue
God knows I hate to leave her
But I got a job to do
I've been blessed with great partners at different periods of my life: Paul Cochran, Arlie Geller and Bill Lowery but my most important partner is my wife, Gloria, not just because she's been my wife for 33 years but because she was involved in every endeavor along the way. She handles the business end when I'm off being creative and crazy. She runs the office. She has a degree in Economics; is an astute business woman. I'd be lost without her.
The next two songs I didn't write but I was involved with. The first is "Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy" by the Tams, written by J.R. Cobb and Ray Whitley. We published the song.
"Cherry Hill Park" was written by Robert Nix and Bill Gilmore. It was recorded by the great Billy Joe Royal and we published it and I produced it. Here's those songs.
BE YOUNG, BE FOOLISH, BE HAPPY
Be young, be foolish, but be happy
Be young, be foolish, but be happy
Don`t let the rain get you down it`s a waste of time
Have your fun, live every day in the bright sunshine
It`s the same old story all over the world
Girl needs boy and boy needs girl
So be young, be foolish, but be happy
Be young, be foolish, but be happy
Don`t let love slip away
Live your life for today
Life is too short to worry about unimportant things
Reach for the sky and touch a star, and then you`ll find you dream
Because dreaming alone is a shame indeed
But if you`ve got love, that`s all you`ll need
So be young, be foolish, girl be happy
Be young, be foolish, girl be happy
Log on
Be young, be foolish, girl be happy
CHERRY HILL PARK
R. Nix/B. Gilmore)
Mary Hill used to hang out in Cherry Hill Park
The games she played lasted all day till way after dark
All the girls they criticized her
But all the guys just idolized her
'Cause Mary Hill was such a thrill after dark
In Cherry Hill Park
Mary Hill loved to ride the merry-go-round
All the guys got eager eyes watchin' Mary go round
In the daytime Mary Hill was a teaser
Come the night she was such a pleaser
Oh Mary Hill was such a thrill after dark
In Cherry Hill Park
CHORUS: Mary Hill sure was fun down in Cherry Hill Park
Playing games with everyone till way after dark
In Cherry Hill Park, Cherry Hill Park
Then one day, Mary Hill, she married away
A man with some money said "Come on, honey" & she said okay
She went away to play a one man game & since that day it ain't been the same
'Cause Mary Hill was such a thrill after dark
Yeah in Cherry Hill Park
(chorus)
(repeat & fade): In Cherry Hill Park (Cherry Hill Park)
The next songs were on B.G.O. Records, a record label owned by Arlie Geller and me. "Pac Man Fever" was inspired by the famous arcade game and was recorded by Buckner and Garcia.
"I Love The Nightlife" was recorded by Alecia Bridges and was a gigantic hit. Here they are.
PAC-MAN FEVER
I LOVE THE NIGHTLIFE
O.K., friends and family, that's it. That's what I've been doing for the past thirty of forty years, who's counting?!!!
I've enjoyed putting this together. I've written over 350 songs but these are the most notable.
No Mother, I'm not gonna get a real job!
The 2006 PAUL FINEBAUM INTERVIEW
[begins with a recording of "Imaginary Lover"]
Paul: I'm afraid to ask you, Buddy, what you were thinking about when you wrote this one?
LAUGHTER
Buddy: The answer is, "YES!"
LAUGHTER
Paul: That takes a few of us back to high school, too!
LAUGHTER
Paul: Buddy Buie is our guest and his career is legendary. You're in a couple music hall of fames I was reading, of course, including the Alabama and the Georgia. That was the Atlanta Rhythm Section doing your song. I'm a writer of newspaper columns, not a writer of music. How in the world do you come up with the lyrics to some of the songs we've heard?
Buddy: Well, the songs...
The way I write songs; I am not a trained musician. I'm a guitar owner. I don't call myself a guitar player. I write with great musicians. I've always picked good musicians to write with. I'll come in and say,"O.K., I got this idea. Here's the idea," and I'd hum a little of the way I'd heard it. The guitar player or the keyboard guy would say," Hey, yeah! That sounds good! Let's try it!" and then he'll give me his ideas. The lyrics...
J.R. Cobb, who I wrote "Spooky", "Stormy", all the CLASSICS, "Traces"...
all the things we're listening to, he's a great guitar player. Dean Daughtry, the keyboardist for the Atlanta Rhythm Section, and Robert Nix, we wrote the songs "Imaginary Lover", "So Into You", "I'm Not Gonna Let It Bother Me Tonight" for the Atlanta Rhythm Section and so the way I write songs is like hunting and pecking on the typewriter. You know, you can write a pretty good sentence even if you do it with one finger, you know...
Paul: I've always wondered because, not that I've attempted to write a song but you'll be walking down the street or you'll be waking up & you'll be thinking...
Do you have a notepad by your bed?
Buddy: No.
Paul: Your wife's laughing here!
LAUGHTER
Paul: My thing, I'm very disorganized. I tell all my co-writers,"If it's not good enough to remember, it's not good enough to keep!" and I kinda live by that...
Paul: You don't fear you're gonna come up with...
You've already come up with some good ones!...
You're not afraid you're gonna miss the greatest line of your career in the middle of the night?
Buddy: The minute I think of one I catalogue it in my head. I go like, "O.K., I gotta remember this! This is cool!"
So I remember it. I very rarely forget 'em.
Now, at my age now, I probably forget a lot!
LAUGHTER
Paul: "So Into You", another huge hit for the Atlanta Rhythm Section
[play a recording of "So Into You"]
Paul: I bet you're pretty proud of this one.
Buddy: Yes. It was very big. It was the first big song by the Atlanta Rhythm Section. We had been making records since 1970 and this happened in 1976. If this album hadn't been a hit then the record company was gonna drop us so it's got a great place in my mind because it...
Paul: Do you feel that group ever got...
They had a lot of big hits, but did they get the appreciation and recognition that they deserved?
Buddy: I don't think so but I'll tell you one of the reasons why is all of 'em were serious musicians, serious session musicians.
Performing...
They performed because there was demand for them to perform but they never really were a band that loved the road. They were very straight ahead. They didn't get a lot of publicity because they didn't actually want a lot of publicity. We had great guitar players in that band: J.R. Cobb, Barry Bailey. Had a great keyboardist, Dean Daughtry. Paul Goddard on bass. Everybody in that band was very serious about music. We did all that starting in about 1970 when I opened this studio called STUDIO 1 which STUDIO 1, a lot of people know because Lynyrd Skynyrd, all their stuff there.
It was a nice studio. We recorded there at night and Skynyrd recorded in the daytime.
Paul: Can't believe those songs were done in the day!
LAUGHTER
Buddy: The Skynyrd stuff was done...
Sounds like it was done at midnight!
LAUGHTER
Paul: Maybe some TIME like I've never seen!
LAUGHTER
Buddy: A lot of artificial inspiration, you think?
Paul: Exactly!
LAUGHTER
Paul: I imagine none of that happened...
Buddy Buie's our guest, we're gonna open the phone lines in a minute. We're also gonna get to a song you wrote about one Coach Paul Bryant. You also did a song that B.J. Thomas made a hit.
We were doing a B.J. Thomas hour a couple of weeks ago with some of his...
Buddy: Oh really! Was he in town or something?
Paul: Somehow I can't even remember the genesis of it. We started playing a B.J. Thomas song and we all started going down his book.
Anyway, Buddy Buie's with us.
His hometown of Dothan...
A lot of this stuff was done in Atlanta, I guess, produced in Atlanta.
Buddy: Yes, most of it was done in Atlanta.
Paul: We'll get to your phone calls if you wanna give us a ring, it's 866-741-7285
[play a recording of "The Day Bear Bryant Died"]
Voice over of Coach Bryant:
"I've said this before, of course,
I've said anytime I've had the opportunity that I wouldn't trade places with anyone in the world because of the privilege of being here at The University & passing my time here.
I WILL never put anything against your education. We want that to come first.
ON THE OTHER HAND WE WANT FOOTBALL!!!!
To be second!
We want football to be second!
Because we feel a very strong obligation to you and we feel like you should to The Universitybecause it works both ways.
First of all,
we want you to write home!
THANK YOU!
lyrics of "The Day Bear Bryant Died" by Buddy Buie & Ronnie Hammond
I'll never forget the day
That I heard the news
Bear Bryant has died!!!!
Funny, I thought he'd refuse
Funny, I thought he'd refuse
I watched as they laid him to rest
In Old Alabama
OH how I cried
The day Bear Bryant died
ROLL TIDE!!!!
ROLL TIDE!!!!
The Nation Cried
Friend and Foe Alike
The Legend Lives On
THE HERO IS GONE!
Oh how I cried
The Day Bear Bryant died.
The day he was born
GOD gave us one of a kind
& I'm glad he did
'Cause heroes are so hard to find
Many a fine young man
He led into battle
He taught them to win
He turned boys into men
ROLL TIDE!!!!
ROLL TIDE!!!!
The Nation cried!
Friend & foe alike
The Legend lives on!
The HERO is gone!
OH! How I cried
The Day Bear Bryant Died.
ROLL TIDE!!!!
ROLL TIDE!!!!
The Nation cried
Friend & Foe alike
The Legend Lives On!
THE HERO IS GONE!OH! How I cried
The Day Bear Bryant Died.
Paul: Wow! Buddy Buie! "The Day Bear Bryant Died" ! An extraordinary song!
Buddy, how did it come about?
Buddy: Ronnie Hammond, the lead singer of the Atlanta Rhythm Section and I were at Lake Lanier staying in a ...
We rented a place to write for an upcoming Atlanta Rhythm Section album and it was in January of '83. Bear'd just died and Keith Jackson was narrating the procession and people lined up and down the road. Well, like, you know, usually a songwriter...
I'm a professional songwriter. Like I don't see a sunset and write a song about a sunset. This is an exception to the rule. We heard this song...
I mean we saw the parade, I mean, the procession.
God, I'm saying all the wrong words.
Paul: I understand.
Buddy: We saw the procession. It was not a parade!
Paul: It could have been.
Buddy: And we started writing.
Matter of fact, we didn't write for the Atlanta Rhythm Section at all that day. Later on, demo-ed it and ...
then we basically just forgot it because it was never meant to be a commercial endeavor and Harrison Parrish, one of the founders of MOVIE GALLERY http://www.moviegallery.com/
He's a friend of mine. He and his girlfriend were at our house one night and I played "The Day Bear Bryant Died".
He said,"Man, you gotta do something with THAT!"
He introduced me to people at the university 'cause I didn't know anybody there. I used to book bands at the Sigma Nu house at the university and go up there but I didn't know anybody there so he introduce me around and one thing led to another and right now, this song..
We're gonna give a lot of the proceeds of this song to the Bear Bryant Museum.
Paul: Other than your interview on Ronnie Quarles' station, that song has never been heard outside of Tuscaloosa until today?
Buddy: It hasn't.
Paul: It needs to be.
Buddy: My dream is to be in Bryant-Denny Stadium and the whole crowd sings along with the chorus!
Paul: Wow!
Buddy: That's my dream!
Paul: I was somewhat facetious about a song we played about that time but THAT is an extraordinary song!
Buddy: Thank you so much! I hope the BAMA Nation will look for it because it's gonna be coming out in mid August , right before football season and we hope to have the Atlanta Rhythm Section and a couple more people go up to the university and play before one of the games. We really want to promote it. Not only to help the Bryant Museum and CTSM [ed. note: Crimson Tide Sports Marketing]
We just want Bear's vision, Bear's memory to live on.
Paul: Buddy Buie's with us and we've certainly talked about his career as a producer and a songwriter. We've played "Spooky" and "Traces" and "Imaginary Lover" and so many of the famous songs that you have written and produced.
People've been waiting for a while. We want to give people around our listening audience an opportunity to visit with you. We don't have a lot of time for calls but we'll try to get to as many as possible.
Catherine, you're on with Buddy Buie.
[dead air]
Catherine? Not working here. Let me try George in Geneva. Go ahead.
George: Hello, Paul.
Paul: Hi.
Buddy: Hello.
George: Just wanted to call and say, Paul, I'm a fan of the show. Listen regularly.
Sometimes I wonder what some of the topics have to do with sports. I'm a big sports fan but one thing I love equally as sports is music and ,particularly, a big Southern Rock fan.
Grew up in the 70s. A big ARS fan and a big Buddy Buie fan. I read the jackets of the albums and I'm familiar with a lot of the names.
Buddy: Thank you.
George: Knew Buddy was from the same part of the country I was from or I am from...
Work with a guy who is married to a cousin of Dean Daughtry who I think is from Andalusia or Opp...
Buddy: He is.
George: That area...
Buddy: He is.
George: Thanks for the music. I've enjoyed it all my life and proud for you to have contributed what you have to the music industy but Paul.
Appreciate you having Buddy on.
Paul: It's our pleasure.
George: I think you hit a homerun with this one, particularly for me.
Paul: Well, thanks. I appreciate the call. Hate to run but we want to get a few more folks on.
Catherine is on with Buddy Buie.
Go right ahead, Catherine.
Catherine: Hey, I'm so sorry that my phone...
Paul: Go right ahead!
Catherine: I just wanted to tell you, Buie, that I am one of the biggest fans of you because my whole life...
I used to play all those Dennis Yost music.
Buddy: Um hum.
Catherine: I don't know whether you were with them at Samford in 1974 where they had a concert.
Buddy: I don't...
You know, there's been so many concerts, so many dates, I don't remember. I probably was though.
Catherine: I wanna tell you that all of your music is really sexy!
Paul: Let's listen to "Stormy". This is one of your biggest hits, I guess.
Buddy: Yes, one of the big hits by Dennis Yost & The Classics IV.
[play a recording of "Stormy"]
Paul: Wow! He belted that one out, didn't he!
Buddy: He's a great singer!
Paul: Whoa! That leaves me breathless! Buddy Buie is our guest. You've heard...
I'm shook up! ALL SHOOK UP!
LAUGHTER
Joe is next with Buddy Buie. Go right ahead, Joe.
Joe: Paul, a great thing you got here with Buddy and it's really been enjoyable.
Buddy...
Buddy: Yes, sir!
Joe: When is the last time that you wrote a song and is it possible with your background, I mean, can you get into what we're hearing today to the point that it might be popular again?
Buddy: To be perfectly honest with you, a lot of music of today, Hip Hop & Rap, I give 'em their props. I give 'em all the respect in the world because they figured a way to communicate with the world but they don't communicate with me very well and probably my music probably doesn't communicate with them.
Joe: Well, have you stopped writing?
Buddy: No, I've not stopped writing. I don't write like I used to 'cause it messes with my fishin' and my traveling.
LAUGHTER
Paul: His newest hit's gonna be "The Ballad of Paul Finebaum"!
LAUGHTER [Now you can really hear Gloria Buie laughing]
Joe: One last question and I'm gonna run, Paul's got a bunch of people...
Do you watch "American Idol"?
Buddy: Oh, I certainly do, I'm a Taylor fan, too, Man!
LAUGHTER
GO TAYLOR!
Paul: When are they gonna do "Buddy Buie Songs"?
Buddy: Well, I don't know but I wish they would!
Paul: Taylor could do a few of your songs.
Buddy: YOU KNOW TAYLOR!
YOU GOTTA TALK TO HIM!
Paul: SURE!
Joe, appreciate it.
We'll come back but we're not gonna have enough time today. We're gonna have to get Buddy back.
Back after this.
FINEBAUM IS AS FINEBAUM DOES!
THE PAUL FINEBAUM RADIO NETWORK!
[play a recording of "Not Gonna Let It Bother Me Tonight"
Paul: Another one of Buddy's hits!
And we haven't got half done today!
We're booking you again!
Buddy: I'd love to come back!
Paul: We're booking you for the whole summer!
LAUGHTER
Paul: Let's continue with some more phone calls.
Mack is calling from Dothan, Alabama. Hey, Mack!
Mack: Hey Paul! How're you doing, buddy?
Paul: How're you doing?
Mack: Great show! Man, Buddy! Great to finally talk to you!
Buddy: Good talkin' to you!
Mack: My brother, Shannon Meckly and I were driving by on Irwin Street about a year ago. You know, we were driving in that neighborhood over by Southside and he told me, "Buddy Buie grew up in that house!"
Paul: National Landmark!
Buddy: 1008 Irwin Street!
Mack: That's right! I just wanted to say, Paul, only one thing's bigger than Buddy's music and that's Buie's Cafe!
LAUGHTER
That his father owned. His great parents!
On Foster Street!
That's a wonderful place to eat!
Of course, it's no longer there now, but, uh, I called Harrison Parrish and told him you were on and called up Bobby's brother, Jimmy at the bank over there to tell them you were on but, uh, just wanted to say, uh, how I followed your music, uh, do you ever get down to Dothan, Buddy?
Buddy: All the time! My mother lives there and I go... you know, I live at the lake. I live at Eufaula.
Paul: Thanks Mack. Appreciate the call.
Of the Atlanta Rhythm Section songs, is there one you would take with you to your grave? If you could take one of the bunch?
Buddy: Well, if I had to differentiate between hits and album cuts, there was an album cut called "Dog Days" that's near and dear to my heart,and, um, but the hits, uh, I suppose...
It's hard for me to pick. It's like, "Which child do you like best?"
It's hard for me to do that.
Paul: Pretty good stuff! Let's continue with Buddy Buie. Jesse is calling from Montgomery. Go right ahead, Jesse.
Jesse: Hey, Buddy!
Buddy: Yes.
Jesse: You know I never met you but I was a friend of John Rainey's.
Buddy: Oh really!
Jesse: When you said that name, I thought,"HE WAS THE MAN!"
Buddy: If it hadn't been for John Rainey, I wouldn't be having this conversation with Paul right now!
Jesse: Well, I tell you, people probably don't know him because he never wanted to travel out of Houston County...
Buddy: That's true, too!
Jesse: But he was The Man when it came to playing and arranging music!
Buddy: Yeah, he was great!
Jesse: And my favorite song of yours is "Georgia Pines"!
Buddy: Well, thank you.
Jesse: That was a great, great song.
Buddy: The great Wilbur Walton!
Jesse: Yeah. Let me ask you this. Do you know what's happened to Joe South?
Buddy: I talked to Joe not too long ago. He's doing fine. He's living in Atlanta. He's not writing much anymore but he's a great one!
Jesse: He was a great one!
Paul: 'Preciate the call. Let me ask you about, you... did,uh,
two songs for B.J. Thomas.
Buddy: Um, hum.
Paul: He was certainly...
How did that relationship come about?
Buddy: B.J., his producer...
His producer at the time was a guy by the name of...
uh, I mean his manager was guy named Steve Tyrel.
Now Steve has made the jump from a manager to one of the prominent jazz singers right now so he brought him to me and B.J. and I became friends.
Matter of fact, I'm gonna see him down in LaGrange, Georgia in a couple of weeks.
Paul: One of them right here!
[play a recording of "Most Of All"]
Paul: "Most OF All" You also did "Mighty Clouds of Joy"
Buddy: "Mighty Clouds of Joy"! Yeah!
Paul: Wasn't a bad one here!
Buddy: Al Green recorded that too!
Paul: He sure did!
Let's grab one or two more calls...
Unfortunately, we're just running out of time here but Terry is down in Dothan. Hey Terry!
Terry: Hey Paul. Buddy, I didn't get to talk to you. Are you still involved with ARS and are they going to be doing any new studio things and
#2: I had an opportunity to interview Barry Bailey doing a Southern Rock Radio Show and he told me that his personal favorite ARS album was the first album but, you know, you can't find it on CD now and I was wondering why...
Buddy: It was the only...
We did...
That was for MCA Records. You can go...
If you can go to amazon.com
or to, what's the big site, some of the Internet sites and some foreign record companies have it but as far as the band, The Rhythm Section, yeah, they're still playing. A lot of the members of the band, the original members, have gone their own separate ways and the great guitar player, Barry Bailey has retired. He retired about three months ago.
Terry: I wasn't aware of that.
Buddy: The band's still doing great and as far as recording...
but on this...
I don't know if you heard that Bear Bryant song we played a few minutes ago...
On that album we're gonna have Rhythm Section cuts. We gonna put some of the old stuff on there and then Ronnie Hammond, who sang "The Day Bear Bryant Died" is with the Atlanta Rhythm Section.
He's retired though.
Paul: So many great songs for The Atlanta Rhythm Section!
For the CLASSICS IV!
The Lettermen!
Buddy Buie, who's heading toward...
He's in the Georgia Music Hall of Fame!
He's in the Alabama Music Hall of Fame!
& now he's in the FINEBAUM HALL OF FAME!
because this is one of the best shows we've had in a long time!
Buddy: Thank you so much! I've really enjoyed being here!
Paul: We hope to see you this summer.
Buddy: I'd love to come back!
Paul: We'll pause right here.
The July 7, 2006 Paul Finebaum Interview with BUDDY BUIE http://www.finebaum.com
Paul: And we bid you hello. As we set off for the weekend on a holiday week and what better way to kick back. If you're heading to the lake, coming back from the lake or to the beach or just chilling out on this afternoon talking to one of our favorite guests. We had him on a couple of months ago. Didn't have enough time. We said we'd get him back and he is here. Buddy Buie, the famed songwriter and producer trecked up here from the Dothan area.
Buddy: Eufaula
Paul: Excuse me, Eufaula area. The Dothan area going a little deeper into...
How far is Dothan from Eufaula?
Buddy: Dothan is about 50 miles south of Eufaula.
Paul: O.K. Well, you didn't have to go to Dothan then to get here.
[Laughter]
Buddy: But I was born and grew up in Dothan.
Paul: Something tells me you're near the lake.
Buddy: Yeah, I'm on the lake.
[laughter]
Paul: I had a guess!
Well, Buddy, of course, has a storied career and you grew up in Dothan.
Buddy: Yes.
Paul: I'll get that right eventually.
We hung around a couple of hours a few months ago talking about some of the great classics and you have a new release, which we will get to later on, entitled THE DAY BEAR DIED.
There's so much to talk about and I know we'll have a lot of phone calls as well. We're glad you're back.
Buddy: It's good to be back. It really is. I really enjoyed being here last time and brings back a lot of old memories coming back to Birmingham. We used to come to Birmingham so much. Made the first record I ever made in my life here in this town.
Paul: I didn't know that.
Buddy: Yeah. Heart Recording Studios. It was over a blood bank downtown.
Paul: What was that?
Buddy: It was just a little recording studio owned by a guy named Ken Shackleford and Bobby Goldsboro and all us came up from Dothan and made the first recording we ever made. You know, just a little band out of Dothan. Coming up here, being so excited about actually cutting a record. Nothing we cut there ever did anything but at least it was the first exposure we had to the recording industry so Birmingham is kind of near and dear to my heart.
Paul: Now you grew up with Bobby Goldsboro. Which one of you started in music first?
Buddy: Hmm, I think pretty much, probably simultaneously, I mean, we were in high school and we both liked the music. He played guitar and had a little band and I was a big music fan and so we kind of started our careers together.
Paul: You've had so many hits. We were chatting off the air with one of our younger guys, trying to see if we could connect the dots between your big hits and today and one of your songs which made the charts with two different groups. Made the charts with the Atlanta Rhythm Section in 1979 but it first hit the charts, got all the way up to I think #3 in '68 with The Classics IV. People will recognize this one.
Buddy: Yeah.
[SPOOKY plays]
Paul: When this song came out in the late Sixties, obviously Buddy, you did it again with ARS about 11 years later, was it much different in terms of the arrangement?
Buddy: Actually, not a whole lot of difference. Main difference was it was a guitar solo instead of a saxophone solo. You know we had one more. We had a #1 jazz record with David Sanborn.
Paul: I didn't know that.
Buddy: Yeap,we did. That was only about five years ago. It was a #1 jazz record released around Halloween, of course.
[cell phone rings loudly]
Buddy: My goodness! I forgot to turn my phone off!
Paul: That's the loudest phone I've ever heard!
[laughter]
Paul: I thought that was a new solo on SPOOKY or something!
[laughter]
Buddy: I am sorry.
Paul: It's Billboard saying you're back on the charts!
While waiting to hear......
Buddy: No I was turning it off!
I don't know who that was but I turned it off.
Paul: Wow!
It's interesting because songs like yours and we'll obviously go through the charts as we move thoughout the program and somebody out there has a special one they'd like to hear before we get it, go right ahead but they're timeless. Just a few minutes ago, we have a couple of music staitions here, I heard SPOOKY. I think it the ARS version, not that I could tell. Last night I'm driving home flipping around. TRACES. I mean you just don't have to look very hard to find your music.
Buddy: Well, those songs, that's one thing we're proud of is ,you know, like Spooky was written in 1967 so, God, that's almost 40 years. Lacking one year. Right?
Paul: Pretty close.
Buddy: That's scary. I started real young.
Paul: How old were you when you penned your first song?
Buddy: Actually, the first song I wrote about my wife, Gloria, and it was a song called IT SEEM SO STRANGE. It's never been released. Nobody's ever heard it.
Paul: In the vault.
Buddy: It's in the vault.
Paul: There's a reason you haven't come out with it!
Buddy: Exactly!
Paul: Is there something in there maybe that's not...
Buddy: No not really.
[laughter]
Paul: She's blushing by the way!
Buddy: I wrote songs in secret for a couple of years.
Paul: In secret.
Buddy: Yeah, because of the fact that,yeah, you just don't wake up one day and tell your buddies,"Hey, I'm a songwriter!"
Paul: No.
Buddy: I mean, they look at you eschew like, "Lord, you are what?!!!!"
"I'm a songwriter."
[laughter]
Paul: Right in the middle of football practice, you're in the huddle...
Buddy: Exactly! It's kinda....
So I wrote and would keep 'em to myself. Finally a boy by the name of John Rainey Adkins in Dothan. He and I started talking about songs and he played guitar and he took me seriously and we started writing songs so...
Paul: Who influenced you during that time?
Buddy: Well,of course, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, all the ones you would probably think of, oh, Roy Orbison. Fortunately I had a long....
I worked with him a long time but before I knew him, I was...
Paul: You got out of high school what year?
Buddy: '59.
Paul: As Elvis was really firing up the charts.
Buddy: He'd already in '55, '56, '57.
'57 was a big year.
Paul: So you got to high school about the time Elvis was ...
Buddy: Exactly.
Paul: Knocking 'em dead!
[Laughter]
I could see how he could be an influence!
Buddy: Yeah I wore pink and black. Back then, guys would come to school with pink shirts, black pants and a little white belt- little thin white belt and that was an Elvis fan.
Paul: We all know and I grew up in the same town that he was in and it's hard to get away from Elvis Presley but how important was that sphere to young people?
Buddy: It was The Holy Grail. It was...
I mean Elvis Presley impacted my life and I suppose everybody, most everyone, like my class in school. He was just...
If you were really into music, he was THE MAN!
I saw the Prime Minister of Japan and President Bush at Graceland. I thought that was cool.
Paul: In your career and obviously you started writing during this period. You had hits on the charts as early as the mid to late Sixties. Did you come in contact with Elvis at all?
Buddy: No, I talked to him. I had been fairly hot as a songwriter and a guy by the name of Red West...
Paul: Oh yeah! Sure!
Buddy: that worked for Elvis called me and said, "Buddy, E wants to say hey."
Just blew me away.
[Buddy imitates Elvis]
"Hey man, we'd sure like for you to write us some songs. We're going over to Memphis to record."
So that's when he went over and did the great work with my buddy,Chips Moman, over in Memphis.
Paul: He was on the phone?
Buddy: He was on the phone.
Paul: Red West, I remember him.
Buddy: Did you ever know Lamar Fike?
Paul: No, I didn't know these people. I just remember their names.
[laughter]
Buddy: I knew a lot of his people.
Paul: I knew one. My next door neighbor as an infant was a guy named Marty Lacker.
Buddy: Oh yeah! Marty Lacker, huh...
Paul: He was part of the Memphis Mafia. So I was two years old I didn't jam with him too often.
Buddy: I saw him in Vegas. His producer at that time when he was in Vegas at the Hilton was Felton Jarvis. This was after Chet had produced him.
By the way, did you know that Chet Atkins produced all the Elvis things.
Would you believe if I told you that Chet Atkins quit recording Elvis Presley?
You know what the reason was?
Because they recorded at night!
[laughing]
Chet says,"Elvis, I love you and we're making some great stuff but I can't handle this late night."
[laughter]
That's what you call CONFIDENCE!!!!
Paul: I guess at this point in your career....
This was not the peak of Elvis' recording career.
Buddy: You know, in retrospect, that trip to Memphis and those recording sessions at Memphis had SUSPICIOUS MINDS and IN THE GHETTO.
Paul: Late Elvis.
Buddy: Yes. Late Elvis. The best late Elvis. Elvis was really trying...
He'd done all those lame movie songs for so many years, you know, early Elvis is Elvis to me except for that brief period where he went to Memphis and Chips Moman recorded him on those great songs. Those songs now are....
I know the Prime Minister of Japan the other day, the songs he was singing...
SUSPICIOUS MINDS
Paul: Did people compose and write songs for Elvis? Obviously, he didn't....
Buddy: I didn't get a song on the session unfortunately. I'd loved to. I sent songs but they didn't do 'em.
I good at taking a "NO!"
You have to be thick skinned in my business.
Paul: You had to feel pretty good though. You had a few on the charts when he wasn't on the charts.
Buddy: Yeah and like I said, his producer in Memphis was good friend of mine so when he asked Chips about songwriters, Chips named four or five songwriters that he should call and he called some of the best around Memphis and I'd already had a hit with Chips for a girl named Sandy Posey. A song called I TAKE IT BACK. My first BMI award. It went to about #19 in the country. Yeah, you know that whole era of music and when Elvis came back strong, it really meant a lot to a lot of people and those songs today are big for him. I loved DON'T BE CRUEL. All those things that were playing while I was in high school '57, '58,'59.
Those are my favorites but he really did some good work late that a lot of people don't recognize.
Paul: It's interesting to wonder... What (laughs)
We're talking about Elvis Presley but if he had not done so much time doing movies, what kind of...
I mean to say he didn't leave a legacy would be the most ridiculous statement I ever made but there was a big gap.
Buddy: There was a gap between the early and he did all those movie songs. Those were such lame songs.
Paul: VIVA LAS VEGAS! (laughs0
Buddy: VIVA LAS VEGAS was one of the better ones.
Paul: BLUE HAWAII. What were some of the others?
Buddy: Yeah, BLUE HAWAII, but there were a lot of things he did that he hated and he would just go in and do 'em by rote. I know this from talking to people who were around him. Gosh, I don't remember the year. What year did he go back to Memphis? It was in the 70s and cut those things. You know those movie songs he made, everybody kind of laughs at 'em but do you know how big those things were? I mean...
Paul: I remember seeing some of them...
Buddy: I did too. I never missed one!
But we used to laugh a lot.
Paul: Well we shouldn't feel sorry for Elvis. He had a pretty good career.
Buddy: I'll tell you, you know, when he died...
It hit everybody.
I can remember the exact moment, the exact place I was. I was writing at Lake Eufaula, matter of fact, for the Atlanta Rhythm Section at Lake Eufaula. My buddy, Dean Daughtry went up....
We didn't have a telephone there. On purpose.
Back in the cabin, a little trailer where we wrote and we were working on Champagne Jam album and Dean went down to the store to get us some hot dogs and came back and said,"Man, you won't believe this. Elvis is dead!"
Paul: Umm.
Buddy: I never will forget it
Paul: Back with much more...
2006 WTBC Interview With Wally, Dave and Ronnie
Buddy Buie's Interview on WTBC on March 15, 2006
(Buddy is talking about living in New York City when he was a young songwriter)
I go back to the hotel.
Put the key in the door &
the door won't open!
I go downstairs very irate & said
"MY DOOR WON'T OPEN!"
They said,"YEAH! If you'd pay your bill, it might open!"
[LAUGHTER]
They had my clothes and everything back of the counter!
[more laughter]
Wally: Buddy, what's the first song on the radio that you heard that you'd written...
Buddy: That'd I'd written?
Wally: Or produced. The first written or produced. Sandy Posey?
Buddy: Before that, you know, we had The James Gang...
Ronnie: "Georgia Pines"
Buddy: "Georgia Pines". Even before that...
I think that "Georgia Pines" is the FIRST one with any notoriety to it.
Ronnie: "Georgia Pines" was big in the South.
Buddy: ONLY!
Ronnie: But never did get out nationally.
Buddy: Never did and it's never been really covered by a big artist. I always thought one of the Nashville artists would cover that song because it seems like it'd be a natural for 'em.
Ronnie: We had Johnny Townsend here not too long ago.
Buddy: Oh, yeah.
Ronnie: He did "Light Of A Distant Fire."
That thing kind of spread out nationally.
Buddy: Surely! It was a big one...
Wally: "Smoke From A Distant Fire" !
Ronnie: Oh, "Smoke From A Distant Fire".
Buddy: Yeah.
Wally: HE LIT IT UP AND THEN THERE WAS FIRE!
LAUGHTER
Ronnie: So how did it feel hearing that song on the radio.
Buddy: I can't, I can't relate now to that feeling. I can't remember back...
My mind is mush, anyway, when it comes to memory but I do know that it gave me a little extra edge with the girls in town. I remember that!
LAUGHTER
I BET!
Dave: Always looking for that edge, baby!
Ronnie: All about the girls!
Wally: My Daddy had a country music station here in town that I grew up working in.
Buddy: Oh, did he?
Wally: And I just always loved that Sandy Posey song "I Take It Back".
Buddy: That was the first national hit we had.
Wally: Uh, huh.
Buddy: Right before that we had a song by Tommy Roe called "Party Girl" that made it it to like mid-chart. Uh, but, Sandy Posey, "I Take It Back", the way that came about... Chips Moman.I don't know whether you know him. He's a legendary producer. He produced a bunch of stuff for Elvis: "Suspicious Minds", "In The Ghetto". He did "Willie & Waylon". He did "The Highwaymen".
Ronnie Quarles: WOW!
Buddy: I mean, he's legendary. Well, this was when he was in Memphis and,uh, I had... I knew about him and had met him by phone & I said,"Listen, I got a song."So I did the demo myself. I sang the demo and I did "The Girl's Part". You know the Girl's recitation. I did it in the female gender!
LAUGHTER!
Buddy: Then I did the male voice.
Wally: I'm glad I didn't hear that version!
Buddy: It was good enough to get a cut though! He called me in the middle of the night and said, "Hey man! I cut Sandy Posey on that song!"
Ronnie: YOU'RE A GREAT GIRL!
LAUGHTER
Ronnie: So how do you write a song and get it to somebody like Sandy Posey? What,what... How did that happen?
Buddy: Well, that's what I was saying. What happened was I knew he was recording because she'd just had "Single Woman". This song called "Single Woman".
Ronnie: So you did not know Sandy Posey?
Buddy: No I did not know Sandy.
Ronnie: OK.
Buddy: I rarely ever know the artist.
Ronnie: OK.
Buddy: You know, it's usually through a publisher or what we call a "pitch" where you go in front of an artist or producer and throw them your song.
Ronnie: Is it easy today to do that?
Buddy: Well,
Ronnie[interrupting]: Is it easier today, I should say...
Buddy: I don't do it as much but when you've had a track record, you know, you can get in the door easier. It doesn't make them like it anymore though...
Ronnie: I see...
Buddy: You know, they'll still tell ya,"Naw, thank you for coming. Really appreciate you bringing it by but, naw, this is not for us."
Ronnie: See, I've always told Wally that we could get the Sunday newspaper, cut out some words out of each headline, put 'em together & line 'em up.We'd have a country song!
LAUGHTER
Buddy: I got a couple of country titles but I can't say but one of them on the air!
LAUGHTER
Buddy: One of 'em is "IF I'D A KILLED HER WHEN I MET HER, I'D BE OUT OF JAIL BY NOW!"
LAUGHTER....CLAPPING
Buddy: That's a Waylon Jennings' line!
LAUGHTER
Ronnie[laughing] That's great!
Buddy: Can I say "masturbate" on the radio?
Dave McDaniel: Yeah, I think you just did!
LAUGHTER
Ronnie: Yeah, I think you just did!
Buddy: "I'D RATHER MASTURBATE THAN SCREW WITH YOU FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!"
LAUGHTER
Dave: Oh no! There goes our license!
Buddy: I cleaned it up a little bit!
Dave: Yeah you did. We're with you on it , Buddy!
Buddy: YOU SHOULD HAVE HEARD THE REAL VERSION!
Dave: OH Lord!
Ronnie: Let's move it on!
Dave: Naw! Let it stay right where it's at!
LAUGHTER
Ronnie: So how did you hook up with the Classics IV?
Buddy: I was in Atlanta. Bill Lowery had... I told you I had a song by Tommy Roe who was a Bill Lowery artist. I met Bill and Bill; later on, introduced me, you know, to different people around town, and what was the question?
Ronnie: The Classics IV.
Buddy: Oh yeah, I was not a producer at that time. I was a songwriter pitching songs. Joe South, the legendary writer...
Wally: "Don't It Make You Want To Go Home"
Buddy: "Rose Garden" , many, many, many songs.
Joe was producing the band and I knew of 'em because I'd been to Florida to see them down at Cocoa Beach and they were an incredible band. They were probably the best copy band I'd heard at that time and the lead singer, Dennis Yost played drums.
Ronnie: Standing up! Yeah! I remember that!
Buddy: &, anyway, they were cutting one of my songs...NO THEY WASN'T!
At that point, they were cutting a bunch of songs that Lowery had given them and Joe South became ill and I became their producer by default.
Wally: Really!
Ronnie: Wow!
Buddy: & during that week we cut "Spooky".
Dave: How 'bout that!
Buddy: I kept hounding Bill Lowery,"Man, if I could just get in the studio and have some real time!"
So they named that NATIONAL BUIE WEEK so I was the only one who could get in the studio!
LAUGHTER
Buddy: & during that week, the musicians, some of them later on became the Atlanta Rhythm Section, we cut "Spooky".
I think an interesting thing about that session is that Emory Gordy was the bass player and Emory is Patty Loveless' husband.
Ronnie: Is that right?!
Buddy: & he's a very big producer in Nashville. He also played bass for Elvis and Emory was the bass player and J.R. Cobb, who was one of the Classics IV, later on became one of the Atlanta Rhythm Section, J.R. Cobb, they all played on that session, and we cut "Spooky" with just those three pieces. We recorded it on a three track. I don't know how many people in the audience are familiar with a little bit of the technical stuff but we had a 3-track tape machine- a Scully 3-track.
Ronnie: Wow!
Buddy: & we had two of them and what we would do, we'd put the bass and drums on one track, the singer on another track and guitar on the other track and then we'd do what's called "Ping Pong". We take those tracks and record them down to two, then we did overdubs.
By the time we got through recording this song, the tape was so thin you could see through it!
LAUGHTER
Dave: I believe that, yeah!
Ronnie: & now days, they've got what?
Dave: 64 tracks.
Buddy: Unlimited tracks! Digital! Yeah! Unlimited tracks!
I remember when the first 8 track, I'm telling my age but I remember the first 8 track!
UM HUM.
Buddy: I remember the first 16 track!
Wally: We do too!
LAUGHTER
Wally: We're all old radio folks so we know.
Dave: Yeah, we do too!
Ronnie: So ya'll hooked up with Roy Orbison?
Buddy: Well, the way we hooked up with Roy Orbison...
LET ME FINISH THE CLASSICS IV STORY!!!!
We recorded "Spooky" and we recorded another song. It was called "Poor People" and I don't even remember the melody of that song now it's been so long but "Poor People" was the A-side and "Spooky" was the B-side.
REALLY! IS THAT RIGHT!
Buddy: Spooky had originally been a jazz instrumental. Did you know that?
Ronnie: No, I didn't know that!
Dave: Wow!
Buddy: A guy named Mike Shapiro and Harry Middlebrooks in Atlanta. Mike was probably one of the greatest jazz players, sax tenor players, that you'll...
He played the break on "Spooky". He played it on "Stormy". He's just a great player and that song, I was riding down the road, J.R. Cobb and I and I said,
"I love that instrumental."
J.R. said," I do too. Did you know Bill Lowery publishes it?"
I said,"Naw, I didn't."
So I called Bill Lowery. I said,"Man, that song of yours, you know, is just sensational!
Do you mind if I take it and rework it and try to make it into a pop song and write lyrics to it?"
So we took it. Restructured it. Changed the melody to make it, you know, more appropriate for a pop song and , you know, that's how that song came about. It was a B-side as I said. A disc jockey in Louisville, KY played it and the phones rang off the hook and I had a promotion man named Mike Martin who called me saying,"Buddy, you won't believe this but that song 'Spooky', the B-side of the record, it's tearing it up!"
So then it started happening in different towns and, you know, then it became the big song that it was. Now it's been recorded by The Atlanta Rhythm Section, of course, had a hit with "Spooky" and David Sandbourne had a # 1 jazz hit so it's been a great song for us.
Now, what's your next question you asked me?
Buddy: Now what's your next question you asked me?
Ronnie: How'd you hook up with Roy Orbison?
Buddy: In Dothan, Alabama. This was before any of this had happened.In Dothan, there was the Houston County Farm Center there and I started promoting shows. I used to have dances at the local recreation center and things of that kind.
Wally: He was the Tiger Jack of Dothan!
Buddy: Yeah, I've heard a lot about Tiger Jack!
LAUGHTER
Ronnie: He used to do that here at Ft. Brandon Armory.
Buddy: We probably played for him!
Ronnie: We've got pictures of y'all on our website.
Buddy: Oh great! Yeah! I remember that armory very well. I had a show... my first big show was Roy Orbison. I loved Roy Orbison. I told you I loved radio and I loved songs. I was just mesmerized with "Only The Lonely" and even a couple of things before that. I thought he was sensational so I called. I found out who he was with. It was Acuff-Rose Agency in Nashville and I called them & they said,"Sure, he'd love to come down there!" and I said,"How much is it gonna be?" and it was $600!
LAUGHTER
Dave:WOO! That was big money!
Wally: That was a world of money!
Buddy: $600. Even then I thought it was a bargain. He came down. In those days, big artists traveled with like a guitar player & a music director and they did. Fred Carter was his guitar player and they told me,"Does your band read?"
"Well, of course!"
They didn't read music!
LAUGHTER
Wally: I read in that article about you that they DID read music!They said that they DID read!
Buddy: They full of crap!
LAUGHTER
Buddy: They might have learned over years of osmosis...
LAUGHTER "GO AHEAD BUDDY!"
Buddy: They were just country boys, played by ear as most session players at that time were...The guys in Muscle Shoals, I betcha none of those guys, maybe some of 'em did, the horn players and stuff but most guitar players don't read.So I said,"Sure! They READ!"So they said,"We're gonna bring down some arrangements."Well, immediately we go to the Dothan Recreation Center and start rehearsing and John Rainey Adkins, one of my guitar heroes, & one of the guys that, he passed on, God bless him, we practiced and practiced and John Rainey, he would play a record backwards or slow it down to the slowest spead and learn parts and to make a long story short, by the time Orbison came to town, these guys sounded like his records!
Dave: Wow!
Buddy: They had it down! So he came, got on stage for rehearsal. So he said,"Y'all boys read?""SURE!"So he handed them all this music, you know...
LAUGHTER
Buddy: And so they counted off,"One,two, three, four
[Buddy imitating Orbison]"I was all right for a while!"
RIGHT! So at the end of the song, Orbison said,"God O' Mighty!"
LAUGHTER
Buddy: "God O' Mighty! That sounds great!"
LAUGHTER
Buddy: He's a country boy from Wink, Texas, a small town, like we were small town guys from Dothan, Alabama.
Ronnie: Wink, Texas.
Buddy: Yeah, close to Odessa.
Ronnie: Yeah. I used to live out there.
Buddy: Yeah, did you really? I played a lot of joints out there.
Ronnie: I lived in San Angelo.
Buddy: Did ya?
Ronnie: Yeah.
Buddy: & Orbison, by the end of the night, by the time he left Dothan, we'd become friends and it led from there. He came back, played another show, finally he said,"Man, I'd love to take this band on the road!"I said,"You're not taking that band on the road unless you take me!!!!"
LAUGHTER
Dave: Oh, that's right!
LAUGHTER
Buddy: I had a '55 Chevrolet and we piled into it. Bobby Goldsboro was the rhythm guitar player!
Ronnie: Oh, man!
Buddy: We all piled into my '55 Chevrolet and went on the road with Roy Orbison!
Ronnie: Wow!
Wally: You were his road manager, right?
Buddy: I was his road manager and he is...I gotta say; I've said it in other interviews and things; there's no telling how many times I saw him perform.There was never a time when I saw him perform that the hair didn't stand up on my arm!
WOW!YEAH!
Buddy: & he was one of the sweetest human beings you would ever meet. He had a song one time called "If You Can't Say Something Nice, Don't Say Anything At All".That's pretty much the motto he lived by. I never heard him say anything bad about anybody else.He was just one of those guys that did not deserve all...First of all, the lack of attention he got!Everybody thinks of Roy Orbison as being a huge artist during that period. He was huge in England but in America, he had hit records but concert-wise, he was just another Joe & nobody like him deserves what happened. He lost his children in fire. He lost his wife when he was riding down the road on motorcycles.They went out motorcycle riding together & he was in the lead and he looked back and she wasn't there and the reason she wasn't there was because a guy ran a stop sign and killed her instantly.
Ronnie: That's horrible! Didn't know that...
Buddy: So that's his life. You know about his children burning up, didn't you?
NO!
Buddy: He had a house out by Johnny Cash on Hendersonville Lake in Nashville and they were playing with matches or something and I think their nanny was with them and the house burned to the ground.
Dave: Oh, goodness!
Buddy: With the children in it.
Ronnie: Oh, my God!
Buddy: So he lived a tragic, tragic life.
Wally: Why'd he wear those sunglasses?
Buddy: Well, Roy was... you know there are stories that say he started wearing them in Dothan. Is that what you're referring to?
Wally: I just noticed he always had dark sunglasses on.
Buddy: Yeah, dark sunglasses, I always heard he never wore them until, somebody else told me this, he never wore them before and I don't remember it but somebody told me this that when he was in Dothan, he lost his clip-on sunglasses and he had to buy a pair and he liked himself in sunglasses.He was virtually blind. His glasses were thick like plate glass.Roy was white. His hair was just white as snow when he was a kid. He dyed that hair. It'd get white. I've seen him.Oh, I could gush about him for hours!
Ronnie: Well, there was the special, "Black & White". What a great show!
Buddy: Wasn't that great!
Ronnie: Unbelievable!
Buddy: I wrote with him right after that and that's another tragic thing about his death.All of his life, he'd not really had all the adulation the he deserved. He didn't know that Bruce Springsteen thought he was "GOD"!
YEAH!
Buddy: He didn't know this. All these people...How they felt about him.
Ronnie: So that was a big moment for him.
Buddy: It was HUGE for him! & finally, his idol was Elvis, and finally he got a little of that Elvis type attention...
UM,,HUM
Buddy: & then right after that he came to Atlanta and wrote with Ronnie Hammond and I. We had a song called "Awesome Love". Roy called me and said,"Man, I love your song "Awesome Love". I wanna come down and put my touch to it."I said, "Come on!"So he came to Atlanta, stayed there at my house for three or four days and that's the last time I saw him. He died not long after that.
Dave: My Goodness!
Buddy: It was heartbreaking.
Ronnie: Yeah.
Dave: Along with the travels with Roy Orbison, you also had a brush with the Beatles, didn't you?
Buddy: No, I didn't.
Dave: O.K.
Buddy: You know a lot of people get that wrong. I didn't!
The Band Did! The band went with Orbison to England and Robert Nix and one of the other guys, they were at a club there and they met McCartney & Lennon in the bathroom.
LAUGHTER
Dave: Great place to meet 'em!
Buddy: & John Rainey said, " I didn't know what to say! There was John Lennon!"
LAUGHTER
Wally: & then they wrote "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window"!
LAUGHTER
Buddy: That's pretty good there!
Dave: You gotta watch him, Buddy!
Buddy: I wasn't there. Lot of times people interpret it that I was there but I wasn't. The band was there and they came back with all kind of stories!
Wally: Buddy Buie's our guest this morning! We're gonna take a short break and we'll be right back!
Buddy: Now what's your next question you asked me?
Ronnie: How'd you hook up with Roy Orbison?
Buddy: In Dothan, Alabama. This was before any of this had happened.
In Dothan, there was the Houston County Farm Center there and I started promoting shows. I used to have dances at the local recreation center and things of that kind.
Wally: He was the Tiger Jack of Dothan!
Buddy: Yeah, I've heard a lot about Tiger Jack!
LAUGHTER
Ronnie: He used to do that here at Ft. Brandon Armory.
Buddy: We probably played for him!
Ronnie: We've got pictures of y'all on our website.
Buddy: Oh great! Yeah! I remember that armory very well. I had a show... my first big show was Roy Orbison. I loved Roy Orbison. I told you I loved radio and I loved songs. I was just mesmerized with "Only The Lonely" and even a couple of things before that. I thought he was sensational so I called. I found out who he was with. It was Acuff-Rose Agency in Nashville and I called them & they said,"Sure, he'd love to come down there!" and I said,"How much is it gonna be?" and it was $600!
LAUGHTER
Dave:WOO! That was big money!
Wally: That was a world of money!
Buddy: $600. Even then I thought it was a bargain. He came down. In those days, big artists traveled with like a guitar player & a music director and they did. Fred Carter was his guitar player and they told me,"Does your band read?"
Well, of course, they didn't read music!
LAUGHTER
Wally: I read in that article about you that they DID read music!
They said that they DID read!
Buddy: They full of crap!
LAUGHTER
Buddy: They might have learned over years of osmosis...
LAUGHTER "GO AHEAD BUDDY!"
Buddy: They were just country boys, played by ear as most session players at that time were...
The guys in Muscle Shoals, I betcha none of those guys, maybe some of 'em did, the horn players and stuff but most guitar players don't read.
So I said,"Sure! They READ!"
So they said,"We're gonna bring down some arrangements."
Well, immediately we go to the Dothan Recreation Center and start rehearsing and John Rainey Adkins, one of my guitar heroes, & one of the guys that, he passed on, God bless him, we practiced and practiced and John Rainey, he would play a record backwards or slow it down to the slowest spead and learn parts and to make a long story short, by the time Orbison came to town, these guys sounded like his records!
Dave: Wow!
Buddy: They had it down! So he came, got on stage for rehearsal. So he said,"Y'all boys read?"
"SURE!"
So he handed them all this music, you know...
LAUGHTER
Buddy: And so they counted off,"One,two, three, four [Buddy imitating Orbison]
"I was all right for a while!"
RIGHT! So at the end of the song, Orbison said,"God O' Mighty!"
LAUGHTER
Buddy: "God O' Mighty! That sounds great!"
LAUGHTER
Buddy: He's a country boy from Wink, Texas, a small town, like we were small town guys from Dothan, Alabama.
Ronnie: Wink, Texas.
Buddy: Yeah, close to Odessa.
Ronnie: Yeah. I used to live out there.
Buddy: Yeah, did you really? I played a lot of joints out there.
Ronnie: I lived in San Angelo.
Buddy: Did ya?
Ronnie: Yeah.
Buddy: & Orbison, by the end of the night, by the time he left Dothan, we'd become friends and it led from there. He came back, played another show, finally he said,"Man, I'd love to take this band on the road!"
I said,"You're not taking that band on the road unless you take me!!!!"
LAUGHTER
Dave: Oh, that's right!
LAUGHTER
Buddy: I had a '55 Chevrolet and we piled into it. Bobby Goldsboro was the rhythm guitar player!
Ronnie: Oh, man!
Buddy: We all piled into my '55 Chevrolet and went on the road with Roy Orbison!
Ronnie: Wow!
Wally: You were his road manager, right?
Buddy: I was his road manager and he is...
I gotta say; I've said it in other interviews and things; there's no telling how many times I saw him perform.
There was never a time when I saw him perform that the hair didn't stand up on my arm!
WOW!
YEAH!
Buddy: & he was one of the sweetest human beings you would ever want to meet. He had a song one time called "If You Can't Say Something Nice, Don't Say Anything At All".
That's pretty much the motto he lived by. I never heard him say anything bad about anybody else.
He was just one of those guys that did not deserve all...
First of all, the lack of attention he got!
Everybody thinks of Roy Orbison as being a huge artist during that period. He was huge in England but in America, he had hit records but concert-wise, he was just another Joe & nobody like him deserves what happened. He lost his children in fire. He lost his wife when he was riding down the road on motorcycles.
They went out motorcylce riding together & he was in the lead and he looked back and she wasn't there and the reason she wasn't there was because a guy ran a stop sign and killed her instantly.
Ronnie: That's horrible! Didn't know that...
Buddy: So that's his life. You know about his children burning up, didn't you?
NO!
Buddy: He had a house out by Johnny Cash on Hendersonville Lake in Nashville and they were playing with matches or something and I think their nanny was with them and the house burned to the ground.
Dave: Oh, goodness!
Buddy: With the children in it.
Ronnie: Oh, my God!
Buddy: So he lived a tragic, tragic life.
Wally: Why'd he wear those sunglasses?
Buddy: Well, Roy was... you know there are stories that say he started wearing them in Dothan. Is that what you're referring to?
Wally: I just noticed he always had dark sunglasses on.
Buddy: Yeah, dark sunglasses, I always heard he never wore them until, somebody else told me this, he never wore them before and I don't remember it but somebody told me this that when he was in Dothan, he lost his clip-on sunglasses and he had to buy a pair and he liked himself in sunglasses.
He was virtually blind. His glasses were thick like plate glass.
Roy was white. His hair was just white as snow when he was a kid. He dyed that hair. It'd get white. I've seen him.
Oh, I could gush about him for hours!
Ronnie: Well, there was the special, "Black & White". What a great show!
Buddy: Wasn't that great!
Ronnie: Unbelievable!
Buddy: I wrote with him right after that and that's another tragic thing about his death.
All of his life, he'd not really had all the adulation the he deserved. He didn'nt know that Bruce Springsteen thought he was "GOD"!
YEAH!
Buddy: He didn't know this. All these people...
How they felt about him.
Ronnie: So that was a big moment for him.
Buddy: It was HUGE for him! & finally, his idol was Elvis, and finally he got a little of that Elvis type attention...
UM,,HUM
Buddy: & then right after that he came to Atlanta and wrote with Ronnie Hammond and I. We had a song called "Awesome Love". Roy called me and said,"Man, I love your song "Awesome Love". I wanna come down and put my touch to it."
I said, "Come on!"
So he came to Atlanta, stayed there at my house for three or four days and that's the last time I saw him. He died not long after that.
Dave: My Goodness!
Buddy: It was heartbreaking.
Ronnie: Yeah.
Buddy: Well, I thank you, I'm here not only to talk about the songs I've written in the past but I've got a new song. Actually, it's not a new song. It's a lost song. It's a song that we wrote when Bear Bryant died. The name of the song is "The Day Bear Bryant Died". We wrote the song. Then we forgot about it and then some friends of mine encouraged me to try to get something done with it in Tuscaloosa and ,hopefully, you'll be hearing it because...
Who's that?
[a caller to the radio show claims to have so much influence overPaul Finebaum that Buddy is guaranteed a spot on the show by the caller]
Buddy: Oh man! I'd love to be on Finebaum!
Wally: Well Buddy, there goes your career!
Dave: Git 'er done! Git 'er done! Git 'er done! YEAH! We already got Finebaum, man!
Ronnie: You want to tell us a little about it and let us play that song right now?
Buddy: What happened was Ronnie Hammond with the Atlanta Rhythm Section, a guy I write with quite often, and I were at Lake Lanier and it was in January of '83. Bear Bryant had died a couple or three days before.
We came into Lake Lanier and we rented one of those cabins and were sitting there and the funeral procession that was strung with so many people on the side of the road and Keith Jackson talking about it...
Just a wave of emotion came over us and it was one of the most profound things I've ever seen. I was an Alabama fan. Ronnie wasn't a football fan but it even got him and so that day we wrote the song about Bear Bryant.
You know most people think about songwriters awaking in the middle of the night saying, "OH! Boy! I got THIS IDEA!" or they see a sunset and it comes over them and they write this song.
Well, that's not what happens!
Usually it's pretty much, you have an idea and you try to develop that idea.
Almost like writing a book. You have an idea and you try to develop it ...
Yet EVERY BLUE MOON...
Like this song.
Written strictly with emotion at that moment
I'm really proud of it. I played it for a gentleman from Dothan, Alabama by the name of Harrison Parrish, one of the owners of Movie Gallery.
He's big Alabama alumni and I played it for him and got really excited about it and then he played it for Johnny Williams, the assistant athletic director here and he got excited about it and he played it for Tom Stipe and he did.[got excited about it]
We want this to be,
now I'm prejudiced, Ronnie and I wrote that thing!
When you hear the front of the record you're gonna hear Bear but you can barely hear it. The only thing I had was Bear's voice on an old media piece which I don't even have anymore, where you could hear Bear talking but it has so many scratches. It's almost inaudible but still I put it on the front intro of this record and one of the things I want to achieve while I'm here is to possibly get the university to give us a nice clean copy so we can put it on this intro.
So let's listen to it and see...
Dave: So here it is.
Voice over of Coach Bryant:
"I've said this before, of course,
I've said anytime I've had the opportunity that I wouldn't trade places with anyone in the world because of the privilege of being here at The University & passing my time here.
I WILL never put anything against your education. We want that to come first.
ON THE OTHER HAND WE WANT FOOTBALL!!!!
To be second!
We want football to be second!
Because we feel a very strong obligation to you and we feel like you should to The Universitybecause it works both ways.
First of all,
we want you to write home!
THANK YOU!
lyrics of "The Day Bear Bryant Died" by Buddy Buie & Ronnie Hammond
I'll never forget the day
That I heard the news
Bear Bryant has died!!!!
Funny, I thought he'd refuse
Funny, I thought he'd refuse
I watched as they laid him to rest
In Old Alabama
OH how I cried
The day Bear Bryant died
ROLL TIDE!!!!
ROLL TIDE!!!!
The Nation Cried
Friend and Foe Alike
The Legend Lives On
THE HERO IS GONE!
Oh how I cried
The Day Bear Bryant died.
The day he was born
GOD gave us one of a kind
& I'm glad he did
'Cause heroes are so hard to find
Many a fine young man
He led into battle
He taught them to win
He turned boys into men
ROLL TIDE!!!!
ROLL TIDE!!!!
The Nation cried!
Friend & foe alike
The Legend lives on!
The HERO is gone!
OH! How I cried
The Day Bear Bryant Died.
ROLL TIDE!!!!
ROLL TIDE!!!!
The Nation cried
Friend & Foe alike
The Legend Lives On!
THE HERO IS GONE!OH! How I cried
The Day Bear Bryant Died.
Wally: Wow! Buddy, that's good!
Dave: That's strong, Buddy!
Ronnie: You got some tears, I guarantee you, out there in radioland!
Buddy: It makes me very emotional.
Wally: Me too.
Ronnie: That was pure emotion from the actual day!
Wally: Do you know if Paul Jr.'s heard it?
Buddy: I don't know whether he has or not.
Wally: Yeah.
Buddy: I sure hope that I get a chance to , first of all, just to meet him and play it for him.
I've been an Alabama fan since I was a child.
Wally:Um hum.
Buddy: And all my family's Auburn fans.
Wally: Really?
Dave: I bet that goes over real well at dinner.
Buddy: And we just don't watch the Alabama-Auburn game anywhere near each other!
Wally: I bet! I bet!
Buddy: But my brother's got four kids that graduated from Auburn.
He said,"Buddy, I love that song even though I'm an Auburn fan!"
So, I don't know, my dream is for that song to become an anthem for the university. I'd love to hear that stadium sing "ROLL TIDE!"
Wally: I have got a good friend of mine that I've known for many years named Coach Clem Gryska.
Buddy: Uh huh.
Wally: He used to be on Coach Bryant's staff and he's now over at the Bryant Museum.
Buddy: Oh really!
Wally: You need to hook up with him and see what kind of...
Buddy: Any help I could get to exploit this! Money is not the motive here.
Wally and Dave: No.
Buddy: Because you know, like I told Ronnie[Hammond] when we wrote that song, I said,"Well, that'll never be a commercial record because of the fact that half of the people in Alabama are gonna hate it and half are gonna love it!"
LAUGHTER
Wally: Well, I loved it!
Buddy: Thank you!
Dave: Yeah, great stuff!
Buddy: Thank you, yeah, I'm proud of that song. I'm as proud of that song as any hit I ever wrote.
Dave: And I think if there's one person who can help you find the audience you're looking for it is Tom Stipe.
Buddy: You know Tom, I was telling off the air, Tom is a great songwriter himself.
Dave: Wow!
Buddy: I just hooked him up with a boy, Jeff Cook, a guitar player with ALABAMA.
ALABAMA is retired now but he's going on with his own career and they're recording Tom's song called "Twenty Toes In The Sand".
Wally: Till you told me that I'd never thought Tom Stipe had ever thought about writing a song.
Buddy: He's really talented.
Dave: Heck of a trombone player.
Buddy: That's what I heard.
Dave: Very good trombone player.
Buddy: That's what I heard, yeah.
Wally: I know people listening know your not here selling records. Is there any way we're gonna get copies of that?
Buddy: Yes, we are...we're gonna.
I don't know the release date but
The Last Song
"The Day Bear Bryant Died",
it's been around since then...
Dave: Wow!
Buddy: And nothing has... I've never tried to exploit it. Now I want to exploit it because, I don't know, it seems like the time is right and I hope the message is right. I'd love to see the people of this town and the students of this town and the school embrace it because Bear Bryant was not only a hero of mine but he taught me lessons. Reading books about him; I just read THE LAST COACH.
Wally: Um huh.
Dave: Great book!
Buddy: God,what a book!
Dave: Great book!
Buddy: And he was right...Like we were talking about singers before, you know I said,"Most of 'em are born. They're not made. They're born. When they open their mouth they sound that way when they start singing", & I believe that Bear was just a human being that could have been a general. I mean people would follow him!
Wally: Sure.
Buddy: You know people hated him but they loved him.
His players.
Then later on they'd get out of school...I've read so much, what they said, You know,"God I cussed him. God I hated him but, God, what a man he made out of me!"
Dave: He molded people.
Buddy: "... and how proud I am to played for him."
Wally: One of my best friends in the world is Bob Baumhower.
Buddy: Oh really, yeah!
Wally: Bob and I went to high school and college together.
Buddy: Oh really!
Wally: And if it wasn't for Coach Bryant, Bob would have left the Crimson Tide. He wanted to quit. Was gonna quit.
Buddy: Couldn't take it!
Wally: Coach Bryant, just like a father, took care of him, got him back on the team and, of course, Bob went on to play nine years for the Miami Dolphins.
Buddy: Yeah, he did!
Wally: Well, that never would have happened if it hadn't been for Coach Bryant!
Buddy: You know I don't know too many people that... I've never been in the military but you never hear people talk about their drill sargents that way. They hated them!
But he could treat people the same way and put 'em through their paces and they ended up loving him.
Wally: Yeah.
Buddy: So what a leader he was!
Wally: Now you gonna let us know how we can get a record?
Buddy: You bet I'll let you know!
As a matter of fact, my "Boswell" in town is a man named Robert Register. He's sitting over there smiling.
LAUGHTER
Wally: Robert!
Buddy: Robert lives here in Tuscaloosa and he's going to head up the sales of this.
Dave: There's "Two Cents Worth" coming in here!
Everybody: All right! Thank you! Thank you!
Wally: Appreciate that, Robert!
And I know we have listeners who'd love to have a copy of that!
Buddy: Well, we will definitely make it available. Does anybody know who sang that song?
Wally and Dave: Uh uh.
Buddy: Ronnie Hammond, the lead singer of the Atlanta Rhythm Section!
Wally: Is that who it was?
Buddy: And so we're hoping that in the fall we can work one of the fraternities or something of that kind, get the band to come to town & Ronnie is retired now but I called him the other day.
He said,"Man, if you could get that going at the university, I'll come up and I'll sing that song!"
So we'd love...
Wally: Great!
Buddy: We'd love to have an ARS concert here and bring Hammond back to sing that song!
Dave: WHOO! BOY!
Wally: We're gonna get you on Catfish Country here in a minute over there on the FM side, if you'll stick around.
Buddy: I'll stick around.
Wally: I wanted to bring this up to you. I see where "Spooky" sold over 4 million & "Stormy" sold over 3 million...
Buddy: You mean not "Sold" but "Played".
Wally: Played! O.K., played..."Traces" - over 6 million times played. Performance awards.
Buddy: Yeah.
Dave: And those are all BMI awards.
Wally: So in all your library of stuff, how many times they've been played or how many copies sold, do you ever keep up with that?
Buddy: I don't keep up with copies sold because after the initial sale of a record, the first year, you'll sell 95 per cent of that record. Now then it goes on and gets recorded by other people and sells...
"Traces" has been cut 70 or 80 different times, everybody from Montovani to, you know, a lot of the big classic artists have recorded it.
Dave: "Mighty Clouds of Joy" is another one, B.J. Thomas and Al Green both had a hit with it.
Buddy: Yep. Yeap.
Wally: Not to get too personal with your finances or anything, but how residual checks work, do they come in once a year or every month? How does that work?
Buddy: You get paid twice a year from...
There are two streams of income for a songwriter.
One, I think this is interesting that songwriters are guaranteed their...
how can I put this?
Songwriters were included in the Constitution of the United States. It covered patents and copyrights.
Wally: I didn't know that!
Dave: Wow!
Buddy: It's in the Constitution. The patents and copyrights. Intellectual property at the time was protected because, you know, they had the U.S. Patent Office & the U.S. Copyright Office.
Wally: Right.
Buddy: So they set what we call a "statuatory rate" for every copy sold. On an album now a song earns about ten cents. If there's twelve songs on a album, somebody's paying,for every album sold, ten cents for those albums.
Wally: Per cent?
Buddy: Per cent.
Wally: Um huh.
Buddy: The other way is performance by getting played on the radio and that's two sources there:
Broadcast Music Incorporated and ASCAP and SEESAC.
In the past, they kept up with how much every record was played because you guys know this:
You had the log.
Dave: That's right! I filled out a bunch of BMI logs in my time!
Buddy: Exactly! & when you log, you only log like once a year. Right?
Wally & Dave: Uh huh.
Buddy: & what happened was they did like a political poll. They would take samples from different areas of the country every day and through that they could compute.
Basically, all those political polls are pretty accurate.
Wally & Dave: Uh huh.
Buddy: & it was that way. Now each song, now when it's played, I don't know what it's called, has an ID of some kind. The satellite....
Dave: Yeah.
Wally: They can track it.
Buddy: Yeah, tracks it! So we know exactly...
Wally: How many times!
Buddy: & now its sales are all computerized the minute it's sold so it's good one way but you can't tell any fibs anymore!
LAUGHTER
Buddy: They've got scientific data.
Dave: There you go!
Wally: Buddy, but if you're ever back this way come over. I've got some more questions for you. We just got it started this morning.
Buddy : I'd love to come back & I'd love for you people in Tuscaloosa to help me make "The Day Bear Bryant Died" an Alabama anthem!
Wally: This morning show is going to get behind that!
Dave: We'll do it, Buddy!
Buddy: Thank you so much!
Dave: Thank you for coming by!
Wally: THE LEGENDARY BUDDY BUIE!
WITH US TODAY!
Wally: My Daddy had a country music station here in town that I grew up working in.
Buddy: Oh, did he?
Wally: And I just always loved that Sandy Posey song "I Take It Back".
Buddy: That was the first national hit we had.
Wally: Uh, huh.
Buddy: Right before that we had a song by Tommy Roe called "Party Girl" that made it it to like mid-chart. Uh, but, Sandy Posey, "I Take It Back", the way that came about... Chips Moman.
I don't know whether you know him. He's a legendary producer. He produced a bunch of stuff for Elvis: "Suspicious Minds", "In The Ghetto". He did "Willie & Waylon". He did "The Highwaymen".
Ronnie Quarles: WOW!
Buddy: I mean, he's legendary. Well, this was when he was in Memphis and,uh, I had... I knew about him and had met him by phone & I said,"Listen, I got a song."
So I did the demo myself. I sang the demo and I did "The Girl's Part". You know the Girl's recitation. I did it in the female gender!
LAUGHTER!
Buddy: Then I did the male voice.
Wally: I'm glad I didn't hear that version!
Buddy: It was good enough to get a cut though! He called me in the middle of the night and said, "Hey man! I cut Sandy Posey on that song!"
Ronnie: YOU'RE A GREAT GIRL!
LAUGHTER
Ronnie: So how do you write a song and get it to somebody like Sandy Posey? What,what... How did that happen?
Buddy: Well, that's what I was saying. What happened was I knew he was recording because she'd just had "Single Woman". This song called "Single Woman".
Ronnie: So you did not know Sandy Posey?
Buddy: No I did not know Sandy.
Ronnie: OK.
Buddy: I rarely ever know the artist.
Ronnie: OK.
Buddy: You know, it's usually through a publisher or what we call a "pitch" where you go in front of an artist or producer and throw them your song.
Ronnie: Is it easy today to do that?
Buddy: Well,
Ronnie[interrupting]: Is it easier today, I should say...
Buddy: I don't do it as much but when you've had a track record, you know, you can get in the door easier. It doesn't make them like it anymore though...
Ronnie: I see...
Buddy: You know, they'll still tell ya,"Naw, thank you for coming. Really appreciate you bringing it by but, naw, this is not for us."
Ronnie: See, I've always told Wally that we could get the Sunday newspaper, cut out some words out of each headline, put 'em together & line 'em up.
We'd have a country song!
LAUGHTER
Buddy: I got a couple of country titles but I can't say but one of them on the air!
LAUGHTER
Buddy: One of 'em is "IF I'D A KILLED HER WHEN I MET HER, I'D BE OUT OF JAIL BY NOW!"
LAUGHTER....CLAPPING
Buddy: That's a Waylon Jennings' line!
LAUGHTER
Ronnie[laughing] That's great!
Buddy: Can I say "masturbate" on the radio?
Dave McDaniel: Yeah, I think you just did!
LAUGHTER
Ronnie: Yeah, I think you just did!
Buddy: "I'D RATHER MASTURBATE THAN SCREW WITH YOU FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!"
LAUGHTER
Dave: Oh no! There goes our license!
Buddy: I cleaned it up a little bit!
Dave: Yeah you did. We're with you on it , Buddy!
Buddy: YOU SHOULD HAVE HEARD THE REAL VERSION!
Dave: OH Lord!
Ronnie: Let's move it on!
Dave: Naw! Let it stay right where it's at!
LAUGHTER
Ronnie: So how did you hook up with the ClassicsIV?
Andrew Ellicott's Observations While Serving on the Southern Boundary Commission: 1796-1800 by Robert Register
The tale of the Southern Boundary Commission describes an authentic and exciting adventure containing international plots and subplots. greed, and deception during one of the most turbulent periods in American history.
"Where stone which lay on Mother Earth now points another way to birth." -W.G. Gray
A stone is located on the west bank of the Mobile River south of the Alabama Power Company's Barry Steam Plant at Bucks, Alabama[1], about twenty-one miles north of Mobile on Highway 43. This two-foot high sandstone marker is one of the few eighteenth century landmarks in Alabama. Erected in 1799, it represents some of the last evidence of one of the greatest accomplishments of George Washington's presidency: the establishment of the thirty-first parallel of north latitude as the southern boundary of the United States of America.[2] It was entirely appropriate that in 1968 the American Society of Civil Engineers selected Ellicott's Stone to become one of the first ten ASCE National Historical Civil Engineering Landmarks in the United States.[3]
October 27, 1995 commemorated the bicentennial of the Treaty of San Lorenzo, also known as Pinckney's Treaty. This agreement established the thirty-first parallel as a 382-milc international boundary between the United States and Spanish West Florida.[4] That document signed by Thomas Pinckney, the American minister to Great Britain in 1795, initiated more than sixty years of fierce, bloody and destructive conflict between the United States and the Muscogee Nation.[5] It also "marked the end for Spain's North American Empire by yielding control over the Mississippi and by surrendering the strategic posts north of the thirty-first parallel and east of the Mississippi."[6]
Named for Major Andrew Ellicott, Continental Army officer, a distinguished astronomer, mathematician and surveyor, Ellicott's Stone was erected on the river bank by the boundary commissions of Spain and the United States in May of 1799.[7]If you own property anywhere in Alabama south of an east-west line passing through the town of Montevallo, the legal description on your deed tells you how far your property is located from Ellicott's Stone. For example, the designation "Township 23. Range 5 East." indicates your property is twenty-three townships north and five townships east of this old and magnificent survey monument. Ellicott's Stone is the initial point from which all surveys of public lands in Alabama began.[8]
Ellicott's Stone is not physically located on the thirty-first parallel: the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey established the Stone as latitude 30°59'51.463".[9] According to this author's calculations, the stone is located approximately 863 feet south of the thirty-first parallel. Despite the slight errors that have persisted for almost two hundred years, Ellicott's survey of the line passing through this sandstone marker continues to mark the boundary between Mississippi and southeastern Louisiana, and the state line between Alabama and the Florida panhandle.[10] A quick glance at any U.S. Geological Survey quadrangle map of any portion of the Alabama-Florida border will show three distinct lines following Alabama's southern boundary. The Alabama-Florida line is based on the 'mound line' along the thirty first parallel that followed mounds built at one-mile intervals during Ellicott's 1799 survey. The second line is the base line for the public lands survey which was established after 1818 by General John Coffee by using Ellicott's crooked 'random line' of blazed trees. This error resulted in a boundary dispute between Alabama and Florida that was not resolved until 1854.[11] The last line is the modern latitude thirty-first parallel as surveyed by the USGS (a portion of Flomaton, Alabama is south of this line.)
Andrew Ellicott's survey of the 'mound line' and the 'random line' is a story of one of the first scientific expeditions financed by the federal government. The tale of the Southern Boundary Commission describes an authentic and exciting adventure containing international plots and subplots. greed, and deception during one of the most turbulent periods in American history. The difficulties that Ellicott encountered after crossing the Mobile River created hostilities that would culminate in a civil war within the Muscogee Nation. The Creek War of 1813-14 and all of the Seminole Wars were rooted in the fact that "the Creeks were divided between the old communist-conservatives and the new 'capitalist-progressives.' The rift between the two was destined to increase until it brought the nation to the very verge of destruction." [12]
The difficulties experienced by the boundary commissioners along the present day Alabama-Florida border caused these two factions to become rival governments in 1799. The new "capitalist-progressives" were represented by the central government of the Creek Confederacy under the sway of Benjamin Hawkins, agent of the Southern Indians for the United States.[13] The old ''communist-conservatives" had been led by the Tame King of Tallassee, and the Seminole chiefs Methlogley and Kinhijah.[14] These 'banditti' were incorporated into the resurrected State of Muscogee by the unsurpassed of dreamers, William Augustus Bowles. Director General of the Muscogee Nation.[15] Director General Bowles made clear the position of the Lower Creeks and the Seminoles toward the Treaty of San Lorenzo in a letter to the American Secretary of State on October 31, 1799. Bowles charged that the United States and Spain were attempting to "usurp every right which the Indians have possessed since the beginning of times."[16] He went on to state:
"Any person or persons who shall run lines of any kind
whatever thro'[sic] our territory after the 26th of the month
of October,with the intention to subvert or change the
sovereignty, shall if taken suffer death,and if any force
be employed to affect the same agreeable to the treaty
between his Catholic Majesty and the United States, we
shall...declare war against the United States
from that moment." [17]
In a proclamation issued at Wekiva on the Chattahoochee River, October 26, 1799, the Director General said, "We have not agreed by word or act to surrender the sovereignty of our country, nor never thought of so doing."[18] Indian hostility to this treaty did not begin with the adventurer Bowles. Baron de Carondelet, Spanish Governor of Louisiana and West Florida, saw war clouds on the horizon as early as May 1796. In a letter to his superior (and brother-in-law), Luis de Las Casas, the Captain-General of Cuba, Carondelet observed:
"The evacuation of the forts of San Fernando de las
Barrancas (Memphis), Nogales (Vicksburg) and the
Confederation (Epes, Alabama) will excite the greatest
resentment and probably the hate and vengeance
of the Chickasaws and Choctaws, who will accuse us
of perfidy if, against the promise we made them at the
time they ceded the land where they are situated, we ever
allow those lands to be occupied by
the Americans; it is known that through them,
themselves , the United States could easily take
possession of their lands, and would force them to flee,
causing them to settle in the part west of the Mississippi
where those numerous and belligerent nations will
cause the ruin of our settlements of interior towns
and provinces." [19]
A glimmer of hope for Spain's Indian allies arose in Madrid on October 29, 1796. The Court of King Charles II of Spain decreed a suspension of evacuations of posts north of the thirty-ftrst parallel. Carondelet received this order in late February 1797, too late to reverse his evacuation orders. His orders had already been carried out on some of the northern Spanish forts earlier the same month. [20]
Major Ellicott did not need to see the secret orders to the rulers of New Spain to know that Spain had no intention of honoring its treaty with the United States. On at least five occasions he had been delayed by Spanish officials during his descent on the Mississippi River.[21] Even though Governor Gayoso had announced the treaty to the population in Natchez on December 3, 1796,[22] American newspapers had carried news of the treaty since May of 1796.[23] Spanish commanders at Chickasaw Bluffs (Memphis) and Walnut Hills (Vicksburg) acted as if they never heard of a treaty between the United States and Spain. The Spanish officials along Ellicott's route insisted on detaining him. [24]
On March 22, 1797, Ellicott and the rest of the Americans in Natchez were alarmed when the Spanish reversed their evacuation process. Cannon at Fort Panmure de Natchez had been disassembled in anticipation of evacuation and transported to the river landing, but now was hauled by the Spanish back to the fort and quickly remounted. A letter dated the very next day from Ellicott to Governor Gayoso describes the astronomer's mood:
Natchez, March 23, 1797
Dear Sir:
The remounting of the cannon at this place, at the very time
when our troops are daily expected down to take possession
of it, the insolent treatment which the citizens of the United States
have lately received at the Walnut Hills and the delay of the
business, (on your part) which brought me into this country,
concur in giving me reason to suppose, that the treaty will
not be observed with the same good faith and punctuality,
justify by the subjects of his Catholic Majesty, as it will
citizens of the United States. I hope your Excellency will
give such an explanation of the above, as to remove doubts
and apprehensions, which I am afraid have been too justly
excited.
I have the honour to be, with great esteem and respect,
your friend and Humble servant,
Andrew Ellicott
His Excellency Manuel Gayoso de Lemos [21]
Ellicott devotes 145 pages of his three-hundred-page journal of the Southern Boundary Commission's activities to the events on the Mississippi River and at Natchez involving the Spanish delays of the line survey for more than a year. [26]
The Spanish necessity for postponing the treaty and delaying Andrew Ellicott was rooted in the fact that Spain needed time to hatch the plots that would invalidate the treaty and enable her to evade its execution. The Spanish conspiracy focused on two ends, the dismemberment of the United States and the creation of an international conflict between the United States and France, with Spain coming in on the side of France. [27] .
A complete explanation of Spain's political motivation for delays and alliance with France is not within the scope of this paper. Rowland, however, used a quote from Thomas Power to General James Wilkinson that may provide insight into these events: "The crazy, tortuous, vacillating politics of our court baffle the common rules of political prescience, and even the grasp of our conjecture."[28]. Whitaker's comments on the Natchez situation in 1797 also do a good job of describing the center of the web of intrigue Ellicott and his American party entered when they became the first men to raise an American Flag of fifteen stars and fifteen stripes [29] on the banks of the lower Mississippi and not have it cut down[30] :
"In the course of this year almost every thread of frontier history
was gathered up at the tiny post on the lower Mississippi. Spanish
conspirators of Tennessee and Kentucky, promoters of land speculation
at Muscle Shoals and in the Yazoo country, officials of the rival
governments, Indian and Indian agents, and ringleaders of the Blount
conspiracy-all met in the little town that lay between the river and the
worthless Spanish fort on a hill nearby. Though the population of the
town and the surrounding district was not large, the behavior of the
people was of vital importance; and they were so heterogeneous a mass-
Spaniards, Frenchman, Britons and Americans from many states-that
public opinion was unpredictable from one week to the next."
If, as Daniel Clark wrote somewhat later, these people were always "restless and turbulent," The events of 1797 gave them plenty of action that they found so congenial.[31] Behind every excuse, pretense, deception, pretext, or justification for neglecting their obligation was the Spanish conception of the Treaty of San Lorenzo as " ... a diplomatic expedient to serve a temporary purpose.... That it was soon to be rescinded they were assured. The treaty was to them no doubt a very pretty and gracious document, but it did not really mean anything."[32]
The Spanish procrastination that began in February of 1797 excited more than a year of American rage. If Ellicott had been "disposed to ride in the whirl wind" rather than possessing "an inclination to direct the storm," the transition from Spanish to American rule would surely have been an antecedent of the Alamo. [33] Baron de Carondelet's policy produced a controversy that "soon developed hurricane force, and during the twelve-month period of its continuance, it threatened to sweep the two countries into war.... The full force of the storm, however, was felt at Natchez, the largest of the towns in the disputed region, to which the Louisiana authorities had admitted a representative of the United States government (Ellicott) before they received the countermanding order from Godoy, Prime Minister in the Court of Charles IV."[34]
Apparently. Major Ellicott's 'diplomatic' responsibilities consumed most of his time in the spring and summer of 1797. According to his journal of "astronomical and thermometrical [sic] observations," the astronomer accomplished little scientific work during six months of 1797. His journal entry for March 23, 1797, states: "From this time I was too much occupied by the different commotions in the country, to attend to a regular series of observations till October; there are therefore but few entered till that time."[35]
On June 1, Ellicott was handed a copy of a proclamation of May 24, in which Carondelet announced a British invasion of upper Louisiana, a suspension of the survey, and the evacuation of the forts north of the thirty-first parallel. Ellicott succinctly describes the mood of the population in Natchez:
"After the appearance of the Baron's proclamation, the
public mind might be compared to inflammable gaz (sic};
it wanted but a spark to produce an explosion! A country
in this situation, presents to the reflecting and inquisitive
mind, one of the more interesting and awful spectacles,
which concerns the human race."
Two days later, Carondelet sent a long letter to Thomas Power- "an Irishman, speaking French, Spanish and English, naturalized in Spain, who professed to be a wandering naturalist"[37]-out1ining a secret mission that proved to be Spain's last attempt to destroy the federal union of the United States. Power was to offer Major General James Wilkinson, Commander of the Army of the United States, the command of an army to defend a new country to be formed by the western frontier of the Atlantic States. Carondelet's letter shows that he truly wanted Thomas Power to test the spirit of the General:
"I doubt that a person of his character would prefer, through vanity, the advantage of commanding the army of the Atlantic states, to that of being the founder, the liberator, in fine, the Washington of the Western states; his pnn is brilliant as it is easy; all eyes are drawn towards him; he possesses the confidence of his fellow citizens and of the Kentucky volunteers; at the slightest movement the people will name him the General of the new republic; his reputation will raise an army for him and Spain, as well as France, will furnish him instantly the means of paying. The public is discontented with the new taxes [Whiskey Rebellion]; Spain and France arc enraged at the conexions [sic} of the United States with England; the army is weak and devoted to Wilkinson; the threats of Congress authorize me to succor on the spot, and openly, the Western states; money will not then be wanting to me, for I shall send without delay a ship to Vera Cruz in search of it, as well as ammununition; nothing more will consequently be required, but an instant of firmness and resolution, to make the people of the West perfectly happy."[38]
Power was also authorized to promise the revolutionaries in Kentucky and Tennessee $100,000 for their services in starting an insurrection and another $100,000 for arms along with "twenty pieces of field artillery." [39]
Power's mission accomplished nothing.[40] By opening the Mississippi River and establishing a new southern boundary, the Treaty of San Lorenzo had appeased the western people. In his farewell address of September 17, 1796, Washington predicted the end of western intrigue:
"The inhabitants of our western country have seen in the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the general government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi."[41]
Back in Natchez, the spark that ignited the "inflammable gaz" was a sermon by a Baptist preacher named Barton Hannon who had moved to Natchez from Fort St. Stephens on the Tombigbee River in present day Alabama.[42] Ellicott, with Governor Gayoso's permission, allowed Hannon to preach a sermon in the American camp on Sunday, June 4. This violated the Spanish policy that forbade any public worship other than according to the rites of Roman Catholicism. The novelty of the Protestant sermon drew a large crowd and Mr. Hannon "was extremely puffed up with the attention he received on that occasion.''[43]
By Thursday Reverend Hannon had a petition against the Spanish government signed by fifty-six men and was cursing the "government. his Excellency and all the whole fraternity, and said if he was sent to the fort it should be consumed into ashes before morning.''[44] On Friday, June 9, Hannon was "elated with the attention he had received on account of his sermon, and imboldenced [sic] by having the permission to speak publicly, he had with enthusiastic zeal, which was a little heightened by liquor, entered into a religious controversy in a disorderly part of the town, generally inhabited at that time by Irish Roman Catholics, who took offense at the manner in which he treated the tenets of their church, and in revenge gave him a beating."[45]
Hannon sought revenge by organizing a group of armed men to go hunting for the Catholics who had whipped him. Governor Gayoso considered this a breach of the peace in the community and had Hannon arrested.[46] In subsequent testimony the next day, Hannon admitted that he was so drunk on Friday that he didn't remember what had happened.[47] When the Spanish officer arrested Hannon on Friday, the preacher attempted to escape and yelled, "Help me, fellow Americans!" to Ellicott's camp. When the sun came up on Saturday, the Natchez Revolt of 1797 had begun.[48]
With the Spaniards taking refuge in Fort Panmure, the Americans spent Saturday making up miscellaneous plans for taking the rotting stockade. The release of another proclamation from Carondelet on Sunday certainly made matters worse. This proclamation claimed that an American Army was heading for Natchez. Americans in Natchez considered this "a declaration of war against the United States.''49
By Saturday, June 17, the Spanish and American patrols were firing at one another. so the Quaker in Ellicott was in the mood for a compromise. By June 23, a temporary committee for safety had been formed by the Americans and Gayoso had agreed to allow this "neutral" government to administer most of the legal affairs in the Natchez District.[50]
By September, Ellicott had received the news that Senator William Blount from Tennessee had been involved in a plot that combined Indian, British and American forces for an attack on New Orleans, and furthermore, Mr. Blount had been expelled from the United States Senate. This information confirmed so many of Ellicott's suspicions. Now the Major saw all of his opponents as being a part of some "conspiracy [that] might be part of a larger plan to revolutionize Spanish Arnerica."[51] A. J. Pickett sums up Ellicott's tumultuous year in Natchez: "In the Midst of scenes like these, Ellicott was kept in suspense, until 29th March, when the Spanish fort was evacuated, and all the Spanish troops sailed down the river."[52]
Godoy, the Spanish Prime minister, finally came through on the promises that he made to the United States on October 27. 1795, at San Lorenzo. Before the French could remove him from office in 1798, Godoy ordered the new Governor of Louisiana and West Florida, Manuel Gayoso, to evacuate the posts.[53] Ellicott writes:
"On the 29th of March late in the evening, I was informed through a confidential channel, that the evacuation would take place the next morning, before day; in consequence of which, I rose the next morning at four o'clock, walked to the fort, and found the last party, or rear guard just leaving it and as the gate was left open, I went in, and enjoyed from the parapet, the pleasing prospect of the gallies [sic] and boats leaving the shore, and getting under way."[54]
Now after more than twelve months of waiting, Ellicott could begin the important business of his commission: the creation of a new southern boundary of the United States. Ellicott and his American contingent left Natchez April 9, 1798, to begin the survey on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River south of Clarksville. Preliminary observations indicated the first point of the line was on the river almost four miles south of the encampment. Desiring to establish the initial point of the survey on higher ground, Ellicott brought his boats down the river, then up Bayou Tunica. He hauled his baggage to the site of his observatory using small skiffs and pack horses.[55]
By the time the Spanish commissioner and his astronomer arrived, Ellicott had completed the observations of zenith distances establishing the initial control point of the survey. Between May 6 and May 16, 1798, Ellicott logged thirty observations of zenith distances of five different stars. The result of these calculations produced a mean latitude north 30°59'43.74" for Ellicott's observatory. [56] When the astronomer from the Spanish commission, William Dunbar, arrived on Union Hill on May 26, he found Ellicott ready to order the crews to begin cutting a sixty-foot·wide trace east and west of this control point.[57] According to Holmes, Gayoso named the site of the first observatory " 'Union Hill' ... as an indication of the harmony existing between the Spanish and American camps."[58]
The arrival of Governor Gayoso on May 31, 1798, brought pomp and ceremony to this wilderness camp pitched on the east bank of the Mississippi. The next day Gayoso and Ellicott went fourteen hundred feet north of the camp where Gayoso "approved of the work on the line."[59] That evening Governor Minor, the Spanish boundary commissioner, "gave a superb dinner of game and fish, dried fruits and Madeira fit for the gods."[60] Ellicott was not impressed with everything that came with the company of the Governor of His Most Catholic Majesty's province of West Florida. On June 19, 1798, in a letter to his wife, Ellicott mentioned Governor Gayoso's visit to the camp on Union Hill:
"Governor Gayoso paid me a visit few days ago at my camp in the woods-we met and saluted in the Spanish manner by kissing! I had not been shaved for two days-Men's kissing I think a most abominable custom. -It is 9 o'clock at night and my eyes almost put out by the muskeetos [sic].[61]
On June 10, 1798, an official communication from Gayoso had informed Ellicott that the American camp was to be attacked and massacred by the Choctaws. In his journal, Ellicott called the communique a part of the Spanish "system of delay."[62] This assumption of Indian passivity was probably supported by the colossal fraud Ellicott had perpetrated on the Choctaw Nation. While camped in Natchez, Ellicott, with no authorization from the United States government, promised the Choctaws two thousand dollars per year in return for the boundary commission's safe passage through the Choctaw country west of the Mobile River.[63]
In his journal, Ellicott states his negotiations with the Choctaws "would probably be very uninteresting at this time, but little will be said upon it~ it was, however, attended with considerable difficulty, and if circumstantially detailed, would of itself require a volume."[64] Winthrop Sargent, the first Governor of the Mississippi Territory, would certainly have appreciated details of Ellicott's activities as an ad hoc Indian agent when the governor wrote to the angry Choctaw chief, Franchammassatubba, on November 25, 1799:
"Mr. Ellicott has I am told made you many promises, but I believe he was not authorized so to do, nor do I believe our government will be informed thereof, till notice which I have sent forward shall arrive, and which did not come to me for sufficient credit until very lately.[65]
Holmes attributes Choctaw acquiescence to the "get-tough policy of the Spanish Governor-General of Louisiana and West Florida, Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, who warned that regular troops and militia would be used to punish the Indians for any insult to the American or Spanish boundary commission members."66.Regardless, Ellicott's confidence in Indian cooperation collapsed after he crossed the Mobile River.
By July 28, 1798, the Mississippi River had returned to its banks, and the Spanish commission astronomer, William Dunbar, volunteered to carry the line westward into the swamps. 67 Dunbar had settled in West Florida in 1773 and while retaining his British citizenship after the Galvez takeover in 1779, he became a successful planter under the Spanish regime. Gayoso appointed him Surveyor General of the District of Natchez.61 Dunbar vividly describes the working conditions on the survey line while encamped on a bluff above the Mississippi Valley in August 1798.
"In this situation were innumerable swarms of Gnats, and a variety of other stinging and biting insects; ... the surface of the earth teemed with life; objects themselves at every step in this animated hot bed, not of those kinds which invite and delight the view of the inquisitive naturalist; but of the most disgusting forms and noxious kinds, a few of those were the Serpents of the waters frequently entwined in clusters to the number of several hundreds, and a vast variety of toads, frogs, including the bullfrog, and the thundering Crocodile [sic]. all of hideous forms, with a multitude of others too tedious to mention ... many of our modern adventurers have established a very considerable reputation upon human credulity, by the display of imaginary sufferings, and the pretended achievement of arduous exploits, which in the country from whence I write, are submitted to and performed as the ordinary occurrence of everyday."[69]
Dunbar worked on the survey line from May 26 to August 28, 1798. The survey covered only eighteen miles and progress was measured at less than one-quarter mile per day. Dunbar and the Spanish crew pushed the line westward through the impenetrable canes and swamps that bordered the Mississippi River. He described the work done after July 28:
"The moist and swampy soil in the vicinity of the Mississippi being considered as hazardous to the health of our Northern friends, I proposed that the American commissioner [Ellicott] should continue his progress eastward. with the White laborers, 50 in number, reserving for myself the task of pushing the line through the low grounds to the margin of the Mississippi with the assistance of 2 surveyors, 22 black laborers and a white overseer."[70]
The goal of the commissioners was to establish control points at ten-mile intervals along a compass line. Corrections of the line would be made from astronomical observations made at each of these points. The rugged terrain entangled and impeded work to such an extent that they soon abandoned that idea. By August 28, 1798, the line was carried east to Thompson's Creek. Being the limit of cultivated land, Dunbar decided to quit his post as Spanish surveyor to return home to his family. Less than two miles from Thompson's Creek, Ellicott also gave up. He wrote, "At the end of the twenty-first mile in the line, the land became of a more inferior quality, from which we concluded to pursue a less scientific but a more expeditious method."[71] Ellicott broke camp at Thompson's Creek on October 27, 1798. Loading the pack horses, the commissioners slowly moved eighty-five miles east to the Pearl River. This was the method to be used for the remainder of the survey. The final 275 miles of the survey of the thirty-first parallel were corrected at only three observatories: the Mobile, Conecuh, and Chattahoochee Rivers.[72]
Homesickness and mosquitoes were not the sole factors for Dunbar's departure. The disharmony within the American camp could very well have contributed to Dunbar's resignation of his commission. Ellicott was at 'war' with his surveyor, Thomas Freeman, and the commanding officer of the U.S. Army escort, Lt. McCleary.[73] On October 14, 1798, Major General Wilkinson visited the commissioner's camp on Thompson's Creek. Ellicott used his influence with Wilkinson to remove Freeman and McCleary.[74]
A significant incident occurred on the way to the Pearl River. Ellicott came into possession of evidence that could have very well ended the wheeling and dealing of the cunning Major General Wilkinson. On November 14, 1798. Ellicott sent a letter to the American Secretary of State Pickering. This letter contained passages Ellicott had copied from a letter written by Gayoso to another Spanish officer. Gayoso's letter outlined in detail an elaborate conspiracy, financed by the Spanish crown, to detach Kentucky and Tennessee from the United States. Wilkinson was to be sent at the head of an army into New Mexico to initiate a greater plan: build a new empire west of the Mississippi River.[75]
Royal Shreve in The Finished Scoundrel suggests that Secretary Pickering ignored Ellicott's letter because it contained only transcriptions and not Gayoso's original letter. In all probability Ellicott's copy would "fare badly in court. Perhaps that is why Pickering. at this point, instructed him [Ellicott] to drop further investigation."[76]
The friction with Freeman, along with other ghosts of 1798, came back to haunt Ellicott in later years. On September 1, 1811, General Wilkinson was court-martialed on charges of treason. Without Gayoso's original letter, Ellicott's testimony was little more than hearsay evidence.[77] Freeman's testimony concerning Ellicott's alleged intimacy with the washerwoman, Betsy, contributed to Wilkinson's "utter demolition of the character of the eminent astronomer."[78] (link to the story of MR. ELLICOTT'S WASHERWOMAN http://robertoreg.blogspot.com/2011_11_13_archive.html )
Ellicott and both commissions arrived at the canebreak bordering the Pearl River on November 17, 1798. In his journal Ellicott describes the problems he encountered since leaving Thompson' s Creek:
"The swamps were numerous, and many of them so deep, that we had to go considerably out of our way to cross, or go around them, and others we had to causeway: add to those difficulties, a total want of information respecting the face of lhe country, which in our direction, did not appear to have been explored by white people; some of the streams were so deep that we had to cross on rafts."[79]
The lavish feasts that had occurred in June with Gayoso were not to be repeated on the Pearl River. In fact, Ellicott ran out of all provisions except beef on November 27, 1798. On November 30 he was finally re-supplied by a pack train from Thompson's Creek.
The pack train also brought Ellicott's small sector, an instrument used in calculating observations.[80] Nineteen inches in radius, it was little more than a sextant with a smaller arc and a longer radius. It was not designed to provide the accuracy for establishing the precise boundary between the two nations, but it was all the commissioners had.
No one knew when or if the rest of the equipment would arrive.[81] Using this instrument in December, Ellicott made thirty-six observations of zenith distances of seven stars on eight evenings. Ellicott's astronomical journal of 1798 ended with a calculation of 31°0'2.7" as the mean latitude north for the location of his observatory on the east bank of the Pearl River. This meant that the observatory was 272 feet north of the actual line.[82] After correcting to the south, David Gillespie, who replaced Freeman, corrected back to Thompson's Creek by laying off mounds by offsets at one-mile intervals along the thirty-first parallel. Daniel Barnet was sent east to continue the guide line to the Mobile River. Ellicott now went downriver to New Orleans.[83] This was the pattern he would continue in Mobile, Pensacola, St Marks, and Point Peter. Ellicott would get the credit while much of the work was done by his subordinates. Hamilton describes Gillespie's legacy:
"Gillespie was quietly plodding the forests, running a guide line and by offsets establishing the true latitude of 31 degrees. But nothing from Gillespie can now be found at Washington [D.C.] and even Ellicott's original report seems to have shared the fate of so much else in the vandal destruction of the Capital by the enemy [British} in 1814."[84]
Some citizens of the United States may have believed the demarcation line of their country's first expansion was the answer to their prayer. Inhabitants of what was then called West Florida, however, did not agree that the United States of America was the 'redeemer nation.' While Ellicott and his party were wintering in New Orleans, the first trickle of refugees began their journey south of the thirty-first parallel to escape the American experiment in human freedom. Peter Hamilton cites the first refugee to arrive in Mobile as Lawrence McDonald, an Indian trader for Panton, Leslie & Co. McDonald was clear that he did not desire "to live under the government of the United States of America."[85]
November 8, 1798 found the Spanish government in Mobile receiving a list of citizens from the Tensaw District requesting to receive land grants and move into Spanish territory.[86] A.B. Moon quotes Pintado, deputy surveyor of West Florida; as complaining "that most of those who moved down below the line 31 degrees in compliance with the treaty of 1796 were Anglo-Americans, some Scotch and Irish, a few Germans, and about a dozen of Spaniards, most of then unmarried."[87] The liberal land grants and benevolent policies of the Spanish evidently attracted many.
In New Orleans, Ellicott spent the winter enjoying the hospitality of Governor Gayoso, the man whose mail Ellicott rifled in November. From January 19 to February 26, 1799, Ellicott made twenty-three observations of zenith distances of five stars to calculate the city's mean latitude north as 29°57'28.7". Between January 14 and February 17 Ellicott also deduced a longitude of 14' west of Greenwich from observations of the eclipses of Jupiter's moons.[88]
Ellicott also stayed busy there outfitting the commission's ship and getting supplies for his trip up the Mobile River. Not finding a vessel to his liking, he bought a hull made of live oak and cedar and hired several men to deck and outfit the vessel. Receiving permission from the local bishop to work Sundays, Ellicott and the crew could labor seven days a week "from daylight until dark, until she was ready for sea."[89]
Ellicott decided to save money by making himself master of the vessel, crewing it with two British deserters. On March 1, 1799, Ellicott navigated the new United States schooner Sally down the canal that led to Lake Ponchartrain.[90] Possibly named for Ellicott's wife, the ship was "a small, light-built schooner, of not more than 38 or 40 tons burden. "[91] This ship was built for the coastal trade on the Gulf of Mexico.[92] From March of 1799 until she sailed into the harbor of Savannah on May 1, 1800, the Sally served the Southern Boundary Commission with distinction.
Delayed by bad winds, the ship arrived on the compass line on the banks of the Mobile River the evening of March 17, 1799. Gillespie and his assistants had blazed the line from the Pearl River, arriving some days earlier. They had erected the observatory, and on the morning of March 18 the instruments were set up so that a week later observations of stars began.[93] These observations ended on April 19, the results being the compass line was found to be 8,556 feet north of the 31st degree latitude; the bad news for the Spanish was that St. Stephens fell north of the true line. After carefully laying out corrections to the South, the commission set up a two-foot high marker.[94] The marker still stands and to this day it "is the origin of all land surveys in the southern part of Alabama and Mississippi."[95]
Ellicott's observations in the Mobile delta caused the astronomer to conclude the waterway was "at this time of much more importance to the United States than all the other waters between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean," and that the lands drained by this river system were "at this time the most vulnerable part of he Union."[96] Ellicott took down his instruments on April 10 to begin his voyage to Pensacola. On April 20, he sailed into Pensacola where he was provided with "convenient lodgings" by Panton, Leslie & Co. Later Ellicott boasted in his journal he always obtained lodging or camped "free of expense to the public ... from the time I left Pittsburgh n the year 1796, until my return to Philadelphia in the year 1800."[97]
Earlier at the Mobile camp Ellicott had written Benjamin Hawkins requesting Hawkins to attend talks in Pensacola with the apparently hostile Creek Indians. Hawkins arrived in Pensacola April 15 where a series of talks were planned to convince the Indians "that the line we were tracing was not a line of property, but of jurisdiction, a line between white people, and not intended in any vay to affect the Indians in either their property, manners, customs or religion."[98]The commissioners got a formal agreement, but events in Pensacola started a conflict between the Seminoles and the United States that would not end until the outbreak of the War Between the States stopped opposition to the fugitive Seminoles in the Florida Everglades.[99]
Ellicott and Hawkins argued that ten or twelve days of talks n Pensacola would invite drunkenness in the Indians, further delaying the survey. Winning this argument with Governor Vincinte Folch, the talks were moved up the Conecuh River to Miller's farm on April :9. Folch did not attend these talks, leading Mad Dog, principle chief of the Creeks, to observe "well, the Governor has not come, I told you so, a man with two tongues can only speak with one at at a time."[100]
After receiving an agreement from the 212 Indians in attendance to live up to the terms of Article 5 of the Treaty of Coleraine of 1796, the commissioners set up the observatory. The Indians promised to provide an escort for the commission of two chiefs and twenty warriors.[101] Along with observation of the stars Ellicott witnessed a transit of Mercury across the face of the Sun on May 6.[102]
Returning to Pensacola May 26, Ellicott became suspicious of Governor Felch's activities. Deciding to stay a few days, the commission was rewarded when 180 Indians, at the invitation of Governor Folch, arrived from the upper towns of Tallassee and Ocfuskee.[103] Since these Indians were now under United States jurisdiction, Folch handled the potentially embarrassing situation by leaving town. Earlier, Hawkins had been told by "a confidential Indian" that Folch issued the invitation because ''the talks were crooked and the line would be stopped."[104]
After calling Folch back to Pensacola in late June 1799, Hawkins got the governor off the hook by agreeing to give the Indians gifts on behalf of the United States. Satisfying the Indians and costing "'the amount of two or three hundred dollars," Hawkins financed the deal from an unlikely source. Ellicott had been holding twelve hundred dollars owed the Creek Indians since November 7 1797. The money had been promised to the Creeks for the year 1796 and 1797 by the United States under a secret article of the Treaty of New York in 1790. Hawkins had satisfied the Creeks with gifts bought with their own money that was three years overdue.[105]
Since May 22, while all this was going on, Gillespie had been working eastward on the compass line, reaching the Chattahoochee June 22.[106] Ellicott had remained in Pensacola too long and arrived much later at the camp- located in the present Houston County, Alabama-on July 25. The delay of more than one month doomed the survey. On September 22 Hawkins wrote his nephew expressing his disgust with Ellicott:
"It is not yet explained to me why these gentlemen made a halt of three months at the Chattahoochee. You know I seriously pressed them not to remain more than two [months], and that in that case they might proceed on in perfect safety. They would be moving in the season of the Boosketah when all the discontented would be attending on the annual ceremonies at this annual festival.[107]
As if enough delay had not occurred, another circumstance aose, increasing Creek resistance beyond anyone's expectations. While Ellicott was delaying on the Chattahoochee, William Augustus Bowles was acquiring barrels of gunpowder and boxes of bullets from the British port of Kingston, Jamaica. According to Hawkins, the news of Bowles imminent arrival on the Chattahoochee "had put the thieves and mischiefmakers in motion."[108]
On two previous occasions, 1788 and 1792, Bowles bad attempted to establish a British protectorate among the Creeks of the Gulf of Mexico frontier. Bowles's last arrest in New Orleans in 1792 had sent him to Spanish prisons in Havana, Madrid, and the Philippines. After six years of imprisonment, he escaped from a Spanish prison ship off Senegal, beginning his return to his Indian family on the lower Chattahoocbee.[109]
Between July 25, 1799 and August 19, 1799, Ellicott made forty-four observations of seven stars to determine a mean latitude of 31 °1'9.4" for his observatory on the west bank of the Chattahoochee. Ellicott laid off a line 7,110.5 feet south and ended his survey of the thirty-first parallel.[110]
This 7,110.5 foot north-south line formed the base of a triangle that had its apex at the Conecuh River. After 1818, General John Coffee based his public land surveys on the crooked northern "random line" of this triangle which Gillespie had run by compass. This line "was marked by 'blazes' of the trees, every tree on the line being blazed both on the north and the south side; and all other trees within about one hundred feet north and south of the line were blazed on the side nearest the line."[111]
Apparently Coffee found the blazed line easier to follow than the actual "mound line" which formed the southern arm of the triangle.[112] This line "was marked by circular mounds of earth, about a mile apart, each surrounded by a ditch from which the earth had been thrown up to form the mound."[113]
This confusion created a boundary conflict between Alabama and Florida that was not resolved until 1854. By that time the disputed triangle between the two states "was virtually a no-man land, and became the natural resort of criminals and desperadoes fro both states, since, within that strip they could defy the officers of the law."[114] This old conflict comes down to us today in the fractional Alabama townships formed between "Coffee's line" and "Ellicott line."
Stephen Minor, the Spanish commissioner, saw the Chattahoochee camp as "a place to form the most beautiful settlements." In a letter to Gayoso on August 5, 1799, Minor stated:
"Now from one side to the other of the river along almost the entire extent of the road to this camp may be found Indian plantations on which may be seen good fields of corn, rice, peas, beans, potatoes, melons, watermelons, cucumbers, etc., and most of them have chickens, pigs, and cattle in abundance. Some of them have very good herds with various Negro slaves, indicating to me that they live in very reasonable comfort. The river abounds with various delicious fish. All these details convince me that white settlements in these areas would prosper greatly. I am sure that on the eastern bank of the Mississippi there are no better lands on which to raise cattle."[115]
Thieving at the Chattahoochee camp reached intolerable levels in August. Ellicott assembled the Indians on August 15 for a conference. They agreed to return stolen horses and protect the survey from harm. Ellicott, however, was apprehensive:
"I nevertheless had my doubts of their sincerity, from the depredations they were constantly committing upon our horses, which began on the Coenecuh [sic] [river], and had continued ever since; and added to their insolence, from their stealing every article in our camp they could lay their hands on.[116]
On August 21 Ellicott received a warning from Indian trader James Burgess, who lived near the present day Bainbridge, Georgia. Serving as a deputy agent and interpreter for the boundary commissioners, Burgess warned Ellicott the survey crew would be attacked on the way to the St. Marys River and that Hawkins should be summoned.[117]
At the end of August the commissioners moved their camp down river to the present-day Chattahoochee, Florida, at the forks of the Apalachicola. This observatory was the site where the Seminole lndians began their tenacious defiance of the United States. Today, atop the bluff where the observatory was built is a residential subdivision west of Pearl Street, between High and King Streets.[118]
On September 1 the Spanish Commissioner, Minor, dismissed his escort, telling Ellicott his men were also unneeded.[119] This action would indicate Minor was unaware of Indian hostility. About two weeks later, he would have to eat the words he had spoken to Ellicott.
On September 9 Burgess appeared in camp asking if Hawkins had arrived. When told no, Burgess insisted the commissioners "have not written as pointedly as was necessary, or he [Hawkins] would have been here before this." Burgess went on to say "you will positively be plundered on your way to St. Mary's; you nay think me a fool, but mark the end."[120]
Hawkins arrived on September 14, and on September 17 the camp received a message from Indian Willie, who lived a few miles north of the commissioner's camp. His note warned that twenty Indians had spent the night near his place and they were up to no good.[121]
Threatening to overrun the commissioner's camp, the Indians stole fourteen horses and plundered the schooner. After receiving information more Indians were in route to join the war party, Ellicott and Minor decided to retreat. Minor was to continue eastward and if he was not pursued by Indians, continue overland to St. Marys.[122]
When describing this conflict to the Secretary of State, Ellicott predicted the demise of the Creeks and Seminoles in a letter dated October 9, 1799:
"Many of the most sensible and best informed of the chiefs look upon the loss of their country as inevitable and it will be brought about by the bad conduct of their young men, who equally abhor restraint and despise advise. Such people are only brought to reflection by being beaten; and as we have men enough under pay at present, it might probably be done now, and at less expense than at any future period."[123]
Hawkins immediately used the incident with the Seminoles at the river junction to consolidate his power in the Creek national council at Tuckabatchee in November 1799. Cotterill writes that Hawkins's insistence on punishing the perpetrators alienated a Creek council that "was much opposed to an action so unprecedented in Creek history, and so, in violation of Creek custom .... The humiliation (of the perpetrators), however pleasant to Hawkins, only increased the recalcitrance of the Tame King and added to the number of his adherents."[124]
Almost fifteen years later, the Tame King would be a leader of the Creek revolutionaries who were defeated by Andrew Jackson': army. On August 9, 1814, a bitter Benjamin Hawkins witnessed the Treaty of Fort Jackson ceding twenty million acres of Creek land to the United States, and end a war that "had demonstrated his long efforts to civilize the Creeks had failed."[125]
McReynolds uses a letter from Minor to David Gillespie to reveal the Spanish commissioner's opinion of Ellicott's retreat from the survey of this first Southern boundary of the United States:
"Mr. Ellicott, listening to the whispers of his familias spirit, and keeping in view the principles of his Sect, and the irreparable loss that society would suffer by his death prudently embarked with his family, including Parks the parrot, Bit the Squirrel, &c. in Bernard's schooner, and gently glided down the stream into the bosom of safety.[116]
On the way to St. Marks, Ellicott received a letter from Bowles, who was shipwrecked on the eastern end of St. George Island. While visiting Bowles, a storm forced Ellicott to remain eight days. His conversation during that period with the Director General of the Creek Nation convinced Ellicott that Bowles "ought to be counteracted by every citizen of the United States." Ellicott went on to say, however, that Bowles "behaved on all occasions whilst with me in a polite and friendly manner, and generously furnished me with the necessary charts and directions for sailing around cape Florida."[127]
Ellicott returned Bowles's favor by supplying the shipwrecked adventurer and his crew with flour and rice. Ellicott also asked Bowles and his men not to attack the commission's supply ship, en route and expected to arrive from New Orleans, and that Bowles further direct the ship to sail for St. Marys; Bowles agreed to this request.[128] Bowles could certainly have been sympathetic with a man waiting 'for his ship to come in,' as Bowles had spent his share of time waiting on shore.
On October 7, after two weeks of delay from violent storms, Ellicott finally made landing at the Spanish fort at St. Marks. While preparing for the voyage around Florida, Ellicott enjoyed the company of the Spanish commander, Capt. Thomas Portell and his wife, "... an agreeable Spanish lady."[129] His conversations with the Portells confirmed Ellicott's suspicions regarding General Wilkinson. Ellicott told the General of his conversations with the Portells in a letter dated January 21, 1808:
"About the 16th October, 1799, capt. [sic] Portell who then commanded at Apalachy [sic], informed me that at New Madrid, in the year 1796, he put on board a boat under the direction of Mr. T. Power, 9,640 dollars for your use. I questioned frequently whether this money was not on account of some mercantile transaction, he declared it was not."[130]
This was the type of information that President Washington had instructed Ellicott to collect. In the same letter, Ellicott wrote the general that:
"Before I left Philadelphia in the year 1796, as commissioner on behalf of the United States to carry into effect our treaty with Spain, president Washington communicated to me in the most confidential manner possible, that suspicions had been signified to him of certain citizens of the U. states, improperly connecting themselves with the Spanish government, among whom you were particularly noticed. He thought it a business of so much importance, both to the honour and safety of the country, as to merit a thorough, though private, investigation, and directed meto pay a stnct attention to that subject."[131]
By October 18, Ellicott packed his crew, three years of paperwork, his apparatus and baggage into the small schooner Sally. Bad weather kept the ship in Apalachee Bay until October 20. The opening of a barrel of spoiled beef the first day at sea caused many of the passengers to demand returning to St. Marks. This rebellion earned the malcontents a reprimand which "prevented any complaint: during the voyage, though we were frequently in disagreeable situations."[132]
The voyage around the peninsula of Florida was a memorable fifty days, especially for fifteen of the passengers who had never been to sea: the ship with provisions passed them (the new crew of which had been provided by Bowles), privateers chased them, crashing waves wrecked the rigging and threatened to founder the ship, and they were witness to a burial at sea. On December 9, these 'lubbers' were delighted to reunite in St. Marys with their friends from the Gillespie and Minor parties who had traveled overland and were waiting on them.[133]
On February 26, the Spanish and American Commissioners built a mound at the source of the St. Marys River in the Okeefenokee Swamp.[134] This mound is found on all current USGS naps of the area, north of the town of Moniac, Georgia. This was the eastern terminus of the line which began at the junction of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers. The difficulty of determining the source of this river produced a boundary dispute between Georgia and Florida which was not resolved until 1866.[135] The building of the controversial mound was the end of the commission's actual surveying.
The reports and maps were completed and confirmed by the American and Spanish Commissions on Cumberland Island, April 10, 1800. The next day the Sally left St. Marys harbor arriving May 1 in Savannah. The small schooner had served its purpose in establishing the United States' newest southern boundary. Ellicott decided to send the ship to a place where it could continue serving the United States: Fort Stoddard-near present-day Mt. Vernon, Alabama-the newly established southernmost port-of-entry into the United States.[136] Ellicott believed the United States "needed to be formidable in that quarter," and "the Mobile, Tombeckby [sic] and the Alabama Rivers, are at this time of much more importance to the United States than all the other waters between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean." [137]
After chartering a sloop bound for Philadelphia, Ellicott and his party sailed from Savannah May 9. Ellicott was reunited with his family in the City of Brotherly Love on May 18, 1800. [138]
By 1803, Ellicott had prepared and published the journal of the commission's activities from 1796 to 1800.
At the same time, Thomas Jefferson wrote Ellicott concerning a scientific expedition to the West. In late April and early May 1803, Ellicott worked seventeen days and nights instructing Meriwether Lewis in the use and application of the instruments used for determining longitude and latitude. [139]
Catherine Mathews recognized the importance of these lessons in her 1908 biography of Ellicott:
"There is perhaps no other incident of Major Ellicott's life which so appeals to the imagination as this, where the veteran explorer and engineer brings, for the eager young man whose hope of conquering a wilderness is so strong within him, all lore of the land primeval, all the knowledge fought for and gained in the woods of Virginia. Pennsylvania, and western New York and on the rivers and bayous of the Southern states. It was the counsel of a ripe experience that Major Ellicott gave. Danger had been his own daily comrade throughout long years, privation and hardship he had met at the very outset of his career, and he had long ago learned how to make friends with them. How much or how little of Captain Lewis's success may be traced to his [Ellicott's] wise counsel, we cannot know, but one would like to have heard with Captain Lewis the secret of baffling and subduing the adversities of nature, and the way to travel unharmed through a wilderness that sought to devour you." [140]
Ellicott's delineation of the United States southern boundary also permanently alienated the Seminoles from their ancient connection with the Creek Nation and produced "the result of so increasing their {Seminole] already considerable spirit of independence that they became practically a separate tribe." This separation of the Creeks and the Seminoles comes down to us to this day.[141]
Today, Ellicott's influence lives with all who call the Gulf Coast their home. His descriptions vividly depict the sea and wilderness of that time. Furthermore, his descriptions remind us that our first communities were Natchez, New Orleans, Mobile, Pensacola, St. Marks, St. Augustine, Frederica and St. Marys. The incredible accuracy of the observations and calculations has its contemporary legacy: the shapes and boundaries of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. The Boundary Commission's observations should never be dismissed as having "slight interest save for historical and scientific specialists."[142] Ellicott's thrilling story is integral in the founding of the Mississippi Territory in 1798. As we approach the bicentennial of that episode in American history, we should reflect on our Gulf Coast version of the "Founding Fathers" and the beginning of the end for the Spanish empire on the Gulf of Mexico.
-lotes dobile Press Register, February 23, 1987. Also sec: Virginia Von Ocr Veer Hamilton, Seeing 'istoric Alabama (University, AL. 1982). 220; Peter A. Brannon, Engineers of Yesteryear \'1ontgomcry. AL. 1928), 13·14. Fbomos A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People (New York, 1958), 81. ames M. Faircloth, The Faircloth Notes on wnd Surveying in Alabama (Tusc:aloosn, 1992), •samuel F. Bemis, Pinr:lcn~y·s Treary (New Haven, 1960), 281. 5 Jack D. L. Holmes, "The Soulhem Boundary Commission, The Chauahoochee River, and 1bc Florid11 Seminoles, 1799," Florida Historical Quarterly 44 (April 1966): 312. 'Ibid. 1 Andrew Ellicou, The Journal of Andrew Ellicott (Philadelphia, 1803), 82-83, appendi~. 1 Fairclolh, Notes, 66. '1bid., 109. Also see: Fnuddin K. Van Zandy. undari~s of the United States and The Se•·erp Statts (Washington, D. C.. 1976), 102. 40Jack C. Gallalee. "Andrew Ellicou and lhe Ellicou Stone," Th~ Alabama Review 18 (Apri 1965): 104. 11Fairclolh, Notes, 116-20. 1 :R. S. Collcrill, Tht Southern Indians: Tht Story of the CivUiud Tribes Before Remova (Norman, OK. 1954), 125. 111bid.. 124. " James Doster, Tht Creek Indians and Their Florido Llnds (New York, 1974), 200-201. " Ibid., 211-19. ''Ibid., 211. Also sec: William AuguSlus Bowles to John Adams, October 31, 1799, Addition' Manuscripts 37,878, British Museum, London; Bowles to IU.S. Secretary of State?). October 31 1799, Ayer Manuscript, Newberry Libruy, Chicago. 17Dostcr, The Creek Indians, 211. 111. Lcik:h Wright. Jr., William Augustus Bowle:~-Director General of the Creek Nation (Alben! GA, 1967), 111!. Also see: Proclamation by Bowles, October 26, 1799, Pllpeles de Cuba, LcgaJ 2371, AJchivo General de lndias, Seville. 19James Pate, The Fort Tombigbe~ Historical R~search and Documentation Project (Livingstot AL, 1980}, 226. Also see: Dispntches or the Spanish Govcn~ors, Vol. 6, 197, Howaud-Tilto Memorial Libmy, Tulane University. »Arthur Whitalc.er, The Mississippi Question, 1795-1803 (New York, 1934), 173. :'Ellicott, Joumal, 31-40. ::Jack D. L Holmes, Gayoso (Gloucester, MA, 1968}, 180. »John Leslie to Robert Leslie, May 9, 1796, letter lnlnscribcd in the Flori® Historical Quarter 12 (April 1934): 198·99. ing 1997 Gulf Coast Historical Review 39 licott, Journal, 35-37. id., 57. id., 31-176. llllklin Riley, "Spanish Policy in Mississippi After the Treaty of San Lorenzo," Publications the Mi.s.sissippi Historical Society (Oxford, MS. 1898), 1: 53·54. 1unbar Rowland, Encyclopedia of Mi.s.sis.sippi History (Madison, WI, 1907), 40 . . ichard Shenkman and Kurt Reiger, One Nighl Stands With American Hi.story (New York, 82), 43. Also see: Peleg D. Harrison, The Stars and Stripu and Other American Flags oston, 1906), 65; Rowland, Encyclopedia of Mississippi, 40. :llicoct, Journal, 43. Nhitaker, Mississippi Question, 58. Henry E. Chambers, A History of Louisiana (Chicago, 1925), 379. Franklin L. Riley, ''Trunsition from Spanish to American Rule in Mississippi," Publications of 1e Mississippi Historical Society (Jackson, MS. 1900), 2: 276. Whitaker, Mississippi Question, 51-58. 1 EIIicott, Journal, 17 11ppcndix. slbid., 96. 7 Justin Winsor, The Westward Movement: The Colonies and the Republic West of the \/leghenits, 1763-1798 (Boscon, 1897), 553. "Daniel Clark, Proofs of Corr!lption of General James Wilkinson (New Orleans, 1809), 83. 19lbid. ~ipley Jacobs, Tarnished Warrior: Major General James Wilkinson (New York, 1938), 164. • 1 Winsor, Western Movement, 563. •lJack D. L. Holmes, "Alabama's Forgotten Sectler: Notes on !he Spanish Mobile District, 1780· 1813," Alabama Historical Quarterly 33 (Summer 1971): 96-97. 1• 1 Ellicott, Journal, 97. "Holmes, Gayoso, 190. "Ellicott, Journal, 100. 46Holmcs, Gayoso, 191. 40 Gulf Coast Historical Review Spring ~ 49Ellicott, Journal, JOI. "''bid •• 111 ·17. 51 1sooc J. Coli, We.rt Florida Controversy (BaltimOTe, 1918), 52. ':A. J. Pickett, Hi.rtory of Alabama cwJ lnciJentally of Georgia and Missis.rippi (Binningba 1900), 2: 453. "cox, West Florida Comrow:rsy. 54. '"Ellicou. Journal, 116. "Ibid., 179. '"Ibid., llppc:ndill, 51. "Emn Rowl11nd, The Uft, utter.J and Papers of William Dunbar (Jackson. MS, 1930), 80. "Holmes, Gayctso, 274. ' 0 EIIicoll, Jaurnal, 180. 1'41J. F. H. Cluibomc, Mississippi as a Province. Territory cwJ Stale (Jackson. MS. 1880), 1: 19i 61Catherine V. C. Mathews, Andrew Ellicott, His Ufe arid Letters (New York, 1908), 159. t.:Holmes, Gayoso, 235. 6.1Fiorcttc Henri, Benjamin Hawkins, 341. "Ellicott. Journal, 98·99. "Sorgent to Fmnchammass1Uubba, Mississippi Territory, November 25, 1799, Mi.Jsis.rippi Territorial Art'hives, I : 195. " Holmes, ''The Southern Boundary Commissioo," 313. 67Rowland, Ufe of Dunbar, 80. "Franldin Riley, "Sir Willillll Dunb11r-The Pioneer Scientist of Mississippi," Publications of the Minis.rippi Historical Society (Oxford, MS. 1899), 2: 91. ~owland, Ufe of Dunbar, 82·84. ~icl.,80. Spring 1997 Gulf Coast Historical Review 71 EIIicou. Journal. appendix, 61. r.lbid., appendix. 68-99. "Claiborne, Mississippi, 176-77. 74James R. Jacobs. Tamishtd Warrior (New York, 1938), 180. 75Malhews, Ellicotl, 161·62. 76Royal 0 . Shreve, The Finishtd Scoundrtl (Indianapolis. IN, 1933 ), 267. "Ibid. nlbid., 265. "Ellicott, Journal. 183-84. 10Jbid., J85. 11J. A. Bennett, The Divided Circle (Oxford, 1987), 118-19. "i:llicotl, Journal, appendix. 69 . .,Ibid., 186. 41 ~amilton, "RunniniJ Mississippi's Soulh Line," Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society (Oxford, MS. 1899). 2: 161. .,Peter J. Hamilton, Colonial Mobile (Boston, 1897), 354. 16Holmes, "Alabama's Forgotten Settler," 96. Also see: List of people of Tcnsaw desiring to move into Spanish Territory, November 8, 1798, Papeles de Cuba, Legajo 206, Archivo General de lndias, Seville; Translated Spanish Records, 1: 229·30. Mobile Probate Court Records, Mobile, AL. 17A. B. Moore, History of Alabama (Tuscaloosa 1934), 191. ""Ellicott. Journal, appendix, 31-37. 19Malhews, Ellicott, 191. 901bid., 166. 91 EIIicott, Journal, 243. 92lbid., 299. 91lbid., 198. 94lbid., appendix, 83. 42 " Golhdcc, Etlicoll Stone, 103. ~llicott, Journal, 282. " Ibid., 270. " Ibid., 206. Gulf Coast Historical Review 90Grunl Fonnon, The Five Civiliud Tribes (Nonnan, OK. 1989), 275. ~11icou , Journal, 205, Spring 1997 r"c. L Grunt, ed. uller, Journals and Writings of Benjamin Hawkins, Volume I. /796-/80/, ;(Savannah 1980). 252. "i:llicott, Journal, appendix. 37·38. •noranl, utle~. 252. 190EIIicoll, Journal, 207. IOlGrunl, Letters, 250-S~. 106lbid.. 258. ICI'tlbitJ., 261 11111bitl. I<"Wrighl. Bowles, 94. 11 ~11icott, Journal. appcndi,x, 99. 111John Fuhon, Memoirs of F. A. P. Barnard (New York, 1896), 103. ' 12Faircloth, Notes. 116. 11 ~uhon. Memoirs, 103. lltlbitl.. 102. '"'Holmes, ''The Southern Boundary Commission," 320. Minor lo G11yoso. Au~:usl 5, 1799, P11pelcs de Cuba, Lcgajo 2355, Archivo General de lndias, Seville. 11'EIIicott, Journal, 214. 1111bid. 111M ark Boyd, "Jim Woodruff Reservoir Area Hislory," Bulletin of Bureau of American Ethnology. no. 169 (1956): 273. Spring 1997 119 EIIicoll, Journal, 217-18. I:!DJbid., 219, r.1 lbid. Gulf Coast Historical Review 123House Document no. 96, 1829, 20th Cong, 2d sess., Washington, D.C. 1 :!ACotterill, Southtrn Indians, 129. IUJbjd,, 188-89. ~dwin McReynolds, Tht Seminoles (Norman, OK, 1957), 37. mEIIicott, Journal, 233. 131bid., 242. 129lbid .. 239. ~aniel Clark, Proofs of Corruption, 71-72. Ullbid .• 70. 132EIIh:ott, Journal, 243. l))lbid., 244-69. 114Jbid., 279. mFanis W. Cadle, Georgia umd Surveying History and Ulw (Athens. GA. 1991). 221. ~Jiicott, Journal, 298-99. mlbid., 281. mlbid., 300. u9 David Lavender, The Way To The Western Sea (New York, 1988). 42. 140Mathews, Ellicort, 213-14. 141Couerill, The SoUJhem Indians, 232. 43 ••2 B. A. Hinsdale. "The Establishment of the First Southern Boundary of the United States," American Historical A.uociation Annual Report (1893), 365.
Robert Register is a science teacher from Northport, Alabama. He has begun field work devoted to locating all of the astronomical observatories, survey mounds, and witness trees along the first Southem Boundary of the United States. Mr. Register hopes that his research will lead to the proper marking of this old border.
WELCOME TO THE COTTON KINGDOM
dedicated to Salman Rushdie
please send all comments to robertoreg2003@yahoo.com
PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DOES ANYONE HAVE PERMISSION TO COPY OR USE THIS MATERIAL IN ANY WAY.
Welcome to the Cotton Kingdom is the story of how an Alabama biology teacher, Walker Ready, sees his town of Tustennuggee imperiled by criminal enterprise and how he brings the community together in order to convince the thugs that it is time to shape up or ship out. Cotton Kingdom reveals the squalid world which breeds a criminal populace whose only god is power, the raw power of destruction. Cotton Kingdom also shows decent Southern people stopping the decline of their civilization by ridding themselves of the demented, the wicked, and the parasitic.
It is the story of deliverance: Deliverance From Evil.
Scene 1: Walker Ready is lecturing his class on the physiology of muscle contraction.
WR: So not only is cell energy, ATP, needed for the power stroke, the myosin heads of the thick filaments also require cell energy in order to be released from the active site on the thin filament.
So what happens to the supply of ATP at death?
Student: It dry up.
WR: So what happens to the myosin heads?
S: They stuck. You a stiff.
WR: That’s correct. A corpse in rigor mortis is so stiff that one could place its head on this desk and its feet on that desk and the corpse would lay there like a board.
Trayneeka: Man, Mr. Ready, you should a seen this woman- Man, she were already ugly, but when she got stiff, she were sho nuff ugly.
WR: So you saw this?
T: Dis lady at Killer—Green. Forty years old and she were going with a teenager- They had a fight Friday night and he leave. Saturday morning, she dead.
WR: So, how did you get on the scene of the crime?
T: Man, the police take a long time to come over to Killer— Green. Folks be shooting at them.
WR: And you always go to the scene of a crime?
T: Sho. Everbody do.
Student: Hey, Trayneeka, that how ya’ll be gettin’ that new stereo.
Another student: Yeah, nigguh come through say, "She don’t need this no more."
WR: Speaking of Killer Green Housing Project. I have a problem that I’d like to discuss with this class. One of my female students complained that her stepfather was pressuring her to have sex with him. I asked if she had talked to her mother about it- She said that she told her mother, but her mother said, “Just let him have a little.”
S: So, what’s the problem?
WR: Well, I suppose technically this is a form of abuse that I should report to the state.
S: AW, don’t worry, Mr. Ready. She already got one baby by that old geek monster, and she probably don’t want nair nother one.
WR: Unbelievable. Her stepfather.
S: Hey Mr. Red, when them girls round here want money, they gots all kinds a daddies. Stepdaddy, Uncle daddy, brother daddy, Geek Monster daddy, sugar daddy
Trayneeka: Everybody at my daddy job know my momma. She pick up the check; she sign the check; she spend the check.
WR: Your father lives with you?
T: He stay with his momma.
WR: Oh, so that's how you got in Killer-Green.
Student: Trayneeka, he be cracking on you!
T: He come over, but my momma don’t pay no attention to him. I don’t listen to him- My sisters don’t listen to him. My brothers don’t listen to him.
S: I ain’t never getting married.
S: Ain’t nobody telling me what to do.
S: If I did get married, I have me a man on the side. Married but with a man on the side.
S: If my man cheat on me, I kill him.
S: Me too.
Lorenzo: Mr. Ready. You gonna teach next year?
WR: Good question, Lorenzo. It’s possible. But I see a little crack in the jailhouse door.
L: You leaving Washington?
WR: Possible but not probable.
L: You better leave or you gonna get your fat cracker butt smoked!
WR: Is that a threat, Lorenzo?
L: No man. I just telling you how it be hanging.
WR: Please, step outside my door, Lorenzo.
[Lorenzo and Ready step into the hall.]
WR: So, what gives?
L: What gives with you? You gonna quit?
WR: If thinqs work out with this new product. What have you heard about me?
L: Yo big mouf ’s ‘bout to get you shot! You joking too much, Mr. Red. I understand. What you say be the truth, but days folks think you be fronting on them.
WR: What have I done now?
L: You ain't gonna believe, Man! You 'bout to get yo white ass kilt! Dey's some folks in the community 'bout ready to come teach you a lesson you ain't never 'bout to forget.
WR: Tell it all, brother, tell it all!
L: I hook you up. Well, see, you know Antwan Wallace?
WR: Yes.
L: Well, you know you was joking with him the other day.
WR: Yes. He came to class saying he was getting rid of his slave name. Said he was named Antwan X. I suggested he call himself Monosomy X.
L: Yes, Turner Syndrome. That fits Antwan. But dat ain't the end of the story. After Antwan left your class, he went to P.E. He was shooting the rock with Doctarie and Corey, and they started janking Antwan by calling him Monosomy X.
WR: So, what's the problem?
L: Well, by the time it got back to the community, Antwan wasn't even in the story. Seems that now we got a white teacher up at Washington High who say Malcolm X a genetic disease.
WR: Oh my God! Just what I need. Shot over dising Malcolm. Wait a minute! Holy shit! Something's burning!
Student: It's Mr. Robinson's door!
L: Showl is.
WR: Where's Mr. Robinson?
S: He went downstairs to report the fire.
WR: And left his class?
L: Dat man 'flicted, Mr. Ready. Illifoamed and 'flicted. They ought to test these teachers every year. Academically and psychologically.
WR: Evacuate the building!
(End of Scene 1)
Scene 2: The night of the same day. Walker Ready is working security in front of the ticket office of the Washington High gymnasium. He is testing his new invention, the Cam-Detector Radio.
WR: (yelling loudly) No guns, no knives, no beepers, no cell phones! No guns, no knives, no beepers, no cell phones!
Man: Man, ya'll ain't opened the gate yet?
WR: And we will never will. No open admission at any time. No pass out. Now and forever more; world without end. Amen.
M: You wrong.
WR: Nair nothin' but a thang; nothin' but a chicken wang hangin' by a strang. Three dollars please.
M: Cold blooded, man.
WR: It beeze that way sometimes. By the way, what's the rule?
M: What you talkin' bout, man?
WR: No beepers.
M: Muthafuck! Now I gots to go to the car.
WR: Nothin but the world, man, nothing but the world. (yelling loudly) No guns, no knives, no beepers, no cell phones! No guns, no knives, no beepers, no cell phones! Hey, Mr. Howard, that sanctified woman is coming back.
Mr. Howard: Sho' is.
WR: Good evening, Sister Martin.
Sister Martin: I's late, but you didn't expect me to come over to this side of town without mize protection.
WR: No ma'am. I'm cautious my own self. Enjoy the coronation.
(hollering from inside the gym) That bitch! That motherfucking alley bitch! I'll put her in the hospital! That dicklicking whore is 'bout to bleed!
WR: What's going on?
Mr. H.: They done crowned ever one of them bitches. Goodness gracious! Ever one gonna be Homecoming Queen!
WR: Great Holy Moly! Adios, Howard. I'm calling it a night. Should I call West Precinct before I leave?
Mr. H.: No, Mr. Red, we can handle it. Have a good evening. Drive careful.
WR: Hey, Howard, since our CD Radio is such a sweet hit, why don't we quit this stinking job and split for the coast?
Mr. H.: Can't book,eh Ready? What's your problem? You gettin' a yellow streak?
WR: Maybe so. I get the feeling it doesn't matter anymore.
Mr. H.: Don't matter! What about the Cotton Kingdom, Ready? What about my son? What about your boy?
WR: You're right, Howard, yeah, you're right. Cotton is king.
Mr. H: Amen, Brother Ready! Cotton is King!!!!,and one day King Cotton will rule this lousy bunch of bastards!
WR: Yeah, you're right, Howard. If we have our way.
Mr. H: We'll have our day and we'll have our way. Don't worry, Ready. The Good Lord has ordained this work and we have both sworn ourselves to this obligation: That we will truly be free one day. Free from the filth!
WR: Keep the faith, baby! See you tomorrow, Mr. Howard.
Mr.H: Drive careful, Mr. Ready.
(End of Scene 2)
Scene 3: Next morning at Washington High. Tardy bell has rung
WR: Sister Purifoy! What’s your business in the hall?
Sister Purifoy: What you mean?
WR: I mean that you are not in your session room, and that you are in the hall without a pass, and that you need to turn your jacket inside out.
[No response from Sister Purifoy]
WR: What's the rule?
Sis: What you mean?
WR: NO Bulls, No Kings, No Raiders,
Sis: Oh.
[Sister Purifoy turns jacket inside out]
WR: So what are you up to?
Sis: I be fittin' to go to the library.
WR: The library, Sister Purifoy, is in this direction.
Sis: I'm on my mission work.
WR: Spreading the Golden Rule I suppose.
Sis: Yeah, do them ‘fore day do you.
WR: Well, Sister Purifoy, let me accompany you to the library. Sister Purifoy, I know just why you love the Lord Jesus Christ so much.
Sis: You do! Oh, praise the Lord!
WR: Yeah, you're so blame lazy that you never want to have to get out in the hot sun and earn an honest dollar.
Sis: HaHaHaHa! You might be right, Mr. Ready.
WR: Sister Purifoy, I'll bet that you know what’s in every book in this library.
Sis: Sho’ do. Words.
[They enter the library.]
WR: Why, it’s Sister Martin from the Conqueror's Church. Good morning, Sister Martin. I've got someone who you just have to meet. This is Patrice Purifoy.
Sister Martin: Why, Mr. Ready, I've known Patrice's grandmama all my life.
WR: Well, Sister Martin, I wonder if Patrice's grandma knows that her little granddaughter is out of class without permission on this Friday morning.
SM: Oh, Lord.
Sis: I ain’t did nothing wrong. The bell be fittin' to rang.
SM: Girl, don’t you sass your teacher.
Sis: You ain't my mama.
WR: And I wonder if Patrice's grandma knows that her little granddaughter is wearing "gangster". [Walker opens Patrice's jacket to show L.A. Kings insignia.] Sister Martin, do you think that Patrice has become fan of professional ice hockey?
SM: Not likely.
WR: I'm not sure if the "I" stands for ignorant or innocent,but "KINGS" means "K"illing "I"gnorant or "I"nnocent, the "N"—word,"G"angster-"S"tyle.
SM: Heaven forbid! Well, Mr. Ready, we're gonna put it in the Lord's hands now. Ain't that right, Patrice?
[the bell rings; Walker returns to class.]
[ End of Scene 3 ]
Scene 4: [ Walker begins first period ]
WR: Does anybody have questions about the test on plants?
Antwan: We gonna have anything on plants?
WR: We spent three weeks studying vascular plants, Antwan, so there's a good chance that you will see questions about them.
Tammeeko: You say camphor be a medicinal plant?
WR: Yes, Tammeeko, camphor "beeze" classified as a medicinal plant.
T: Man, you always trying to mess with folks.
WR: Wait a minute, Tammeeko, no need to yell.
T: Don't mess with me,white man! I'm gonna clown!
WR: Please forgive me, Tammeeko. Let's try to conjugate our verbs correctly. I mean all this "I be", "you be", "hebeshebeitbewebetheybe". Those words are not acceptable in here.
T: We don' t make fun of your old Tustennuggee talk.
WR: Sure, I have an accent, but I try to use the language correctly. I'm talking about the standards of our society. These are conventions we need to practice in the classroom.
T: Well, "camphor be" sound good to me.
WR: Tammeeko, let me remind you. This is a public school, not a public housing project.
Student: Whoa, Catfish! He be crackin' on you!
T: Yomomma.
Student: Yo' greazy grandmammy dipping that snuff; scratchin’ that itch; rockin' on the front porch down in Hale County smellin’ like ammonia...
WR: Stop! No dozens. Now let’s get started. Let me look up camphor in my Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas. Hmmm. The species that I'm familiar with is found in marshes and barrier islands on the Gulf, however, Pluchea camphorata is found right here on our campus.
Student: Let's go out and find some.
WR: It will be very easy to find.
Student: Mr. Red, why don’t you ever take us outside so we can see some of this stuff?
WR: Willie, since coming to Washington High, I have collected and identified over 50 species of plants on this campus, but you'll have to find them on your own because I will never take any of you anywhere.
Student: Why can't we go on a nature walk on campus?
WR: Oh, it truly sounds like a fantastic idea. This hill and
bottom represent a model for a lot of the Wekiwahatchee's watershed, so there's plenty to learn from a walk on our campus, but we’re staying in this classroom.
Student: How come?
WR: Because there are no rocks to throw in this classroom. To venture outside this classroom would be an invitation to disaster.
Tammeeko: Back to camphor. Is that the same camphor that be in Camphophenique?
WR: It’s probably similar.
T: Can you get herpes from eating a girl out?
WR: Tammeeko, you are in a category all by yourself.
T: Onliest reason you mad is cause you white.
WR: White? Is that it? Common human decency is white? I didn't know decency discriminated.
T: Decency might not discriminate, but you sho' do, you racist
Ku Klux redneck!
WR: Why do you say that?
T: What fo' you got a map of Afika wid a skull on it?
WR: It’s an editorial cartoon from the Tustennuggee News. One of my interests is tropical diseases and, at present, Africa is infested with many horrible, yet preventable diseases.
T: Cause the white man’s trying to destroy everything the black man’s built up.
WR: Like what?
T: Like civilization. You stupid cracker! Like Egypt; Nefertiti—the most beautiful woman, an Afikan woman. Like King Tut and all the pharaohs.
WR: You think that your ancestors were the ancient Egyptians?
T: Sho’ do. Dey built the pyramids.
WR: They may have built the pyramids, but they did it under constant adult supervision. Tammeeko, where did you learn so much about Egyptology? A Michael Jackson video?
T: Always trying to tear the black man down. Honky, the blood of the pharaohs flow through my veins.
WR: Do me a favor, Tammeeko.
T: What’s that?
WR: Go to the library and find me some information about a mummy entombed in a royal sarcophagus that has a wide nose, thick lips, and kinky hair.
T: I'm gonna get my momma down here on you.
WR: Just what I need. More mad mothers. Go ahead and find your daddy while you're at it. I'll tell both of them about what they’ve raised.
Student: Mr. Ready, I hate to interrupt this important discussion but I have a question concerning the material which will be on the test tomorrow. How do you distinguish between a male crayfish and a female crayfish?
WR: The males have naturals but the females straighten theirs.
T: Man! You always trying to be funny.
[Class bell rings]
WR: Remember people, six weeks test tomorrow!
[END OF SCENE 4]
Scene 5: Walker walks the halls during his second period preparation.
WR: So, why are there six police cars over at the junior college?
Napoleon: Nothing.
WR: What do you mean,"nothing"?
N: I mean "nothing". Now SWAT team. That‘s something! You see them black uniforms and, man, you know some nigguh is about to get kilt!
WR: So, whats happening?
N: My homie caught a bullet in the head Saturday night.
WR: Up the hill?
N: Yes. He in the hospital. Lost one eye and brain dead.
WR: Is he at Killer-Green?
N: No, man! We got money. He at University.
WR: Who did it?
N: Security guard from Club Panther. 9 millimeter. Man! We was unarmed!
WR: Unarmed?
N: Yeah. we throwed the guns out of the car after we aired out Club Panther. We was parked up the hill. We didn't think nobody was gonna come after us.
WR: Napoleon, I think you’ve been sniffing too much of that Jerry Curl Activator.
N: But really Mr. Ready, how come bugs like Jerry Curl?
WR: Maybe it's a new form of flypaper.
N: It’s the activator, yeah, the activator.
WR: Probably so. Take care, Napoleon. I'll talk at you later.
N: Wait, Mr. Red, I need to ask you something.
WR: Go ahead.
N: Mr. Ready, how many degrees you got?
WR: I have a B.S. and an MA. Last week I was accepted into the doctoral program at Wekiwahatchee State.
N: How many Masonic degrees?
WR: I don't know what you're talking about?
N: You be knowing what I talking about. Sho' do.
WR: Have a good weekend Napoleon. Take care.
N: You too.
[Walker walks down to the library]
Don Early: Hey, Ready, want to talk to you. First period I
threatened Patrice Purifoy with Sister Martin’s prayer group, and she came under my control..
WR: I like Patrice. I know we can turn her around.
DE: Hey, Ready. Got one for you.
WR: Hit me.
DE: What bonus question gets the shortest answer on the six
weeks test?
WR: Go.
DE: What books are you planning to read during the summer vacation?
WR: I know the answer: "How To Kill a Mockingbird."
DE: Right. Hey, check it out. We’re just in time for the
prayer meeting in the computer room.
WR: They don't have a student in there, do they?
DE: No. Dey be exorcising dem 'puters.
Sister Martin: Oh Lord! Good Shepherd, help me, Regina Martin, Lord Jesus Christ conquer this demon, oh Lord, Good Shepherd, help me, Regina Martin- St. Patrick, drive away these devils from me, Regina Martin. St. James, protect my body from accident. Oh Lord, Good Shepherd, help me, Regina Martin. St. John, let all of my bad spells and troubles go from the sunrise and the sun setting. Give me good luck and help me to be successful. Oh Lord, Good Shepherd, help me, Regina Martin. St. Michael, conquer this demon, oh, oh, oh, habba, dobba, doobodooba, yabbadabbadobabba, ooohuuuhhaaaaahhhhh
WR: That’s that demon coming out. I hope she gets rid of that
son of a bitch.
Student: Mr. Red, you won’t do. You ought to be 'shamed of your bad self.
Trudy Tartt: Excuse me. In Tammeeko Rice’s momma. Tammeeko call me just a while ago. I need to speak to you ‘bout Tammeeko.
WR: Nice to meet you. My name is Walker Ready.
[pause]
WR: And yours?
TT: Oh, I'm Trudy Tartt.
WR: Well, Ms. Tartt, there’s no way that Tammeeko is working up to her full potential in my class.
TT: I realize that since Janyary my daughter’s achievement have been reclining.
WR: Ms. Tartt, that’s a little optimistic. Tammeeko has achieved very little, if anything in biology.
TT: I had problems wid bilology when I wents to Washington.
WR: You graduated from Washington?
TT: No, I didn’t walk. I hads to drop out cause I hads Tammeeko. I wish I hads gradgiated. I could a used that diplooma. But I gots by G.O.D. degree.
WR: You got your G.E.D. at Washington State?
TT: Yeah, over to the junior college.
WR: Well, Ms. Tartt, you understand the value of an education.
TT: Sho’ do. That’s why I wants my daughter to get her lessons.
WR: I think that the first thing Tammeeko needs to do is get to school on time.
TT: That’s my fault. The state done took my driver’s license and all I got now is a IUD.
WR: Tammeeko needs to make better arrangements. She also has some other things that she needs to work on.
TT: She told me something 'bout that, but I don't know whether to believe Tammeeko or not.
WR: Ma’am, if you believe your daughter, you are very much mistaken.
TT: All I knows is ya’ll got to keep that chile in school!
WR: If Tammeeko continues keeping bad company, she won't stay here very long.
TT: I don’t care who that girl hangs out with long as she don’t be getting me in trouble.
WR: I understand, Ms. Tartt. I appreciate you coming by and checking up on Tammeeko.
TT: Just do one thing for me, Mr. Ready. Keep that gal in this school. Please! I can’t stand to have that gal a hanging ‘round the house all damn day long!
WR: I’ll call you if she gets out of hand.
TT: I appreciate it, Mr. Ready. I sho’ do.
WR: See you later, Ms. Tartt.
TT: You got to help me keep her in school, Mr. Ready. We can’t afford to lose any of our check. You understand.
WR: I understand. Take care, Ms. Tartt.
[Walker continues on his way down the hall.]
Patrice Purifoy: You off my list!
WR: What'd I do, Sister Purifoy?
PP: Putting them sanctified bunch on me.
WR: Why Sister Purifoy! You can keep the Bible out of the school, but you can’t keep God’s disciples out.
PP: Yeah, we got lots of disciples.
WR: Sure do.
PP: Well, I’m gonna miss ya.
WR: I’m not planning on going anywhere. Are you going somewhere?
PP: Yeah.
WR: Where?
PP: Heaven! Hahahahahahahahaha!
WR: Later, Sister Purifoy.
PP: Hey, Mr. Red, when we gonna digest a frog?
WR: We may dissect one in about a week. That reminds me, isn't Hill Street near Nixon’s Ditch?
PP: Sho. I stay right crossed from it.
WR: Why don’t you catch me a frog or some tadpoles for extra credit.
PP: I been crossed Nixon’s Ditch, but I hadn’t been caught no tadpoles. Nor nair frog neither. 'Sides they’s snakes in that ditch.
WR: Never mind. Have a safe weekend.
PP: I will, Mr. Ready.
WR: And stay off the street corners and out of those deadend clubs!
PP: I sho’ will, Mt. Ready, I sho’ will.
[Walker continues down the hall)
WR: Excuse me. Are you a student here at Washington?
Trespasser: No. I just dropped somebody off.
WR: Well, you need to check into our office and get a visitor's pass before you come on our hall.
T: Our hall? Man, I went to this place ten years before you ever thought of it. What you hassling me for?
WR: Pardon me, but I feel that I greeted you courteously, yet you are yelling at me. Now that’s not being nice, is it?
T: Get out of my face!
WR: Why don’t you come with me and we'll see if we can find out exactly what your business at Washington High is all about.
[At this point, the trespasser begins running down the hall spilling bullets out of his pockets with each stride. As he turns to exit the building, he shoots Walker Ready.]
Student: Murder! Murder! Mr. Ready murdered! Murder! Murder!
WR: Calm down. Stop hollering. I’m hurt but not dead. Yet.
Teacher: Call an ammalance. Who did it?
WR: Trespasser. I taped him on my CD Radio.
T: Ain’t no blood. How come dey no blood?
WR: I’m wearing bulletproof underwear.
T: It ain’t bulky like Kevlar.
WR: It’s woven from spider web.
T: Whoa! That take a whole lots of spiders.
WR: No spiders. Made by genetically engineered bacteria. I’m testing it for the company that invented.
T: How much it cost?
WR: I don’t know.
T: Whatever it cost, I know that it’s worth ever penny of it. I wonder if I could get a set with pupil supply money?
WR: Don’t know. You’ll have to ask the principal.
T: You mean the Community Relations Coordinator?
WR: Yes. The CRC. I’m a little rusty on the new terminology.
[Paramedics arrive to take Walker away]
WR: Tell the CRC that I'll have my videotape of the perp at the hospital. And tell her I'll get her an incident report on Monday.
T: I sho' will.
[end of Scene 5]
Scene 6
Walker Ready: Today we are reviewing the material we studied about human reproduction.
Tammeeko: I know all about sex education.
WR: Well, this isn’t exactly sex education. We are not studying human sexual behavior. We are studying conception, gestation and birth.
T: Why can’t I teach the class sex education?
WR: What do you want to teach the class about sex education, Tammeeko?
T: Firs' thing, you got to put the dick in the hole!
WR: Stop. Please stop, uh, step outside [clears throat].
WR: I have your discipline form filled out in duplicate. Let me sign it and date it.
T: You wrong!
WR: Happy l6th birthday, Tammeeko.
[Hands Tammeeko discipline form. Classroom erupts with cheering.]
Student: You think she’s gone, Mr. Red?
WR: It is my understanding that she's heading for the Pratt Center or out the door.
Student #2: Thank the Lord! She alley.
Student #3:That girl's so alley; she back alley.
Student: Yeah. Tammeeko gonna fill Hell up!
WR: Let’s continue- On which days of the female’s menstrual cycle is fertilization likely to take place?
Student: Not likely during the day. Probably Friday or Saturday night.
WR: [covers mouth with hand] Hahahahahahaha!
Student: You can't write me up cause you laughing too.
WR: O.K., O.K. So, where does fertilization take place?
Student: Oh, most likely back seat! Motel room!
WR: [student laughter] I give up. Turn to page 444 and answer the questions.
[end of scene 6]
Scene 7
Troy: You ain’t my momma and this ain’t my momma's house, and nobody be telling me what to do! ‘Sides, how we gonna use history in the real world?
WR: Natural history? All of the resources, limestone. dolomite, brown ore, red ore, bituminous coal, methane, and bauxite, are the reason Tustennuggee exists.
T: Not that history- I mean social studies history. All them dates and menziz.
WR: Your ignorance,Troy, is so profound that you never need to ask the question, “Why?” You shouldn’t have to learn everything——just learn something! Anything!
Maraisha: I’ll tell you what you can do, Mr. Ready- Show Troy that there’s more to life than government housing, food stamps, welfare children, and the penitentiary. Show Troy that there’s something beyond West Tustennuggee and Washington High.
Troy: Yeah, what’s the big B little B stuff got to do with getting a job?
WR: Where do most people in Tustennuggee work?
T: Hospital.
WR: That’s right, they work in the hospitals. Go down to north Florida and see what kind of reputation Tustennuggee has. This is where people come to get their healing.Tustennuggee helps people get well. We’re studying simple Mendelian genetics. This work introduces you to the most important pursuit of medical research: the control of life.
T: I ain’t gonna work in no hospital. None of them. Not nair one of ‘em.
WR: Work? Troy, is it possible that you would work and cheerfully serve your fellow man?
T: I ain’t slaving for nobody.
WR: What’s wrong, Troy? Afraid you’re going to stroke out by using your brain today,eh? Hope you don't bust a gut. Why don't you pick up a pencil while your at it, or are you afraid that you’ll dislocate your shoulder?
T: I'm doing my work.
WR: Yes. Today you are doing your work. And today you also plan to disrupt my classroom. Well, I won't allow it. Troy, you will never forget the 170 days you have spent in here, and one day you will be pushing a shovel or a mop or a hoe or a hammer or a broom, and you will remember how rough it was in this air conditioned classroom when Mr. Ready wanted you to shut up and go to work.
T: Man, this is a black school, but it’s like a white school. It's got white rules.
WR: White rules! Holy cow! What can I do to change your attitude, Troy?
T: How come you talk so low when you mad?
WR: Troy, I do my best to act as a professional.
Student: Yeah, Troy. Let the man work!
T: He be going too fast. Strain my brain. He be putting pressure on my head. One day I’m gonna snap. Go home. Get something,come back up to this school and break that cracker off.
[Bell rings. Class 1eaves. End of Scene 7]
Scene 8
WR: Hey, why don't ya'll just chill?
Class: Whoa! Yeah! All right!
WR: That's all that I have for you today. I’ll check out colored pencils. Work on the Genetic Geography Sheet.
Cynthia: I don’t want the words “DNA fingerprinting" to ever pass through my lips again. I am sick of O.J. Simpson! Couldn’t see my stories all summer. What's the big deal? I know nigguhs that killed lots more than two folks!
Other Student: Sho' have.
WR: Well, the murderers you know don't have a Heisman Trophy sitting in their 1iving room or earn their living with national television contracts.
Tamisha: Mr. Red, you look tired.
WR: Yeah, I'm beat. Sinuses acting up.
Chris: Sinuses,my fanny.
You hung over. Big old tomato face. Last night you was broke down! I mean broke down loaded!
WR: I'm not admitting to that, but I will
remind you that this job does cause one to enjoy clinking a few ice cubes together.
Tamika: I bet you do. These alley young'uns drive anybody crazy. Ain't got no home training.
Chris: Hey, Mr. Red, lunch bell fixing to ring.
WR: O.K., O.K.
Chris: Hey man. Do your rap MacDaddy. Rap, MacDaddy Red! Hey, Daddy Mac, do yo' rap!
WR: That’s MDK, chump- Mac Daddy Kool
with the Funky Munch Bunch!
T: Man! Do your rap. Bell be fixing to ring.
WR: I’m Mac Daddy Kool with the Funky
Munch Bunch.
And I like school cause I love my lunch!
Cornbread and blackeyed peas
Hot sauce and a pot of greens
Pork chops seasoned to please
Home grown tomatoes
And sweet iced tea
Why must I be like that?
Why must I
chase the snack?
Nothing but the dog in me
Bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yea!
Bow wow yippee yo yippee yea.
Bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yea!
Bow wow yippee yo yippee yea!
On Friday I get my pay,
On Saturday I go out to play.
I leave my crib up on Firetower Hill
And go see my cousins down in Aliceville
They got cornbread and blackeyed peas,
Hot sauce and a pot of greens....
[interrupting]
Student: Man, that’s so weak, you trying to be black? Copying black music? Eating soul food?
WR: Naw, homey. It’s a cracker thing.
You wouldn’t understand.
[end of Scene 8]
dedicated to Salman Rushdie
please send all comments to robertoreg2003@yahoo.com
PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DOES ANYONE HAVE PERMISSION TO COPY OR USE THIS MATERIAL IN ANY WAY.
Welcome to the Cotton Kingdom is the story of how an Alabama biology teacher, Walker Ready, sees his town of Tustennuggee imperiled by criminal enterprise and how he brings the community together in order to convince the thugs that it is time to shape up or ship out. Cotton Kingdom reveals the squalid world which breeds a criminal populace whose only god is power, the raw power of destruction. Cotton Kingdom also shows decent Southern people stopping the decline of their civilization by ridding themselves of the demented, the wicked, and the parasitic.
It is the story of deliverance: Deliverance From Evil.
Scene 1: Walker Ready is lecturing his class on the physiology of muscle contraction.
WR: So not only is cell energy, ATP, needed for the power stroke, the myosin heads of the thick filaments also require cell energy in order to be released from the active site on the thin filament.
So what happens to the supply of ATP at death?
Student: It dry up.
WR: So what happens to the myosin heads?
S: They stuck. You a stiff.
WR: That’s correct. A corpse in rigor mortis is so stiff that one could place its head on this desk and its feet on that desk and the corpse would lay there like a board.
Trayneeka: Man, Mr. Ready, you should a seen this woman- Man, she were already ugly, but when she got stiff, she were sho nuff ugly.
WR: So you saw this?
T: Dis lady at Killer—Green. Forty years old and she were going with a teenager- They had a fight Friday night and he leave. Saturday morning, she dead.
WR: So, how did you get on the scene of the crime?
T: Man, the police take a long time to come over to Killer— Green. Folks be shooting at them.
WR: And you always go to the scene of a crime?
T: Sho. Everbody do.
Student: Hey, Trayneeka, that how ya’ll be gettin’ that new stereo.
Another student: Yeah, nigguh come through say, "She don’t need this no more."
WR: Speaking of Killer Green Housing Project. I have a problem that I’d like to discuss with this class. One of my female students complained that her stepfather was pressuring her to have sex with him. I asked if she had talked to her mother about it- She said that she told her mother, but her mother said, “Just let him have a little.”
S: So, what’s the problem?
WR: Well, I suppose technically this is a form of abuse that I should report to the state.
S: AW, don’t worry, Mr. Ready. She already got one baby by that old geek monster, and she probably don’t want nair nother one.
WR: Unbelievable. Her stepfather.
S: Hey Mr. Red, when them girls round here want money, they gots all kinds a daddies. Stepdaddy, Uncle daddy, brother daddy, Geek Monster daddy, sugar daddy
Trayneeka: Everybody at my daddy job know my momma. She pick up the check; she sign the check; she spend the check.
WR: Your father lives with you?
T: He stay with his momma.
WR: Oh, so that's how you got in Killer-Green.
Student: Trayneeka, he be cracking on you!
T: He come over, but my momma don’t pay no attention to him. I don’t listen to him- My sisters don’t listen to him. My brothers don’t listen to him.
S: I ain’t never getting married.
S: Ain’t nobody telling me what to do.
S: If I did get married, I have me a man on the side. Married but with a man on the side.
S: If my man cheat on me, I kill him.
S: Me too.
Lorenzo: Mr. Ready. You gonna teach next year?
WR: Good question, Lorenzo. It’s possible. But I see a little crack in the jailhouse door.
L: You leaving Washington?
WR: Possible but not probable.
L: You better leave or you gonna get your fat cracker butt smoked!
WR: Is that a threat, Lorenzo?
L: No man. I just telling you how it be hanging.
WR: Please, step outside my door, Lorenzo.
[Lorenzo and Ready step into the hall.]
WR: So, what gives?
L: What gives with you? You gonna quit?
WR: If thinqs work out with this new product. What have you heard about me?
L: Yo big mouf ’s ‘bout to get you shot! You joking too much, Mr. Red. I understand. What you say be the truth, but days folks think you be fronting on them.
WR: What have I done now?
L: You ain't gonna believe, Man! You 'bout to get yo white ass kilt! Dey's some folks in the community 'bout ready to come teach you a lesson you ain't never 'bout to forget.
WR: Tell it all, brother, tell it all!
L: I hook you up. Well, see, you know Antwan Wallace?
WR: Yes.
L: Well, you know you was joking with him the other day.
WR: Yes. He came to class saying he was getting rid of his slave name. Said he was named Antwan X. I suggested he call himself Monosomy X.
L: Yes, Turner Syndrome. That fits Antwan. But dat ain't the end of the story. After Antwan left your class, he went to P.E. He was shooting the rock with Doctarie and Corey, and they started janking Antwan by calling him Monosomy X.
WR: So, what's the problem?
L: Well, by the time it got back to the community, Antwan wasn't even in the story. Seems that now we got a white teacher up at Washington High who say Malcolm X a genetic disease.
WR: Oh my God! Just what I need. Shot over dising Malcolm. Wait a minute! Holy shit! Something's burning!
Student: It's Mr. Robinson's door!
L: Showl is.
WR: Where's Mr. Robinson?
S: He went downstairs to report the fire.
WR: And left his class?
L: Dat man 'flicted, Mr. Ready. Illifoamed and 'flicted. They ought to test these teachers every year. Academically and psychologically.
WR: Evacuate the building!
(End of Scene 1)
Scene 2: The night of the same day. Walker Ready is working security in front of the ticket office of the Washington High gymnasium. He is testing his new invention, the Cam-Detector Radio.
WR: (yelling loudly) No guns, no knives, no beepers, no cell phones! No guns, no knives, no beepers, no cell phones!
Man: Man, ya'll ain't opened the gate yet?
WR: And we will never will. No open admission at any time. No pass out. Now and forever more; world without end. Amen.
M: You wrong.
WR: Nair nothin' but a thang; nothin' but a chicken wang hangin' by a strang. Three dollars please.
M: Cold blooded, man.
WR: It beeze that way sometimes. By the way, what's the rule?
M: What you talkin' bout, man?
WR: No beepers.
M: Muthafuck! Now I gots to go to the car.
WR: Nothin but the world, man, nothing but the world. (yelling loudly) No guns, no knives, no beepers, no cell phones! No guns, no knives, no beepers, no cell phones! Hey, Mr. Howard, that sanctified woman is coming back.
Mr. Howard: Sho' is.
WR: Good evening, Sister Martin.
Sister Martin: I's late, but you didn't expect me to come over to this side of town without mize protection.
WR: No ma'am. I'm cautious my own self. Enjoy the coronation.
(hollering from inside the gym) That bitch! That motherfucking alley bitch! I'll put her in the hospital! That dicklicking whore is 'bout to bleed!
WR: What's going on?
Mr. H.: They done crowned ever one of them bitches. Goodness gracious! Ever one gonna be Homecoming Queen!
WR: Great Holy Moly! Adios, Howard. I'm calling it a night. Should I call West Precinct before I leave?
Mr. H.: No, Mr. Red, we can handle it. Have a good evening. Drive careful.
WR: Hey, Howard, since our CD Radio is such a sweet hit, why don't we quit this stinking job and split for the coast?
Mr. H.: Can't book,eh Ready? What's your problem? You gettin' a yellow streak?
WR: Maybe so. I get the feeling it doesn't matter anymore.
Mr. H.: Don't matter! What about the Cotton Kingdom, Ready? What about my son? What about your boy?
WR: You're right, Howard, yeah, you're right. Cotton is king.
Mr. H: Amen, Brother Ready! Cotton is King!!!!,and one day King Cotton will rule this lousy bunch of bastards!
WR: Yeah, you're right, Howard. If we have our way.
Mr. H: We'll have our day and we'll have our way. Don't worry, Ready. The Good Lord has ordained this work and we have both sworn ourselves to this obligation: That we will truly be free one day. Free from the filth!
WR: Keep the faith, baby! See you tomorrow, Mr. Howard.
Mr.H: Drive careful, Mr. Ready.
(End of Scene 2)
Scene 3: Next morning at Washington High. Tardy bell has rung
WR: Sister Purifoy! What’s your business in the hall?
Sister Purifoy: What you mean?
WR: I mean that you are not in your session room, and that you are in the hall without a pass, and that you need to turn your jacket inside out.
[No response from Sister Purifoy]
WR: What's the rule?
Sis: What you mean?
WR: NO Bulls, No Kings, No Raiders,
Sis: Oh.
[Sister Purifoy turns jacket inside out]
WR: So what are you up to?
Sis: I be fittin' to go to the library.
WR: The library, Sister Purifoy, is in this direction.
Sis: I'm on my mission work.
WR: Spreading the Golden Rule I suppose.
Sis: Yeah, do them ‘fore day do you.
WR: Well, Sister Purifoy, let me accompany you to the library. Sister Purifoy, I know just why you love the Lord Jesus Christ so much.
Sis: You do! Oh, praise the Lord!
WR: Yeah, you're so blame lazy that you never want to have to get out in the hot sun and earn an honest dollar.
Sis: HaHaHaHa! You might be right, Mr. Ready.
WR: Sister Purifoy, I'll bet that you know what’s in every book in this library.
Sis: Sho’ do. Words.
[They enter the library.]
WR: Why, it’s Sister Martin from the Conqueror's Church. Good morning, Sister Martin. I've got someone who you just have to meet. This is Patrice Purifoy.
Sister Martin: Why, Mr. Ready, I've known Patrice's grandmama all my life.
WR: Well, Sister Martin, I wonder if Patrice's grandma knows that her little granddaughter is out of class without permission on this Friday morning.
SM: Oh, Lord.
Sis: I ain’t did nothing wrong. The bell be fittin' to rang.
SM: Girl, don’t you sass your teacher.
Sis: You ain't my mama.
WR: And I wonder if Patrice's grandma knows that her little granddaughter is wearing "gangster". [Walker opens Patrice's jacket to show L.A. Kings insignia.] Sister Martin, do you think that Patrice has become fan of professional ice hockey?
SM: Not likely.
WR: I'm not sure if the "I" stands for ignorant or innocent,but "KINGS" means "K"illing "I"gnorant or "I"nnocent, the "N"—word,"G"angster-"S"tyle.
SM: Heaven forbid! Well, Mr. Ready, we're gonna put it in the Lord's hands now. Ain't that right, Patrice?
[the bell rings; Walker returns to class.]
[ End of Scene 3 ]
Scene 4: [ Walker begins first period ]
WR: Does anybody have questions about the test on plants?
Antwan: We gonna have anything on plants?
WR: We spent three weeks studying vascular plants, Antwan, so there's a good chance that you will see questions about them.
Tammeeko: You say camphor be a medicinal plant?
WR: Yes, Tammeeko, camphor "beeze" classified as a medicinal plant.
T: Man, you always trying to mess with folks.
WR: Wait a minute, Tammeeko, no need to yell.
T: Don't mess with me,white man! I'm gonna clown!
WR: Please forgive me, Tammeeko. Let's try to conjugate our verbs correctly. I mean all this "I be", "you be", "hebeshebeitbewebetheybe". Those words are not acceptable in here.
T: We don' t make fun of your old Tustennuggee talk.
WR: Sure, I have an accent, but I try to use the language correctly. I'm talking about the standards of our society. These are conventions we need to practice in the classroom.
T: Well, "camphor be" sound good to me.
WR: Tammeeko, let me remind you. This is a public school, not a public housing project.
Student: Whoa, Catfish! He be crackin' on you!
T: Yomomma.
Student: Yo' greazy grandmammy dipping that snuff; scratchin’ that itch; rockin' on the front porch down in Hale County smellin’ like ammonia...
WR: Stop! No dozens. Now let’s get started. Let me look up camphor in my Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas. Hmmm. The species that I'm familiar with is found in marshes and barrier islands on the Gulf, however, Pluchea camphorata is found right here on our campus.
Student: Let's go out and find some.
WR: It will be very easy to find.
Student: Mr. Red, why don’t you ever take us outside so we can see some of this stuff?
WR: Willie, since coming to Washington High, I have collected and identified over 50 species of plants on this campus, but you'll have to find them on your own because I will never take any of you anywhere.
Student: Why can't we go on a nature walk on campus?
WR: Oh, it truly sounds like a fantastic idea. This hill and
bottom represent a model for a lot of the Wekiwahatchee's watershed, so there's plenty to learn from a walk on our campus, but we’re staying in this classroom.
Student: How come?
WR: Because there are no rocks to throw in this classroom. To venture outside this classroom would be an invitation to disaster.
Tammeeko: Back to camphor. Is that the same camphor that be in Camphophenique?
WR: It’s probably similar.
T: Can you get herpes from eating a girl out?
WR: Tammeeko, you are in a category all by yourself.
T: Onliest reason you mad is cause you white.
WR: White? Is that it? Common human decency is white? I didn't know decency discriminated.
T: Decency might not discriminate, but you sho' do, you racist
Ku Klux redneck!
WR: Why do you say that?
T: What fo' you got a map of Afika wid a skull on it?
WR: It’s an editorial cartoon from the Tustennuggee News. One of my interests is tropical diseases and, at present, Africa is infested with many horrible, yet preventable diseases.
T: Cause the white man’s trying to destroy everything the black man’s built up.
WR: Like what?
T: Like civilization. You stupid cracker! Like Egypt; Nefertiti—the most beautiful woman, an Afikan woman. Like King Tut and all the pharaohs.
WR: You think that your ancestors were the ancient Egyptians?
T: Sho’ do. Dey built the pyramids.
WR: They may have built the pyramids, but they did it under constant adult supervision. Tammeeko, where did you learn so much about Egyptology? A Michael Jackson video?
T: Always trying to tear the black man down. Honky, the blood of the pharaohs flow through my veins.
WR: Do me a favor, Tammeeko.
T: What’s that?
WR: Go to the library and find me some information about a mummy entombed in a royal sarcophagus that has a wide nose, thick lips, and kinky hair.
T: I'm gonna get my momma down here on you.
WR: Just what I need. More mad mothers. Go ahead and find your daddy while you're at it. I'll tell both of them about what they’ve raised.
Student: Mr. Ready, I hate to interrupt this important discussion but I have a question concerning the material which will be on the test tomorrow. How do you distinguish between a male crayfish and a female crayfish?
WR: The males have naturals but the females straighten theirs.
T: Man! You always trying to be funny.
[Class bell rings]
WR: Remember people, six weeks test tomorrow!
[END OF SCENE 4]
Scene 5: Walker walks the halls during his second period preparation.
WR: So, why are there six police cars over at the junior college?
Napoleon: Nothing.
WR: What do you mean,"nothing"?
N: I mean "nothing". Now SWAT team. That‘s something! You see them black uniforms and, man, you know some nigguh is about to get kilt!
WR: So, whats happening?
N: My homie caught a bullet in the head Saturday night.
WR: Up the hill?
N: Yes. He in the hospital. Lost one eye and brain dead.
WR: Is he at Killer-Green?
N: No, man! We got money. He at University.
WR: Who did it?
N: Security guard from Club Panther. 9 millimeter. Man! We was unarmed!
WR: Unarmed?
N: Yeah. we throwed the guns out of the car after we aired out Club Panther. We was parked up the hill. We didn't think nobody was gonna come after us.
WR: Napoleon, I think you’ve been sniffing too much of that Jerry Curl Activator.
N: But really Mr. Ready, how come bugs like Jerry Curl?
WR: Maybe it's a new form of flypaper.
N: It’s the activator, yeah, the activator.
WR: Probably so. Take care, Napoleon. I'll talk at you later.
N: Wait, Mr. Red, I need to ask you something.
WR: Go ahead.
N: Mr. Ready, how many degrees you got?
WR: I have a B.S. and an MA. Last week I was accepted into the doctoral program at Wekiwahatchee State.
N: How many Masonic degrees?
WR: I don't know what you're talking about?
N: You be knowing what I talking about. Sho' do.
WR: Have a good weekend Napoleon. Take care.
N: You too.
[Walker walks down to the library]
Don Early: Hey, Ready, want to talk to you. First period I
threatened Patrice Purifoy with Sister Martin’s prayer group, and she came under my control..
WR: I like Patrice. I know we can turn her around.
DE: Hey, Ready. Got one for you.
WR: Hit me.
DE: What bonus question gets the shortest answer on the six
weeks test?
WR: Go.
DE: What books are you planning to read during the summer vacation?
WR: I know the answer: "How To Kill a Mockingbird."
DE: Right. Hey, check it out. We’re just in time for the
prayer meeting in the computer room.
WR: They don't have a student in there, do they?
DE: No. Dey be exorcising dem 'puters.
Sister Martin: Oh Lord! Good Shepherd, help me, Regina Martin, Lord Jesus Christ conquer this demon, oh Lord, Good Shepherd, help me, Regina Martin- St. Patrick, drive away these devils from me, Regina Martin. St. James, protect my body from accident. Oh Lord, Good Shepherd, help me, Regina Martin. St. John, let all of my bad spells and troubles go from the sunrise and the sun setting. Give me good luck and help me to be successful. Oh Lord, Good Shepherd, help me, Regina Martin. St. Michael, conquer this demon, oh, oh, oh, habba, dobba, doobodooba, yabbadabbadobabba, ooohuuuhhaaaaahhhhh
WR: That’s that demon coming out. I hope she gets rid of that
son of a bitch.
Student: Mr. Red, you won’t do. You ought to be 'shamed of your bad self.
Trudy Tartt: Excuse me. In Tammeeko Rice’s momma. Tammeeko call me just a while ago. I need to speak to you ‘bout Tammeeko.
WR: Nice to meet you. My name is Walker Ready.
[pause]
WR: And yours?
TT: Oh, I'm Trudy Tartt.
WR: Well, Ms. Tartt, there’s no way that Tammeeko is working up to her full potential in my class.
TT: I realize that since Janyary my daughter’s achievement have been reclining.
WR: Ms. Tartt, that’s a little optimistic. Tammeeko has achieved very little, if anything in biology.
TT: I had problems wid bilology when I wents to Washington.
WR: You graduated from Washington?
TT: No, I didn’t walk. I hads to drop out cause I hads Tammeeko. I wish I hads gradgiated. I could a used that diplooma. But I gots by G.O.D. degree.
WR: You got your G.E.D. at Washington State?
TT: Yeah, over to the junior college.
WR: Well, Ms. Tartt, you understand the value of an education.
TT: Sho’ do. That’s why I wants my daughter to get her lessons.
WR: I think that the first thing Tammeeko needs to do is get to school on time.
TT: That’s my fault. The state done took my driver’s license and all I got now is a IUD.
WR: Tammeeko needs to make better arrangements. She also has some other things that she needs to work on.
TT: She told me something 'bout that, but I don't know whether to believe Tammeeko or not.
WR: Ma’am, if you believe your daughter, you are very much mistaken.
TT: All I knows is ya’ll got to keep that chile in school!
WR: If Tammeeko continues keeping bad company, she won't stay here very long.
TT: I don’t care who that girl hangs out with long as she don’t be getting me in trouble.
WR: I understand, Ms. Tartt. I appreciate you coming by and checking up on Tammeeko.
TT: Just do one thing for me, Mr. Ready. Keep that gal in this school. Please! I can’t stand to have that gal a hanging ‘round the house all damn day long!
WR: I’ll call you if she gets out of hand.
TT: I appreciate it, Mr. Ready. I sho’ do.
WR: See you later, Ms. Tartt.
TT: You got to help me keep her in school, Mr. Ready. We can’t afford to lose any of our check. You understand.
WR: I understand. Take care, Ms. Tartt.
[Walker continues on his way down the hall.]
Patrice Purifoy: You off my list!
WR: What'd I do, Sister Purifoy?
PP: Putting them sanctified bunch on me.
WR: Why Sister Purifoy! You can keep the Bible out of the school, but you can’t keep God’s disciples out.
PP: Yeah, we got lots of disciples.
WR: Sure do.
PP: Well, I’m gonna miss ya.
WR: I’m not planning on going anywhere. Are you going somewhere?
PP: Yeah.
WR: Where?
PP: Heaven! Hahahahahahahahaha!
WR: Later, Sister Purifoy.
PP: Hey, Mr. Red, when we gonna digest a frog?
WR: We may dissect one in about a week. That reminds me, isn't Hill Street near Nixon’s Ditch?
PP: Sho. I stay right crossed from it.
WR: Why don’t you catch me a frog or some tadpoles for extra credit.
PP: I been crossed Nixon’s Ditch, but I hadn’t been caught no tadpoles. Nor nair frog neither. 'Sides they’s snakes in that ditch.
WR: Never mind. Have a safe weekend.
PP: I will, Mr. Ready.
WR: And stay off the street corners and out of those deadend clubs!
PP: I sho’ will, Mt. Ready, I sho’ will.
[Walker continues down the hall)
WR: Excuse me. Are you a student here at Washington?
Trespasser: No. I just dropped somebody off.
WR: Well, you need to check into our office and get a visitor's pass before you come on our hall.
T: Our hall? Man, I went to this place ten years before you ever thought of it. What you hassling me for?
WR: Pardon me, but I feel that I greeted you courteously, yet you are yelling at me. Now that’s not being nice, is it?
T: Get out of my face!
WR: Why don’t you come with me and we'll see if we can find out exactly what your business at Washington High is all about.
[At this point, the trespasser begins running down the hall spilling bullets out of his pockets with each stride. As he turns to exit the building, he shoots Walker Ready.]
Student: Murder! Murder! Mr. Ready murdered! Murder! Murder!
WR: Calm down. Stop hollering. I’m hurt but not dead. Yet.
Teacher: Call an ammalance. Who did it?
WR: Trespasser. I taped him on my CD Radio.
T: Ain’t no blood. How come dey no blood?
WR: I’m wearing bulletproof underwear.
T: It ain’t bulky like Kevlar.
WR: It’s woven from spider web.
T: Whoa! That take a whole lots of spiders.
WR: No spiders. Made by genetically engineered bacteria. I’m testing it for the company that invented.
T: How much it cost?
WR: I don’t know.
T: Whatever it cost, I know that it’s worth ever penny of it. I wonder if I could get a set with pupil supply money?
WR: Don’t know. You’ll have to ask the principal.
T: You mean the Community Relations Coordinator?
WR: Yes. The CRC. I’m a little rusty on the new terminology.
[Paramedics arrive to take Walker away]
WR: Tell the CRC that I'll have my videotape of the perp at the hospital. And tell her I'll get her an incident report on Monday.
T: I sho' will.
[end of Scene 5]
Scene 6
Walker Ready: Today we are reviewing the material we studied about human reproduction.
Tammeeko: I know all about sex education.
WR: Well, this isn’t exactly sex education. We are not studying human sexual behavior. We are studying conception, gestation and birth.
T: Why can’t I teach the class sex education?
WR: What do you want to teach the class about sex education, Tammeeko?
T: Firs' thing, you got to put the dick in the hole!
WR: Stop. Please stop, uh, step outside [clears throat].
WR: I have your discipline form filled out in duplicate. Let me sign it and date it.
T: You wrong!
WR: Happy l6th birthday, Tammeeko.
[Hands Tammeeko discipline form. Classroom erupts with cheering.]
Student: You think she’s gone, Mr. Red?
WR: It is my understanding that she's heading for the Pratt Center or out the door.
Student #2: Thank the Lord! She alley.
Student #3:That girl's so alley; she back alley.
Student: Yeah. Tammeeko gonna fill Hell up!
WR: Let’s continue- On which days of the female’s menstrual cycle is fertilization likely to take place?
Student: Not likely during the day. Probably Friday or Saturday night.
WR: [covers mouth with hand] Hahahahahahaha!
Student: You can't write me up cause you laughing too.
WR: O.K., O.K. So, where does fertilization take place?
Student: Oh, most likely back seat! Motel room!
WR: [student laughter] I give up. Turn to page 444 and answer the questions.
[end of scene 6]
Scene 7
Troy: You ain’t my momma and this ain’t my momma's house, and nobody be telling me what to do! ‘Sides, how we gonna use history in the real world?
WR: Natural history? All of the resources, limestone. dolomite, brown ore, red ore, bituminous coal, methane, and bauxite, are the reason Tustennuggee exists.
T: Not that history- I mean social studies history. All them dates and menziz.
WR: Your ignorance,Troy, is so profound that you never need to ask the question, “Why?” You shouldn’t have to learn everything——just learn something! Anything!
Maraisha: I’ll tell you what you can do, Mr. Ready- Show Troy that there’s more to life than government housing, food stamps, welfare children, and the penitentiary. Show Troy that there’s something beyond West Tustennuggee and Washington High.
Troy: Yeah, what’s the big B little B stuff got to do with getting a job?
WR: Where do most people in Tustennuggee work?
T: Hospital.
WR: That’s right, they work in the hospitals. Go down to north Florida and see what kind of reputation Tustennuggee has. This is where people come to get their healing.Tustennuggee helps people get well. We’re studying simple Mendelian genetics. This work introduces you to the most important pursuit of medical research: the control of life.
T: I ain’t gonna work in no hospital. None of them. Not nair one of ‘em.
WR: Work? Troy, is it possible that you would work and cheerfully serve your fellow man?
T: I ain’t slaving for nobody.
WR: What’s wrong, Troy? Afraid you’re going to stroke out by using your brain today,eh? Hope you don't bust a gut. Why don't you pick up a pencil while your at it, or are you afraid that you’ll dislocate your shoulder?
T: I'm doing my work.
WR: Yes. Today you are doing your work. And today you also plan to disrupt my classroom. Well, I won't allow it. Troy, you will never forget the 170 days you have spent in here, and one day you will be pushing a shovel or a mop or a hoe or a hammer or a broom, and you will remember how rough it was in this air conditioned classroom when Mr. Ready wanted you to shut up and go to work.
T: Man, this is a black school, but it’s like a white school. It's got white rules.
WR: White rules! Holy cow! What can I do to change your attitude, Troy?
T: How come you talk so low when you mad?
WR: Troy, I do my best to act as a professional.
Student: Yeah, Troy. Let the man work!
T: He be going too fast. Strain my brain. He be putting pressure on my head. One day I’m gonna snap. Go home. Get something,come back up to this school and break that cracker off.
[Bell rings. Class 1eaves. End of Scene 7]
Scene 8
WR: Hey, why don't ya'll just chill?
Class: Whoa! Yeah! All right!
WR: That's all that I have for you today. I’ll check out colored pencils. Work on the Genetic Geography Sheet.
Cynthia: I don’t want the words “DNA fingerprinting" to ever pass through my lips again. I am sick of O.J. Simpson! Couldn’t see my stories all summer. What's the big deal? I know nigguhs that killed lots more than two folks!
Other Student: Sho' have.
WR: Well, the murderers you know don't have a Heisman Trophy sitting in their 1iving room or earn their living with national television contracts.
Tamisha: Mr. Red, you look tired.
WR: Yeah, I'm beat. Sinuses acting up.
Chris: Sinuses,my fanny.
You hung over. Big old tomato face. Last night you was broke down! I mean broke down loaded!
WR: I'm not admitting to that, but I will
remind you that this job does cause one to enjoy clinking a few ice cubes together.
Tamika: I bet you do. These alley young'uns drive anybody crazy. Ain't got no home training.
Chris: Hey, Mr. Red, lunch bell fixing to ring.
WR: O.K., O.K.
Chris: Hey man. Do your rap MacDaddy. Rap, MacDaddy Red! Hey, Daddy Mac, do yo' rap!
WR: That’s MDK, chump- Mac Daddy Kool
with the Funky Munch Bunch!
T: Man! Do your rap. Bell be fixing to ring.
WR: I’m Mac Daddy Kool with the Funky
Munch Bunch.
And I like school cause I love my lunch!
Cornbread and blackeyed peas
Hot sauce and a pot of greens
Pork chops seasoned to please
Home grown tomatoes
And sweet iced tea
Why must I be like that?
Why must I
chase the snack?
Nothing but the dog in me
Bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yea!
Bow wow yippee yo yippee yea.
Bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yea!
Bow wow yippee yo yippee yea!
On Friday I get my pay,
On Saturday I go out to play.
I leave my crib up on Firetower Hill
And go see my cousins down in Aliceville
They got cornbread and blackeyed peas,
Hot sauce and a pot of greens....
[interrupting]
Student: Man, that’s so weak, you trying to be black? Copying black music? Eating soul food?
WR: Naw, homey. It’s a cracker thing.
You wouldn’t understand.
[end of Scene 8]
IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU'VE READ SO FAR, CONTACT ME AT robertoreg@gmail.com and let me know what you think. Then I will print more of WELCOME TO THE COTTON KINGDOM.
Snake doctor
CHAPTER l
"The pituitary tumors shown in the lower two panels of Fig. 11 are from older animals of the 803-5 pedigree and represent a complete loss of growth control."
Kelly E. Mayo et al., "GHRH: Synthesis and Signaling"
The late afternoon thunderstorms annoyed Grover, but the drenching rain freed him from the heat of the long sleaved shirt, mosquito net, and pith helmet.
"At least a God—made rain will keep the skeeters down and help my crop," said Grover.
Grover Moss held his head up to the sky and allowed the rain to wash his red face before replacing his helmet and turning on his trolling motor. As he got underway, Grover watched rain splatter and pool on the four ice chests that filled the bottom of the small boat he called The Stumpjumper.
A ray of sunshine flooded the creek bottom with light inspiring Grover to speak to his pitbull, Zero, who sat in the bow of the boat.
"That’s a sign, buddy! It means Old Scratch is beating his wife !"
Zero barked and at that moment a bolt of lightning struck a cypress top a few yards up the bend in the creek.
"Holy shit!" screamed Grover.
Grover’s fear of an imminent death by lightning was suddenly replaced by guilt because of what he had said. He apologized to his dog, "Sorry Zero, them could of been my last words and, Lord knows, I was raised better than that. I hate being that a way."
Grover Moss settled back into his seat and tried to enjoy the rest of his voyage up Bloody Bluff Creek.
Again, he spoke to Zero, "Look at it this way, boy, at least the deer flies and skeeters can’t maneuver in weather like this."
Zero lowered his head and closed his eyes as the rain pelted his brindled back with drops so large they felt like hail.
Grover had lived round Irwin Island on the lower Wekiwahatchee River for almost twenty-five years. To the people around Lucy and Crosby, he was a peaceful man who kept beehives and sold fish, but occasionally rumors flew that Grover was one of the reasons the panhandle of Florida was getting known as the Pothandle. Grover had a poorly kept secret. Grover was a marijuana grower, and the four ice chests in the bottom of The Stumpjumper contained potting soil, fertilizer, and young cannabis plants. These were not ordinary hemp plants. They represented the perfection of recreational drug production from a combination of Afghanistan, Indian, and Hawaiian strains. Packaged over years ol clandestine research by Auburn university’s most preeminent plant geneticists, these plants would grow into the legendary reefer known as "Bascom No Toke." Put your hand in the baggie and you’ll get high. It was known even to make Crimson Tide fans yell "War Damn Eagle!"
The rain was letting up and Grover anticipated the hot and painful hike he and Zero had to make through the mosquito infested puddles that covered Irwin’s Hell Swamp.
"Shumhere boy," Grover called, and Zero clamored over the ice chests to his master. "Yeah, you a good boy, Zero. But you a mean old pupper dawg sometimes. Yeah, you are. Everything’s gonna be alright this morning. This rain’s gonna keep Birddog stuck in the City Cafe drinking coffee till dinnertime. We’ll get these plants in with no problem at all."
"Birddog" was the nickname of L.D. Russell, game warden for much of Wekiwahatchee and Ogeechee counties. Mr. Russell, a part— time revenue agent and narcotics officer, gained his name by his habit of pointing his finger at suspected perpetrators as they passed by him in the towns and on the country roads of the Wekiwahatchee Delta. Tradition had it that the man who had "Birddog’s" finger of fate pointed at him would some day do time in Starke or Raiford or Draper, or even in Atlanta. Grover hoped "Birddog" would keep his hands to himself and never point that legendary finger at him.
The skies cleared as The Stumpjumper rounded the bend leading to the clump of ironwood trees Grover used to hide his boat. Taking a last minute glance to see if a fresh wasp or
hornet nest blocked their way, Grover and Zero lowered themselves to avoid the ironwood limbs as the protective leaves brushed over the boat and camouflaged The Stumpjumper as it made its landing.
Quickly pulling the boat out of the water and over the bank, Grover readied his cargo for the trip into the swamp. Retrieving his wheelbarrow from its hiding place, Grover used bungee cords to strap the four ice chests onto the large barrow. As Grover snaked his burden through the small hammocks and puddles of the swamp, Zero led the way, snapping his jaws at the bugs and keeping an eye out for cottonmouths. Soon they arrived at the cypress dome that surrounded the small island that Grover called "The Farm."
As Grover was unloading, he was interrupted by an unpleasant odor. "I smell k'yarn, Zero," said Grover. But this was no ordinary odor of carrion. This was the unmistakable stench of dead and decaying human flesh. Grover had smelled it before. As a boy, he had helped his father clean out the shack in which Grover’s grandfather, Pap Moss, had died and decayed.
"Zero, that smells just like Pap’s old easy chair did before we burned it in his front yard in 1959."
Then Grover saw the bloody guts. Lodged between two cypress knees were a fly—covered set of heart and lungs. Turning in horror to the opposite direction, he saw the torso of a cave diver underneath the clear water of the limestone spring that supplied this stand of cypress and Ogeechee tupelo. Stuffed under a root in the shallows, the bloated torso’s head was still covered with the diver’s steel helmet. There was a splash and Zero was gone. Without even one yelp of terror, Grover’s loyal companion of eleven years disappeared underneath the clear waters of the limestone spring. As if by instinct, Grover began to run, and, as he ran, he heard a mighty, bloodcurdling sound.
It was the sound of breaking bones.
CHAPTER 2
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Revelations 12:9
Grover didn’t run very far. He wasn’t afraid of gators. He’d been around gators all his life, and he knew that gators mind their own business. He hated losing Zero, but a hungry gator could eat you out of house and home, and a dog like Zero was just an appetizer for a big old "red—eyed" bull gator. Grover needed to get his plants in the dirt and even a monster gator wouldn’t stop him.
As Grover walked back toward his wheelbarrow, he felt guilty and a little ashamed.
"I can see it now. I’m gonna end up just like Pap Moss. Standing on the corner of Main and St. Andrews Street selling boiled peanuts and warning anyone who will listen about Old Tom," he thought.
Pap Moss, Grover’s grandfather, had worked hard and long at building a reputation of being "cuckoo." Disabled by mustard gas during World War I, Pap returned to Southeast Alabama with little to prevent his eventual failure as a farmer and a father. During his last years on the streets of Tustennuggee, Alabama, he had become something akin to the village idiot. Holding court at his peanut stand underneath the Cash’s Drug Store sign, he talked endlessly about his lifelong battle with his saurian nemesis, Old Tom.
Old Tom was the stuff of legends. A giant red—eyed bull gator, Tom was the Loch Ness Monster of South Alabama and Northwest Florida. Generation after generation of Lime Sinks youngsters heard the terrible tales of bellies torn open and legs hanging by the vertebral column. Old Tom wasn’t bashful about visiting your pigpen at night, and his tail was so powerful that he could slap a mule into the water with one flip. Old Tom was a dragon, and Pap Moss was his St. George or St. Michael, take your pick. A shining knight who sold peanuts during business hours before returning to the hunting blind behind his truck patch each evening.
All of Grover's childhood friends made fun of his grandfather. They’d ride their bicycles downtown every Saturday, so they could torment the old man with their taunts of "Hey, Gatorman! See ya later, alligator; after while crocodile!" and laugh as he threatened them with his walking cane. Grover Moss was not going to be threatened by any old gator. An obsession with Old Tom was not going to become a family tradition.
"I ain’t worried ‘bout this gator," Grover thought as he approached the limestone spring where he had lost his dog.
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Old Tom’s hollow roar shook Grover to his bones, and this man of the woods found himself running once more.
CHAPTER 3And I will make Jerusalem heaps and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.Jeremiah 9:11
"So, whatever caused Mr. Reagan’s bull to disappear remains a mystery. However, with an enormous five—toed track that spans twenty inches, this creature will certainly gain worldwide attention. This is Cleatus Holland reporting for Channel 4 News at Noon. More on the monster this evening on the 6 o’clock Report."
Leon Walker turned off the TV and reread the brief letter he had just written to the editor of the Tustennuggee News.
Dear Editor,
According to the Channel 4 News at Noon, many citizens of our county and possibly the rest of Earth are concerned about the existence of some sort of monster.
Let me take this opportunity to inform you that these are not monsters. These animals are perfectly formed crocodilians of the genus species Alligator mississippiensis. These varmints also happen to be very large, and I find that entirely appropriate.
Like it or not, your rivers and ponds are now inhabited with vast numbers of various voracious reptiles which have been genetically altered to produce a complete lose of growth control.
At present, many of the alligators are approaching 28 feet in length with a weight of over 1 ton.
If you don’t like it, I’d advise you to leave this area. There are cars, planes, and trains moving in every direction at all times of the day and night.
The animals that you are about to discover are useful
tools in the hands of ALMIGHTY GOD, and they are now
consecrated to HIS DIVINE PURPOSE.
Yours truly,
The Snake Doctor
As soon as he finished reading the letter, the LORD GOD spoke to Leon, and the words were from the Old Testament of Amos, Chapter 6, Verse 10, "Hold thy tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of the Lord."
Leon immediately walked over to his gas stove and burned the letter. Leon spoke to his pet coati mundi, Yerbita, "Yes, Yerbita, Almighty God will lead me on the Holy Cause. Through me, Leon Walker, the Lord has intervened in the course of earthly affairs to ensure that the most evil force on Earth, the tyranny of His enemies, will be dominated, subjugated, and exterminated."
Yerbita was a little raccoon-like critter Leon had picked up in Ecuador. She was his daily companion, and she was the only being who ever heard anything concerning Leon’s Divine Mission.
It would be easy to dismiss Leon as a misanthrope. If anyone happened to discover the purpose of Leon’s mission, they could misinterpret it as a dislike or distrust of all mankind. But Leon knew that he was beyond such petty emotions as hatred. Leon Walker was on very intimate terms with Almighty God, and Leon was the first foot soldier in a coming army of Old Testament prophets who would become their Creator’s instruments of destruction.
Prophet Leon Walker reflected upon the recent events as reported on Channel 4 News. Leon hated that Bill Reagan lost his prize Santa Gertrudis bull. Bill’s bull had won the 1995 University of Florida Bull Test, and even though its value to Bill Reagan was incalculable, Leon had to be honest and admit to himself that the bull was a public nuisance.
"At least I’ll never have to worry again about Mr. Reagan’s negligence in allowing that pest to break through its fence. A bull that size was a hazard on a county right of way, " Leon thought.
Prophet Leon leaned back in his rocker and considered the results of his five long years of research at Wekiwahatchee StateUniversity’s Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology.
"Adjunct temporary laboratory instructor. More like night janitor or stock boy, "thought Leon.
Well, the stock boy had done good. Five years on the graveyard shift, and look at what he had to show for his work:
1. The complete amino acid sequences for most reptilian Growth Hormone Releasing Hormone (GHRH) and its corresponding receptor proteins within the cell membrane.
2. A complete model for GHRH signaling in the pituitary cells that produce Growth Hormone (GH).
3. The enhancement of production of receptor induced C protein which increase the accumulation and activation of the catalytic cascade that activates the Growth Hormone Gene.
4. The discovery of a new protein which activates transcription of the Growth Hormone Messenger RNA and protein in order to replenish cellular stores of growth hormone to be released by pituitary cells.
5. The discovery that this same protein stimulated transcription of the GHRH receptor gene thus leading to greater numbers of GHRIH receptors and thus enhancing the production of GH in the pituitary cell.
6. The discovery of a transgenic technique that activates all of these mechanisms as well as activating mutations that produce pituitary tumors which result in hypersecretion of Growth Hormone.
In other words, Leon Walker had completely removed every possible control upon the growth of any reptile that crawled on the face of the earth, and he had not broken one legal statute
Now the time had come for another prayer for divine guidance. Another instrument of destruction was needed in the war which would triumph over the cancerous group of satan worshippers that now inhabited the planet.
Leon spoke to Yerbita," I may die, Pobrecita, but so will this so-called human race. And my death will be a triumph and another Righteous Soul will take up my sword and replace me."
Quoting Isaiah 10:23, he continued, "For the Lord GOD of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all land."
Leon Walker, prophet of doom and terror, returned to his stacks of journal articles on the microbiology of the genera Bacillus and Clostridium.
CHAPTER 4
And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs came out of the
mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and
out of the mouth of the false prophet.Revelation 16:13
A curious character who watched Cleatus Holland’s broadcast was the owner of a local petting zoo, Oakley "Oak" Galloway. Oak Galloway screamed at Cleatus Holland’s image on the TV tube,
"Oh Lord, that Rotten Headed S.O.B. weighs over a ton! He’s mine! He’s mine! He’s mine! I will have that gator. I can see it now! Tampa Stadium! $1000 a seat. $1500 family of four; lower Two—Toed Tom by helicopter onto the field and watch that 30 foot bastard go to town! Oh, buddy! Magnificent! No more time for boa constructors munching on strays and possums—-forget the Food Chain Act!——Tremendous!——no more Munch Bunch Circus!—— Fantastic! The sky is the LIMIT! Watch out State Prison! Capital Punishment coming at you Live and in Living Color, courtesy of the World’s Largest Gator, Two—Toed Tom! Boy, he might shake you like a pitbull or an armadillo, or he might slurp you down like slimy boiled okree--the sure bet is you gonna be gator turd! For sure ... but wait a minute. Why let Tampa Stadium get a piece of the rock? I can build a pit right here at the Live Oak Petting Zoo. There’s that buzzing in my ear!"
Oak gazed out of his den window.
"If you build it, they will come."
CHAPTER 5
Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god; shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secret of the heart.
Psalms 44:19—21
"Hey Jim, how many of those collars with the old survival beacons can I get from you right now?" Oak Galloway was calling a favor from his old kindergarten buddy, Jim Spurling.
"What you need beacon collars for in the middle of July?," Jim asked.
"The zoo is in line for some grant money to do a rabies study on coons. All I need you to do is let me have about a dozen collars, add a tracking cell to the satellite, and get me a hard copy of the overnight beacon movement in the morning. One—time shot. You and I will be slick before noon tomorrow."
"Don’t put my beacon on anything other than a coon," commanded Jim.
"Buddy, I understand. Trust me.I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. There’ll be no problem," Oak lied. Oak hated being that way;having to tell lies to old friends. "Come on partner, let's cut a deal."
"Where did you get twelve coons?" asked Jim.
"Well, we got five here right now and Poor Boy took my pickup to Panama City to pick up maybe seven more at the Snake—A—Torium. All right?"
"All right."
"Super! Call your warehouse and tell them I’ll be there directly. Make the ticket out for Live Oak Zoo. Okay?"
"Okay. See you later, alligator."
"Afterwhile, Crocodile."
Jim Spurling contemplated the phone call he was about to make to the warehouse of his family’s mail—order business, Gulf States Vet Supply. He knew that there was no rabies study. "God knows what sort of devilment Oak is up to," Jim thought.
He punched the numbers into his cell phone and called in the order. With a little luck, Oak would keep his word on closing out this deal by tomorrow. Oak was generally pretty good at wrapping things up. Taking care of business. TCB. Years before, Jim had called upon Oak’s strong powers of persuasion.
Back in ‘83, Jim’s vet supply stepped a little too deep into the dog collar business in South Florida. One of Jim’s best customers was popped for running (in the words of the indictment) "a school for sadism and masochism" in St. Pete. Arming Oak with little more than a credit card and a set of master keys, Jim sent his zookeeper pal down to Sarasota to clean up the mess on a Friday morning- By Saturday morning, the bruised body of Jim’s customer was found hanging from his Longboat Key shower nozzle. By Sunday, the "suicide victim’s" family was happy the cremation was over with. On Monday, Jim Spurling was back in the dog collar business. But this time, it was only the dog collar business, and only collars which were to be sold in places like K—Marts and vet offices. No more adult toy ‘Tupperware" parties at the beach. The "Feminine Touch" division of Gulf States Vet Supply closed after that episode.
Jim put the phone back in its waterproof case and returned to the readout coming from his boat’s printer. With a computer linked to a geosynchronous satellite, Jim's vessel was like a
high—tech cork bobbing in the turbulent water below the Cowpen’s Dam on the Wekiwahatchee.Jim was doing what he loved best:tracking big fish. Today, his boat, Have Mercy, was receiving satellite—relayed signals from Army surplus beacons stapled to the anal fins of many of the giant alligator gar and sturgeon that teamed in the boiling turbine wash of Lake Euchee’s brown water.
The Cowpen’s Dam, built in the mid—fifties, prevented these monster fish from moving upstream, and only now had the federal government attempted to contemplate the damage done by the dam and its impoundment, Lake Euchee, a public works project of pharaonic proportions.
"Why, that dam opened the river trade back up!," crowed the coffee shop politicians.
Yes, a sort of river trade opened. A river trade in empty grain silos and empty state docks real estate was certainly established. A few barge loads of pine logs were pushed down to the paper mill by tug boats crewed by men who by—passed their onboard septic tanks and tossed their garbage into the wounded river. Crews of men who routinely shot whatever they liked on the river bank thought nothing of killing the young bald eagle recently released by the Corps of Engineers.
The old river trade could never be revived. Competition by the railroads had people moving away from the river over a hundred years ago. Hell, that migration had been going on even before the War Between The States.Now the only large town on the Wekiwahatchee was Tustennuggee. And it thrived on the east—west trade of the rail and interstate systems. The dam simply held the backwater that folks from Tustennuggee who lived on "Silk Stocking Avenue" used when they visited their vacation homes built upon the shores of Lake Euchee.
Right now, Jim was unconcerned about the monumental fraud represented by the Cowpen’s Dam. All he wanted to know was how two of his prize giant gar got above the dam and ended up in a shallow slough on the most eastern edge of the spillway. Jim knew right where his gar had moved, "Those two bastards are in that little slough on the old Euchee Reservation above the place where the Corps let trees grow on the spillway." He thought, "I’ll bet they’re mating."
Suddenly, an image of the old 1824 Township plat of the Euchee Reservation was planted in Jim’s mind’s eye, and he recalled the excitement he had felt when he found the story of the old reservation’s demise included in the Congressional Record of 1836.
Jim gazed at the silver sheen of water coming over the spillway of Cowpen’s Dam and contemplated the inundation of Chief Haujo Tustennugee Reservation for the Euchee. Three quarters the acreage was covered by Lake Euchee’s water. Lost in thought, Jim stared at the water and considered all that was lost back when the water rose in '54.
Jim knew about as much as anybody about the artifacts lost when water covered this river junction. The junction of the Wekiwahatchee and the Talakhatchee represented an I-10/I-95 interchange for generations of Native Americans who lived before 1800. Artifacts representing the highest culture of the Temple Mound period lay beneath Lake Euchee’s water. A Spanish mission, San Nicholas, also rested across the flooded river channel, covered by one hundred and thirty—six feet of stagnant backwater. Underneath the same water lay a British fort and burial ground with a cache of 18th century British arms still packed in the grease. The remains of these unhappy soldiers of fortune rested a few miles north of the mission on the same side of the channel. Called the Seminole Fort, the explosion of its powder magazine in July of 1816 was heard almost two hundred miles away in Pensacola, and its power vaporized almost 300 runaway slaves. Not all of the artifacts beneath the lake consisted of ruined pottery, glass, and rust. All of the treasure plundered by the motley crews of Director General Bowles, the last great pirate of the Gulf, lay deep in the muck of Lake Euchee.
Jim always wondered why nobody ever bothered to build historical monuments for these cultures lost beneath the backwater.
"Buoys!", he thought, "Yeah! We could anchor monuments on buoys."
And then he thought of the objections he would undoubtedly face when he appealed to Tustennuggee's citizens for money to float monuments to commemorate the lives of Indians, runaway slaves, Spaniards, British soldiers of fortune, and Tory pirates.
"This will sink like the Titanic. Forget it."
Jim returned to his printer before preparing to lock through the dam in order to follow his precious fish.
"What on God's green earth are these gars doing hooked up in that slough? I’ve got to follow through on this."
Unfortunately, the secret of Jim Spurling’s gars was perhaps the strangest and most tragic of all the unknown things hidden in the oblivion of Lake Euchee's dark water.
CHAPTER 6
Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even
Christ.
Matthew 23:10
“Holy shit! They’re everywherel” blurted Oak, instantly wishing he could take back his words as he anxiously read the printout of the previous evening’s beacon activity.
“Where, Mr. Oak? Where?” asked Edward “Poor Boy” McCray, Oak’s driver and righthand man.
“Them damn lovebugs, Poor Boy. Look at that windshield, and I know you had to have washed it this morning.”
“I shore did, Mr. Oak, I shore did.”
“Poor Boy, let me take that burned—out trailer on the Mars Hill place off your hands.”
“Hmmmm. It ain’t in that bad a shape. The roof is solid. Why, the man that built that trailer used..."
"I got two hundred dollars right here,” Oak interrupted while placing the two bills on the dashboard of the moving pickup. “We’ll trade out the rest.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, remember that I own the land that it’s sitting on and I’ve forgotten about all that back rent. Now, what else do you want me to do for you?”
“Let me fish the upper pond,” Poor Boy knew exactly what he wanted.
"On a trial basis only. You can keep the little ones, but anything over five pounds goes back and anything over ten gets videotaped."
"I can’t work that dang video thing."
"We’ll set it up in the farm house soon. I’ll show you how. We got a deal?’
"Deal."
"Good. Let me off at the zoo and go down to Five Points and load up a crew. If they can read this bill of lading, I don’t care if they’re drunk. It’s 8 inches by 11 inches. Bring a ruler and make them measure this paper. Get me four out to Mars Hill to get started stripping that trailer down to the structural steel this morning and promise another four to work this afternoon. That should take care of everything. Hey, Poor Boy, what is six inches long, has a big head, and your wife, Sonya, loves more than she does you?"
"I don’t want to know the answer, Mr. Oak," Poor Boy replied timidly.
"One of them new hundred dollar bills I just give you. Ha! Hal Ha!"
Oak said nothing more on the trip out to the zoo. Poor Boy also remained silent. Poor Boy didn’t have good sense, but he had sense enough to know to leave sleeping dogs alone.
Poor Boy should have asked a few questions about the way Mr. Oak had planned his day. Poor Boy had never seen a gator trap the size of a house trailer, but by sundown, with the help of Tustennuggee’s most intellectually gifted winos and geek monsters, Poor Boy McCray would oversee the construction of the World’s Largest Gator Trap. Patched together with steel cable and chain link fence, this junk yard contraption would soon make history.
CHAPTER 7
But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable in that
day for Sodom, than for that city.
Luke 10:12
Two miles below Cowpen’s Dam lay the Queen City on the bluff, Tustennuggee, Alabama. Laid out around an old federal armory, the town proved to be an enigma to most outsiders. The convoluted actions of Tustennuggee government and business created by over a century of secrecy seemed to defy all explanation. Yet just underneath the surface of the arbitrary and illogical appearance of each transaction was a spirit of love. Yes, old—fashioned Southern family love. And in the words of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, ‘How do you spell love? M—O—N-E-Y!’
On this Friday morning, as Poor Boy and his crew of inebriated metal workers struggled to strip a well—built firetrap trailer down to its bare steel frame on old Mars Hill, the strangest day in Tustennuggee’s storied history began to unfold.
Down on the riverbank south of the warehouse district, a crew at the foot of Water Street contemplated the near miss of a disaster of cataclysmic proportions.
“I knowed that pipe was coming up back on the day that sorry,
rottenheaded Yankee sack of shit put it down,” yelled Bobby “River Rat” Duncan. “I knowed that drunk dago dick licker loved sand more than concrete. Why, he would steal the quarters off his dead mama's eyes. The day he poured those anchors,
I told him, ‘You walk around here thinking you’re some sort of Yankee prince, but in Alabama, boy, you’re just another Yankee son of a bitch.”
Bobby the River Rat was a ubiquitous character around the lower Wekiwahatchee Valley. With only one 1966 semester of high school trig behind him, he had managed to work himself into important positions on every significant construction project in the region during the past thirty years, and as much as Bobby loved accuracy and straight lines, he also loved beer and whiskey. So much so that each hangover morning began with “The Rat’s Breakfast of Champions——a pint of buttermilk and a Zero candy bar.
Munching on his Zero, Rat contemplated his current boss. On this sunny Friday morning, the Rat’s boss was Ira “Slack” Steele, the most notorious and hated diver on the Gulf Coast. Ira Steele earned his nickname the old—fashioned way: pure meanness. Slack perfected his evil by abusing his dive tenders, so this gained him the name “Slack" from his constant command/complaint, “Give me some slack!”
Rat glared at Slack this morning and decided that Robert Duncan was not working for a corrupt stick of white trash today. Never responding to the inevitable question——"Where you going?”—Rat walked north up River Street to his personal oasis. He contemplated an early brunch. Something light. Something like a tomato sandwich——about the only thing you could get this time of day at the Wheelhouse Bar, home of Odell Swann's Maters and Taters.
Walking through the darkened doorway of Tustennuggee’s most famous nightspot, Rat felt as though he had been going to this old lounge for centuries and, without discounting reincarnation, possibly he had. Legend had it that parts of the original ferryman’s house on the Old Spanish Trail had been built into the walls of this ancient tavern.
The only patron at the bar at this early morning hour was one of Rat's old high school buddies, Grover Moss.
Grover looked up from his plate of tomato sandwiches dripping with hot pepper sauce. “Whoa, Rat! Little early even for you, ain’t it?”
“I took a vacation. Yeah, I’m taking me a good vacation.”
“What ya want to eat and drink?" Odell Swann yelled as she sat an opened Pabst bottle onto the bar’s Formica top in front of Rat. Rat replied, “Give me a ‘mater sandwich plate.”
“So, what happened this time?” Grover asked.
“Standard operating procedure--covering up H and S
Construction Company's stinking shit.”
Grover chuckled and asked, “You know what H and S stands for, don’t you, Rat?”
“Yea, ‘Hire them and Screw them.’”
“Naw. It’s ‘Hold them and Sodomize them!’”
“If you say so.”
“So, what’s up?~
“Damn gas line popped up off the river bottom, and one of WGN’S tows hit it,” explained Rat.
“And we’re still here to talk about it?” Grover asked incredulously.
"Looks like it. No leaks now, but they’ve got to sink that damn pipeline before Channel 4 and the News get ahold of it."
That mission was at that moment being accomplished. “Slack” Steele had used temporary anchors to lower the floating compressed gas pipeline, and he was supposed to be preparing to triple—weld a bolted anchor strap over the damaged pipe.
You could never accuse Ira “Slack” Steele of working himself out of a job. Certainly, he could have made a short order out of this gas line problem, but now was the time for Mr. Slack to make his gravy money, so there he sat on the muddy floor of the sluggish Wekiwahatchee, happily using his magnesium welding rods to
engrave “Ira was here” on a large steam engine boiler he had found on the river bottom.
After finishing his underwater graffiti with the date “7—7—07,” slack cut off his torch and waited for his bottom time to run out.
Suddenly, a force sucked Slack backward so quickly through the darkness that he felt like a marionette whose strings had been jerked. After hitting a fleshy wall, the diver was quickly covered by the soft membranous lining of the inside of Old Tom’s jaws. Reaching for the knife strapped to his calf, Slack prepared to defend himself when the gator’s forward movement brought Slack to the limit of his air line and tether. Jerked in the opposite direction, Slack was almost out of the great lizard’s jaws when the giant alligator instinctively crushed the morsel almost stolen from his enormous snout.
Ira Steele had finally been cut some slack, and so had his pipeline. Tangled in Ira’s tether, the flimsy bolts that temporarily held the line’s anchors snapped, and again the pipeline returned to the Wekiwahatchee’s surface. The second trip up was more than the pipeline could stand, and now it popped——and it popped loudly. High and sharp like a rifle shot and loud like a transformer exploding. But this sound was nothing compared to what was coming. On the bank, the fastest man to his truck, pumped by adrenalin and certain of making his escape, turned his vehicle’s ignition switch.
BAAHLOOM!
That was all she wrote for a large portion of Tustennuggee's waterfront.
Picking themselves off the bar room floor, Rat looked over a Grover and said, “Well, Grover, we both know what that was.”
CHAPTER 8
For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of
the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou
brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou
brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to
be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
Psalms 74:12—14
Oakley Galloway walked across the white rock parking lot of
his roadside zoo and ice cream parlor. Attractively landscaped
with gigantic limestone boulders, elephant ears, ferns, and
cabbage palms, the expansive, white gravel parking lot was shaded
by two-hundred year old live oaks and bordered by massive elephant
ears and philodendrons that shielded the public from the main
building of the Live Oak Zoo, a replica of a 17th century Andean
hacienda. walking along the walkway, Oak whistled for his
gardener, Ernesto. As Oak entered the iron gates of the
hacienda’s walls, he heard Ernesto’s voice coming up from the
direction of the Big Spring, a cavern carved from the soft
limestone that emptied over 50 million gallons of clear ground
water per day into Spring Creek.
“Patron, Patron!” cried Ernesto.
A sudden burst of noise, louder than a clap of thunder, shook
the hacienda’s windows.
Ernesto stopped and yelled, “What is it, Senor Oak? ;Hace
ruido grande! What is it, Senor Oak?”
“Sonic boom. Jets. Come se dice en espafiol? Uh, aviones
de reaccion. Probably the Blue Angels. I saw Trader Jon in
Pensacola Saturday night, and he told me that they’d be flying a
practice run over this way this week.” Oak seemed unconcerned by
the possibility that the sound could have been produced by an
enormous explosion.
“Ernesto, check the fuel in the pontoon boat and tell Pilar
to fix a cooler for overnight. Get the car phones and the
batteries. We’ll be spending the night on the river.”
“Where we go, Senor?”
“Cotton Landing, just above Bloody Bluff Island.”
“I make everything ready Senor. "
“Bueno, mi amigo, muy buenisimo.”
Oak walked up the steps of the hacienda’s porch and moved
toward the open stairs that led to the living quarters that filled
the second floor of the hacienda’s main house. The gift
shop and ice cream parlor guests entered as they began their
tour of the Live Oak Zoo occupied the main building’s first floor.
Entering the trophy room few guests ever visited, Oak walked
over to the manatee mounted on the knotty pine panelled wall.
Pulling on the sea cow’s massive head, Oak opened the secret panel
concealing the cabinet that held a most unusual collection.
Compelled to gaze upon his gruesome treasures once more, Oak
contemplated his future and how his life would soon change.
Oakley Galloway was not your average middle-aged Alabamian.
The Live Oak Zoo was not any ordinary roadside gator farm.
Oak built this business for almost forty years with his skill
as an alligator wrestler and bulldogging gators underwater for all
those years had earned him a fortune, but he was not satisfied.
He wanted another jewel in his crown. He dreamed of another way
to shock the public, and he wanted especially to shock the piss
out of the self-pitying, bleeding-heart animal rights advocates
who hounded him daily, and now diligently threatened to destroy
his beloved gator farm.
He fixed his eyes steadily upon the unusual group of
curiosities that over one hundred years of family business had
amassed from the Amazon jungle. Oak possessed the world’s largest
collection of shrunken heads; today he dreamed of adding another
specimen to his collection.
“I’d like to see that FART lunatic’s head shrunk down and
stuffed in this old cupboard,” Oak hissed.
Ah yes. FART was the acronym for Oak’s archenemy: the
Florida Animal Rights Trust. This sect, composed mainly of
single, unemployed thirty—something neurotics from the southern
portion of the Sunshine state, had sought out new frontiers and
found them north of the Florida Line in Wekiwahatchee County,
Alabama. Oak’s roadside zoo was only one of their targets. One
of their more radical and outgoing members, was Stephanie
Rabinowitz. She used to perform as a carrot, brussel sprout, or
rutabaga but had tired of dressing up in giant vegetable
costumes to promote vegetarianism in elementary schools. Now, she
committed her life to becoming the modern version of Nemesis, the
ancient Greek goddess, to deal out retribution to the owner of the
Live Oak Zoo as well as to the scientists who ran the Cell and
Molecular Biology Department of Wekiwahatchee State University.
Oak was serious about his desire to see Stephanie’s hat size
profoundly reduced. In fact, the dark, wrinkled face with hand-
sown lips of one of his family’s older and unfortunate pests, the
late Reverend Parker Cannon, now resided in Oak’s strange trophy
case. Over seventy years before, in 1921, the Reverend Cannon had
crossed the path of Oak’s family. Reverend Cannon’s Christian
Crusade had targeted Oak’s great uncle, Milton Moss.
Milton’s business was a traveling vaudeville show called
Uncle Milt’s Banana Boat Show. Its main profit-maker was Uncle
Milt’s Miracle Banana Tonic. Parker Cannon claimed that Uncle
Milt’s tonic was nothing more than wild cat rum adulterated with
banana extract and that the Banana Boat Show was nothing more than
a front for an extensive bootlegging operation. Unfortunately,
Rev. Cannon was correct and his campaign was one of many factors
that destroyed Uncle Milt and the Spanish Moss Dairy, the winter
home for Uncle Milt’s Banana Boat Show.
Uncle Milt’s decline led to his new identity as Pap Moss, the
alligator-obsessed peanut vendor, who became a favorite target of
Tustennuggee’s bicycle-riding hooligans. Years after his decline
began, Pap witnessed Reverend Cannon’s strange return to
Tustennuggee. In 1957, Parker Cannon attempted the conversion of
Ecuador’s Jivaro Indians and his life ended in a flurry of poison
arrows. Pap Moss took special pleasure on the day that he placed
the small face, framed by long gray hair, into the trophy cabinet
located on the site of one of Reverend Cannon’s earlier conquests,
the old main house of the Spanish Moss Dairy. It’s strange
sometimes how things that go around come around.
And now, at the beginning of a new millennium and after more
than 70 years, the old Spanish Moss Dairy was under attack once
more. This time, there were no Bible-thumping hypocrites to shut
down a family business. Now, a new generation of barren Prozac—
popping pessimists had started a holy war to protect the
inalienable rights of a bunch of obese alligators.
Oak closed the cabinet and returned the old stuffed manatee
to its proper place. He thought, “If they think an old neon sign
with a gator eating a he-coon is offensive advertising, they’ll
drop their teeth when they see the monster that old Oak is about
to haul out of Irwin’s Hell Swamp. They’ll see a new sign:
The Live Oak—Zoo--Open Daily--See Old Oak wrestle Leviathan,
the Swamp Dragon-—the most terrifying Devil that ever
walked the Earth!
“Miss Stephanie better watch her step in Wekiwahatchee country or
her alligator mouth is gonna write a check that her hummingbird
ass can’t cash!”
CHAPTER 9
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why
art thou so far from helping me, and from the
words of my roaring?
Psalm 22, Verse 1
Without even saying goodbye to Rat, Grover dusted himself off
and walked out of the bar. Damage from the gas pipeline explosion
on Tustennuggee’s riverfront was not severe on the Wheelhouse
Block between South St. Andrew and Cotton Streets. As he headed
down the Water Street sidewalk toward his old van, Grover
contemplated the calm that comes after the storm. Only the distant
wailing of the sirens and the victims three blocks down Water
Street disturbed the quiet of noon that Friday.
Grover couldn’t stand the sounds produced by disaster.
Besides, he’d heard enough bad sounds for one day. Old Grover’s
mind had about given out on him today, so he said a little prayer
for Tustennuggee’s dead, injured and dying and climbed up into his
‘74 Ford Econoline. Grover knew there’d be no shortage of heroes
in his hometown today. He’d grown up with these boys. He knew none
of them would fall off the firetruck. (Except maybe if there was a
meltdown at the George C. Wallace Nuclear Power Plant over at
Black Gum Head.)Grover resolved to return to the riverfront
tomorrow and help with the cleanup.
“Won’t be as much ruckus on Saturday,” thought Grover.
Grover drove his rusting van down Main Street to where the
four-lane to Panama City opened up near the City Cemetery. Looking
east toward the northwest corner, Grover observed the Williams
Plot covering this entire section of Tustennuggee’s forty-acre
City Cemetery for White Persons. When Grover was growing up, T-
Town’s older boys told him that the Williams Plot, with its
copingstone and forty-four-foot high granite obelisk was the place
where God was buried. Grover knew that ground like the back of his
hand. Being a caretaker for Tustennuggee’ s sixty acres of
municipal cemeteries [40 acres of white and 20 acres of colored]
was Grover’s first job after high school. For over thirty years
he’d watched his old job site fill up.
“There’ll be a few more planted there by sundown tomorrow,”
Grover thought.
Boy, Grover missed Zero. He really loved that dog. Losing
Zero was like losing your best friend. Riding south down Bay Line
Road, Grover surveyed acre after acre of the marble and granite
shaded by cabbage palms, palmettos, cedars and live oaks.
“This is a nightmare,” Grover said out loud and in
midsentence caught himself in his habit of talking to himself.
Eight years of living with Zero had exacerbated that problem. That
was probably one of the reasons Grover’s customers called him
ditsy.
“Well, grieving can wait,” Grover continued.
Accelerating the Blue Nut Truck after getting a green on
Tustennuggee’s last light, Grover speeded down the four-lane
toward his small farmhouse two miles south of town on the banks of
Spring Creek just below the Florida Line. Grover really wanted to
get home quickly, put in some porch swing time, and consider all
his options. How could he tell anyone about encountering Old Tom?
Not only would his report divulge the location of his pot patch
but it would dredge up memories of his lunatic grandfather, Pap
Moss. The last thing the old boy needed was to have the Discovery
Channel’s Loch Ness Monster Search Team camped out in that cypress
dome near the banks of Bloody Bluff Creek. It’d have to be
somebody else’s job to inform Wekiwahatchee County’s citizens that
their most awful legend, Old Tom, was alive and well and visiting
close to home.
“Hell, it ain’t that big a problem. They’ll find out soon
enough,” Grover thought. It was already April and the bull gators
down in Irwin Hell’s Swamp would soon be bellowing one coming
evening. Somebody would hear it. Somebody would hear that red-eyed
monster’s deep-throated thunder.
“You’ll be able to hear that big papa gator for miles,”
Grover thought. “They’ll hear him calling down on Alberson Stretch
and even up at the Fish Camp on Boynton Island.”
Grover pulled into the limestone block gates of Oak
Galloway’s Live Oak Zoo and slowed his van to a crawl as he eased
over crushed white gravel toward the sandy trail leading to his
twenty acres on Spring Creek. Blood may be thicker than water, but
stuff like that didn’t matter to cousin Oak and Grover’s blood
pressure always bumped up a notch when he drove past his first
cousin’s Spanish Moss Hacienda.
“Never know what he might be on,” Grover thought as he
contemplated the fear he always felt as he traveled over his first
cousin’s land. “Thank God my deed from Pap included this easement.
I know I have a legal right to be here, but it still scares the
shit out of me every time I have to pull into ol’ Cuz’s gate just
to get to my own house.”
There was no lack of freaks of nature in the Lime Sink
Region. Wekiwahatchee County, Alabama, and Ogeechee County,
Florida, had plenty of hell-demons; two-legged as well as four-
legged.
“At least my little ‘local problem’ with Oak keeps me on my
toes,” Grover reasoned. “Heaven help me if this old ‘74 fuck truck
ever breaks down before I make it to my land line. Oak would
probably shoot me in the back if he ever saw me walking on his
property.”
The Bermuda grass in Grover’s field was making hay this
spring afternoon, and he gazed with pride along the fence line of
the hillside pasture leading down to the white sand bank where
aeons of Big Springs’ cool, clear water had deposited untold tons
of its snow white grains of disintegrated quartzite. Parking his
Ford van by the cookshed, Grover climbed the steps up to the porch
of the grey cypress decked shotgun house he called home. With each
step he felt the burden of his 51 years; years he loved and
thanked God for every day, but years heavy with suffering and
grief.
Grover needed to smoke some reefer.
Opening his unlocked front door, Grover reached up to the
foyer closet’s door casing. Pulling down his little tin box, he
returned to the front porch, pulling the cord on both ceiling fans
as he strode across the cypress planks toward his green porch
swing. After checking the horizon to see whether the coast was
clear, Grover Moss, known affectionately to his friends as “Fur
Trader,” leaned back and took a hit off the pipe he made from the
antler of a twelve-point he’d killed at Ft. Rucker almost 40 years
before.
After five tokes of his favorite blend, Grover gazed out over
his grassy field and accessed his progress.
“Boy, I miss that dog. I’m gonna have to find a little Zero
soon.”
It was lonely without his dog. Walking back to the front
door, Grover reached inside to the corner bookcase that held his
photo albums. Returning to the swing, he poured over the pages
looking for pictures of his beloved pit bull. Sure enough, he
found photographs of Zero, but he also found more than he was
looking for. Grover found the pictures of Lorrie. There she
stood, a Southern angel, in that aquamarine bathing suit her
mother sewed wearing Grover’s Wekiwahatchee High School class ring
on her left hand.
Keeping with his morning’s horrible memories of Zero’s death
in the enormous jaws of Old Tom, and the gas explosion on
Tustennuggee’s riverfront, Grover thought of monsters again. Only
this time the monsters weren’t giant flesh and blood, red-eyed
reptiles. These monsters were made out of strong emotions. These
were green-eyed monsters; disturbing feelings Grover could not
deny.
He was still in love with her.
“How in the hell could this happen?” Grover asked himself.
“What kind of bond could connect me to a damn woman I haven’t seen
or heard from in twenty-seven years? I’ve got to get over that
cunt. Man, I need a drink!”
Back on the swing with a cold bottle of India pale ale,
Grover looked at Lorrie’s picture once more and it hit him. There
was his answer in full living color: so simple, so plain and
simple. Her hands! Grover’s whole world was right there in
Lorrie’s fingers!
Suddenly, stoned and rocking in his porch swing, Grover
Milton Moss, Esquire, made a miraculous discovery. Now he
understood the monster; not Old Tom but his other monster.
Grover’s monster was the thought of never being touched by Lorrie
again in his lifetime. Here Grover found his greatest fear and as
any redneck knows, the best thing to do when scared is to go ahead
well armed. At that moment, Grover completely embraced the
unrequited love he held for his old girlfriend, Lorrie Walker.
“Good God, this feels good” Grover yelled.
It felt good to have Lorrie on his mind. Those thoughts were
more precious than gold. For the first time in almost thirty years
Grover fully grasped the joy and virtue contained in the
recollections of his youthful love with that beautiful woman. Memories of
Lorrie were Grover's most valuable possession and a determination to become the man worthy of Lorrie's affection now consumed Grover's soul.
CHAPTER 10
Blow ye the trumpet of Zion, and sound an
alarm in my holy mountain: let all the
inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day
of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand.
Joel, Chapter 2, Verse I
Leon Walker never named one of his saurian progeny “Old Tom,”
however, the tag certainly fit. Old Tom had gained quite a
notorious reputation over the generations. He had been credited
with every crime imaginable, so why not blame this explosion on
him too?
Leon knew better. He knew Old Tom was nothing more than a
convenient myth country people used to blame all their misery on.
Leon’s big babies weren’t legends. His gators were tools in the
hands of the Almighty God, and their bellowing would be the
forewarning of mankind’s coming doom. Every April morning brought
a warming of the waters and soon melancholy Leon, a hick Dr.
Frankenstein, would hear his monsters barking at the moon;
ferocious creatures who even their demented creator could not
control.
Grover Moss wasn’t the only person in Wekiwahatchee country
to anticipate the excitement Old Tom’s mating call would create.
Leon, the Magnificent Man of God, shared Grover’s assessment that
folks on the river would find out “soon enough” about the giant
gators. In fact, Leon had a hunch that his mutated reptilian
offspring might have something to do with the Tustennuggee blast.
Leon heard about the explosion from a disc jockey who
interrupted his favorite gospel music program to break the news of
the old river town’s disaster. Heading north in his peeling ‘71
Ford E-100 pickup, Leon Listened intently as he moved toward his
destination: the Supreme Cat Food factory in Montgomery. This
would be his last run. Phase I of Leon’s Divine Purpose was now
coming to an end.
Leon had named his four gators Thunder, Wrath, Fury and
Storm, and only one week after their release into the environment,
they were having quite an impact. Consecrated to His Divine
Purpose, these four monsters, each over 30 feet long and still
growing, were the Creator’s instrument of destruction. Their
warning call would not come from the mountain tops. Their bawling
alarm would come from the dark lowlands of terror. It would come
from Irwin’s Hell Swamp.
Rolling down Highway 231, Leon recalled one of his favorite
Bible verses form the Old Testament Book of Amos, Chapter 5, Verse
18:
"Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD!
to what end is it for you? The day of the LORD
is darkness and not light."
In that instant of recollection, Leon considered his
destination, Montgomery, Cradle of the Confederacy and home of
Alabama’s latest tourist trap: The Civil Rights Memorial at the
Southern Poverty Law Center, a religious shrine built to the gods
of affirmative action and a woman’s right to choose.
“Those Manic Marxists certainly didn’t use the King James
Version of the Bible as the source of their inscription,” Leon
fumed, ‘‘ 'Let justice roll down ...‘ My foot! That same chapter of
Amos, Chapter 5, Verse 24, states, ‘Let judgment (that means God’s
final judgment of all mankind) run down as waters and
righteousness as a mighty stream,” and without a trace of guilt,
Leon said out loud to the highway,
“And those waters will be God’s verdict: a
Divine death sentence on the entire human race."
God’s Holy Warrior, Leon Walker, spit out his warning like
the cry of the banshee, and as he bounced down the highway, the
Prophet Leon settled back into the comfort that comes from knowing
you are under the infallible protection of’ the shield of Almighty
God.
Leon hated to admit it, but even he was a little surprised by
the complete success of his endeavor to remove every genetic
barrier which could possibly interfere with the growth of an
alligator. Maybe Leon was able to do it because he had resolutely
set his heart in the right direction. Reverend Leon conceived of
his giant alligators as a dramatic object lesson. His gators
would preach his sermon.
The truth be told, the old Spanish Moss Dairy had a lot to do
with making Leon's apocalyptic gators a reality. lt was a long way
from surreptitiously deciphering and manipulating the alligator
genome to actually secretly raising four two-and-a-half ton
alligators to maturity. Nestled on the backside of the defunct
dairy’s property, an old concrete block milking barn served as the
nursery for Leon’s monsters. Fed by an unlimited supply of
specially formulated cat food and warmed by the hot water from a
geothermal artesian well drilled during a 1928 crude oil
exploration, Leon’s four dragons of the Apocalypse passionately
ate their way to maturity in the darkness provided by the painted
windows of the Old Spanish Moss Dairy’s milk barn.
Ironically, Leon’s gators grew up just over the hill from the
glare of Oak Galloway’s Live Oak Zoo’s neon sign. Little did Oak
realize that the alligator of his dreams, Leviathan, was raised
right under his nose and less than a mile across the road from his
home. By sundown this evening, Leon would return home to see that
garish sign, a flashing neon alligator repeatedly munching on a
cuddly raccoon, and he would head to the milk barn to unload his
last cargo of cat food.
“God made America the greatest country on Earth,” Leon
thought, “And with privilege comes responsibility. I will teach
them the consequences of their sins. It is my task to take God’s
words and write his law upon the hearts of men before the End.”
If you liked what you've read so far, email me at robertoreg@gmail.com and let me know what you think. Then I will print more of the story of the SNAKE DOCTOR.
"The pituitary tumors shown in the lower two panels of Fig. 11 are from older animals of the 803-5 pedigree and represent a complete loss of growth control."
Kelly E. Mayo et al., "GHRH: Synthesis and Signaling"
The late afternoon thunderstorms annoyed Grover, but the drenching rain freed him from the heat of the long sleaved shirt, mosquito net, and pith helmet.
"At least a God—made rain will keep the skeeters down and help my crop," said Grover.
Grover Moss held his head up to the sky and allowed the rain to wash his red face before replacing his helmet and turning on his trolling motor. As he got underway, Grover watched rain splatter and pool on the four ice chests that filled the bottom of the small boat he called The Stumpjumper.
A ray of sunshine flooded the creek bottom with light inspiring Grover to speak to his pitbull, Zero, who sat in the bow of the boat.
"That’s a sign, buddy! It means Old Scratch is beating his wife !"
Zero barked and at that moment a bolt of lightning struck a cypress top a few yards up the bend in the creek.
"Holy shit!" screamed Grover.
Grover’s fear of an imminent death by lightning was suddenly replaced by guilt because of what he had said. He apologized to his dog, "Sorry Zero, them could of been my last words and, Lord knows, I was raised better than that. I hate being that a way."
Grover Moss settled back into his seat and tried to enjoy the rest of his voyage up Bloody Bluff Creek.
Again, he spoke to Zero, "Look at it this way, boy, at least the deer flies and skeeters can’t maneuver in weather like this."
Zero lowered his head and closed his eyes as the rain pelted his brindled back with drops so large they felt like hail.
Grover had lived round Irwin Island on the lower Wekiwahatchee River for almost twenty-five years. To the people around Lucy and Crosby, he was a peaceful man who kept beehives and sold fish, but occasionally rumors flew that Grover was one of the reasons the panhandle of Florida was getting known as the Pothandle. Grover had a poorly kept secret. Grover was a marijuana grower, and the four ice chests in the bottom of The Stumpjumper contained potting soil, fertilizer, and young cannabis plants. These were not ordinary hemp plants. They represented the perfection of recreational drug production from a combination of Afghanistan, Indian, and Hawaiian strains. Packaged over years ol clandestine research by Auburn university’s most preeminent plant geneticists, these plants would grow into the legendary reefer known as "Bascom No Toke." Put your hand in the baggie and you’ll get high. It was known even to make Crimson Tide fans yell "War Damn Eagle!"
The rain was letting up and Grover anticipated the hot and painful hike he and Zero had to make through the mosquito infested puddles that covered Irwin’s Hell Swamp.
"Shumhere boy," Grover called, and Zero clamored over the ice chests to his master. "Yeah, you a good boy, Zero. But you a mean old pupper dawg sometimes. Yeah, you are. Everything’s gonna be alright this morning. This rain’s gonna keep Birddog stuck in the City Cafe drinking coffee till dinnertime. We’ll get these plants in with no problem at all."
"Birddog" was the nickname of L.D. Russell, game warden for much of Wekiwahatchee and Ogeechee counties. Mr. Russell, a part— time revenue agent and narcotics officer, gained his name by his habit of pointing his finger at suspected perpetrators as they passed by him in the towns and on the country roads of the Wekiwahatchee Delta. Tradition had it that the man who had "Birddog’s" finger of fate pointed at him would some day do time in Starke or Raiford or Draper, or even in Atlanta. Grover hoped "Birddog" would keep his hands to himself and never point that legendary finger at him.
The skies cleared as The Stumpjumper rounded the bend leading to the clump of ironwood trees Grover used to hide his boat. Taking a last minute glance to see if a fresh wasp or
hornet nest blocked their way, Grover and Zero lowered themselves to avoid the ironwood limbs as the protective leaves brushed over the boat and camouflaged The Stumpjumper as it made its landing.
Quickly pulling the boat out of the water and over the bank, Grover readied his cargo for the trip into the swamp. Retrieving his wheelbarrow from its hiding place, Grover used bungee cords to strap the four ice chests onto the large barrow. As Grover snaked his burden through the small hammocks and puddles of the swamp, Zero led the way, snapping his jaws at the bugs and keeping an eye out for cottonmouths. Soon they arrived at the cypress dome that surrounded the small island that Grover called "The Farm."
As Grover was unloading, he was interrupted by an unpleasant odor. "I smell k'yarn, Zero," said Grover. But this was no ordinary odor of carrion. This was the unmistakable stench of dead and decaying human flesh. Grover had smelled it before. As a boy, he had helped his father clean out the shack in which Grover’s grandfather, Pap Moss, had died and decayed.
"Zero, that smells just like Pap’s old easy chair did before we burned it in his front yard in 1959."
Then Grover saw the bloody guts. Lodged between two cypress knees were a fly—covered set of heart and lungs. Turning in horror to the opposite direction, he saw the torso of a cave diver underneath the clear water of the limestone spring that supplied this stand of cypress and Ogeechee tupelo. Stuffed under a root in the shallows, the bloated torso’s head was still covered with the diver’s steel helmet. There was a splash and Zero was gone. Without even one yelp of terror, Grover’s loyal companion of eleven years disappeared underneath the clear waters of the limestone spring. As if by instinct, Grover began to run, and, as he ran, he heard a mighty, bloodcurdling sound.
It was the sound of breaking bones.
CHAPTER 2
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Revelations 12:9
Grover didn’t run very far. He wasn’t afraid of gators. He’d been around gators all his life, and he knew that gators mind their own business. He hated losing Zero, but a hungry gator could eat you out of house and home, and a dog like Zero was just an appetizer for a big old "red—eyed" bull gator. Grover needed to get his plants in the dirt and even a monster gator wouldn’t stop him.
As Grover walked back toward his wheelbarrow, he felt guilty and a little ashamed.
"I can see it now. I’m gonna end up just like Pap Moss. Standing on the corner of Main and St. Andrews Street selling boiled peanuts and warning anyone who will listen about Old Tom," he thought.
Pap Moss, Grover’s grandfather, had worked hard and long at building a reputation of being "cuckoo." Disabled by mustard gas during World War I, Pap returned to Southeast Alabama with little to prevent his eventual failure as a farmer and a father. During his last years on the streets of Tustennuggee, Alabama, he had become something akin to the village idiot. Holding court at his peanut stand underneath the Cash’s Drug Store sign, he talked endlessly about his lifelong battle with his saurian nemesis, Old Tom.
Old Tom was the stuff of legends. A giant red—eyed bull gator, Tom was the Loch Ness Monster of South Alabama and Northwest Florida. Generation after generation of Lime Sinks youngsters heard the terrible tales of bellies torn open and legs hanging by the vertebral column. Old Tom wasn’t bashful about visiting your pigpen at night, and his tail was so powerful that he could slap a mule into the water with one flip. Old Tom was a dragon, and Pap Moss was his St. George or St. Michael, take your pick. A shining knight who sold peanuts during business hours before returning to the hunting blind behind his truck patch each evening.
All of Grover's childhood friends made fun of his grandfather. They’d ride their bicycles downtown every Saturday, so they could torment the old man with their taunts of "Hey, Gatorman! See ya later, alligator; after while crocodile!" and laugh as he threatened them with his walking cane. Grover Moss was not going to be threatened by any old gator. An obsession with Old Tom was not going to become a family tradition.
"I ain’t worried ‘bout this gator," Grover thought as he approached the limestone spring where he had lost his dog.
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Old Tom’s hollow roar shook Grover to his bones, and this man of the woods found himself running once more.
CHAPTER 3And I will make Jerusalem heaps and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.Jeremiah 9:11
"So, whatever caused Mr. Reagan’s bull to disappear remains a mystery. However, with an enormous five—toed track that spans twenty inches, this creature will certainly gain worldwide attention. This is Cleatus Holland reporting for Channel 4 News at Noon. More on the monster this evening on the 6 o’clock Report."
Leon Walker turned off the TV and reread the brief letter he had just written to the editor of the Tustennuggee News.
Dear Editor,
According to the Channel 4 News at Noon, many citizens of our county and possibly the rest of Earth are concerned about the existence of some sort of monster.
Let me take this opportunity to inform you that these are not monsters. These animals are perfectly formed crocodilians of the genus species Alligator mississippiensis. These varmints also happen to be very large, and I find that entirely appropriate.
Like it or not, your rivers and ponds are now inhabited with vast numbers of various voracious reptiles which have been genetically altered to produce a complete lose of growth control.
At present, many of the alligators are approaching 28 feet in length with a weight of over 1 ton.
If you don’t like it, I’d advise you to leave this area. There are cars, planes, and trains moving in every direction at all times of the day and night.
The animals that you are about to discover are useful
tools in the hands of ALMIGHTY GOD, and they are now
consecrated to HIS DIVINE PURPOSE.
Yours truly,
The Snake Doctor
As soon as he finished reading the letter, the LORD GOD spoke to Leon, and the words were from the Old Testament of Amos, Chapter 6, Verse 10, "Hold thy tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of the Lord."
Leon immediately walked over to his gas stove and burned the letter. Leon spoke to his pet coati mundi, Yerbita, "Yes, Yerbita, Almighty God will lead me on the Holy Cause. Through me, Leon Walker, the Lord has intervened in the course of earthly affairs to ensure that the most evil force on Earth, the tyranny of His enemies, will be dominated, subjugated, and exterminated."
Yerbita was a little raccoon-like critter Leon had picked up in Ecuador. She was his daily companion, and she was the only being who ever heard anything concerning Leon’s Divine Mission.
It would be easy to dismiss Leon as a misanthrope. If anyone happened to discover the purpose of Leon’s mission, they could misinterpret it as a dislike or distrust of all mankind. But Leon knew that he was beyond such petty emotions as hatred. Leon Walker was on very intimate terms with Almighty God, and Leon was the first foot soldier in a coming army of Old Testament prophets who would become their Creator’s instruments of destruction.
Prophet Leon Walker reflected upon the recent events as reported on Channel 4 News. Leon hated that Bill Reagan lost his prize Santa Gertrudis bull. Bill’s bull had won the 1995 University of Florida Bull Test, and even though its value to Bill Reagan was incalculable, Leon had to be honest and admit to himself that the bull was a public nuisance.
"At least I’ll never have to worry again about Mr. Reagan’s negligence in allowing that pest to break through its fence. A bull that size was a hazard on a county right of way, " Leon thought.
Prophet Leon leaned back in his rocker and considered the results of his five long years of research at Wekiwahatchee StateUniversity’s Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology.
"Adjunct temporary laboratory instructor. More like night janitor or stock boy, "thought Leon.
Well, the stock boy had done good. Five years on the graveyard shift, and look at what he had to show for his work:
1. The complete amino acid sequences for most reptilian Growth Hormone Releasing Hormone (GHRH) and its corresponding receptor proteins within the cell membrane.
2. A complete model for GHRH signaling in the pituitary cells that produce Growth Hormone (GH).
3. The enhancement of production of receptor induced C protein which increase the accumulation and activation of the catalytic cascade that activates the Growth Hormone Gene.
4. The discovery of a new protein which activates transcription of the Growth Hormone Messenger RNA and protein in order to replenish cellular stores of growth hormone to be released by pituitary cells.
5. The discovery that this same protein stimulated transcription of the GHRH receptor gene thus leading to greater numbers of GHRIH receptors and thus enhancing the production of GH in the pituitary cell.
6. The discovery of a transgenic technique that activates all of these mechanisms as well as activating mutations that produce pituitary tumors which result in hypersecretion of Growth Hormone.
In other words, Leon Walker had completely removed every possible control upon the growth of any reptile that crawled on the face of the earth, and he had not broken one legal statute
Now the time had come for another prayer for divine guidance. Another instrument of destruction was needed in the war which would triumph over the cancerous group of satan worshippers that now inhabited the planet.
Leon spoke to Yerbita," I may die, Pobrecita, but so will this so-called human race. And my death will be a triumph and another Righteous Soul will take up my sword and replace me."
Quoting Isaiah 10:23, he continued, "For the Lord GOD of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all land."
Leon Walker, prophet of doom and terror, returned to his stacks of journal articles on the microbiology of the genera Bacillus and Clostridium.
CHAPTER 4
And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs came out of the
mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and
out of the mouth of the false prophet.Revelation 16:13
A curious character who watched Cleatus Holland’s broadcast was the owner of a local petting zoo, Oakley "Oak" Galloway. Oak Galloway screamed at Cleatus Holland’s image on the TV tube,
"Oh Lord, that Rotten Headed S.O.B. weighs over a ton! He’s mine! He’s mine! He’s mine! I will have that gator. I can see it now! Tampa Stadium! $1000 a seat. $1500 family of four; lower Two—Toed Tom by helicopter onto the field and watch that 30 foot bastard go to town! Oh, buddy! Magnificent! No more time for boa constructors munching on strays and possums—-forget the Food Chain Act!——Tremendous!——no more Munch Bunch Circus!—— Fantastic! The sky is the LIMIT! Watch out State Prison! Capital Punishment coming at you Live and in Living Color, courtesy of the World’s Largest Gator, Two—Toed Tom! Boy, he might shake you like a pitbull or an armadillo, or he might slurp you down like slimy boiled okree--the sure bet is you gonna be gator turd! For sure ... but wait a minute. Why let Tampa Stadium get a piece of the rock? I can build a pit right here at the Live Oak Petting Zoo. There’s that buzzing in my ear!"
Oak gazed out of his den window.
"If you build it, they will come."
CHAPTER 5
Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god; shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secret of the heart.
Psalms 44:19—21
"Hey Jim, how many of those collars with the old survival beacons can I get from you right now?" Oak Galloway was calling a favor from his old kindergarten buddy, Jim Spurling.
"What you need beacon collars for in the middle of July?," Jim asked.
"The zoo is in line for some grant money to do a rabies study on coons. All I need you to do is let me have about a dozen collars, add a tracking cell to the satellite, and get me a hard copy of the overnight beacon movement in the morning. One—time shot. You and I will be slick before noon tomorrow."
"Don’t put my beacon on anything other than a coon," commanded Jim.
"Buddy, I understand. Trust me.I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. There’ll be no problem," Oak lied. Oak hated being that way;having to tell lies to old friends. "Come on partner, let's cut a deal."
"Where did you get twelve coons?" asked Jim.
"Well, we got five here right now and Poor Boy took my pickup to Panama City to pick up maybe seven more at the Snake—A—Torium. All right?"
"All right."
"Super! Call your warehouse and tell them I’ll be there directly. Make the ticket out for Live Oak Zoo. Okay?"
"Okay. See you later, alligator."
"Afterwhile, Crocodile."
Jim Spurling contemplated the phone call he was about to make to the warehouse of his family’s mail—order business, Gulf States Vet Supply. He knew that there was no rabies study. "God knows what sort of devilment Oak is up to," Jim thought.
He punched the numbers into his cell phone and called in the order. With a little luck, Oak would keep his word on closing out this deal by tomorrow. Oak was generally pretty good at wrapping things up. Taking care of business. TCB. Years before, Jim had called upon Oak’s strong powers of persuasion.
Back in ‘83, Jim’s vet supply stepped a little too deep into the dog collar business in South Florida. One of Jim’s best customers was popped for running (in the words of the indictment) "a school for sadism and masochism" in St. Pete. Arming Oak with little more than a credit card and a set of master keys, Jim sent his zookeeper pal down to Sarasota to clean up the mess on a Friday morning- By Saturday morning, the bruised body of Jim’s customer was found hanging from his Longboat Key shower nozzle. By Sunday, the "suicide victim’s" family was happy the cremation was over with. On Monday, Jim Spurling was back in the dog collar business. But this time, it was only the dog collar business, and only collars which were to be sold in places like K—Marts and vet offices. No more adult toy ‘Tupperware" parties at the beach. The "Feminine Touch" division of Gulf States Vet Supply closed after that episode.
Jim put the phone back in its waterproof case and returned to the readout coming from his boat’s printer. With a computer linked to a geosynchronous satellite, Jim's vessel was like a
high—tech cork bobbing in the turbulent water below the Cowpen’s Dam on the Wekiwahatchee.Jim was doing what he loved best:tracking big fish. Today, his boat, Have Mercy, was receiving satellite—relayed signals from Army surplus beacons stapled to the anal fins of many of the giant alligator gar and sturgeon that teamed in the boiling turbine wash of Lake Euchee’s brown water.
The Cowpen’s Dam, built in the mid—fifties, prevented these monster fish from moving upstream, and only now had the federal government attempted to contemplate the damage done by the dam and its impoundment, Lake Euchee, a public works project of pharaonic proportions.
"Why, that dam opened the river trade back up!," crowed the coffee shop politicians.
Yes, a sort of river trade opened. A river trade in empty grain silos and empty state docks real estate was certainly established. A few barge loads of pine logs were pushed down to the paper mill by tug boats crewed by men who by—passed their onboard septic tanks and tossed their garbage into the wounded river. Crews of men who routinely shot whatever they liked on the river bank thought nothing of killing the young bald eagle recently released by the Corps of Engineers.
The old river trade could never be revived. Competition by the railroads had people moving away from the river over a hundred years ago. Hell, that migration had been going on even before the War Between The States.Now the only large town on the Wekiwahatchee was Tustennuggee. And it thrived on the east—west trade of the rail and interstate systems. The dam simply held the backwater that folks from Tustennuggee who lived on "Silk Stocking Avenue" used when they visited their vacation homes built upon the shores of Lake Euchee.
Right now, Jim was unconcerned about the monumental fraud represented by the Cowpen’s Dam. All he wanted to know was how two of his prize giant gar got above the dam and ended up in a shallow slough on the most eastern edge of the spillway. Jim knew right where his gar had moved, "Those two bastards are in that little slough on the old Euchee Reservation above the place where the Corps let trees grow on the spillway." He thought, "I’ll bet they’re mating."
Suddenly, an image of the old 1824 Township plat of the Euchee Reservation was planted in Jim’s mind’s eye, and he recalled the excitement he had felt when he found the story of the old reservation’s demise included in the Congressional Record of 1836.
Jim gazed at the silver sheen of water coming over the spillway of Cowpen’s Dam and contemplated the inundation of Chief Haujo Tustennugee Reservation for the Euchee. Three quarters the acreage was covered by Lake Euchee’s water. Lost in thought, Jim stared at the water and considered all that was lost back when the water rose in '54.
Jim knew about as much as anybody about the artifacts lost when water covered this river junction. The junction of the Wekiwahatchee and the Talakhatchee represented an I-10/I-95 interchange for generations of Native Americans who lived before 1800. Artifacts representing the highest culture of the Temple Mound period lay beneath Lake Euchee’s water. A Spanish mission, San Nicholas, also rested across the flooded river channel, covered by one hundred and thirty—six feet of stagnant backwater. Underneath the same water lay a British fort and burial ground with a cache of 18th century British arms still packed in the grease. The remains of these unhappy soldiers of fortune rested a few miles north of the mission on the same side of the channel. Called the Seminole Fort, the explosion of its powder magazine in July of 1816 was heard almost two hundred miles away in Pensacola, and its power vaporized almost 300 runaway slaves. Not all of the artifacts beneath the lake consisted of ruined pottery, glass, and rust. All of the treasure plundered by the motley crews of Director General Bowles, the last great pirate of the Gulf, lay deep in the muck of Lake Euchee.
Jim always wondered why nobody ever bothered to build historical monuments for these cultures lost beneath the backwater.
"Buoys!", he thought, "Yeah! We could anchor monuments on buoys."
And then he thought of the objections he would undoubtedly face when he appealed to Tustennuggee's citizens for money to float monuments to commemorate the lives of Indians, runaway slaves, Spaniards, British soldiers of fortune, and Tory pirates.
"This will sink like the Titanic. Forget it."
Jim returned to his printer before preparing to lock through the dam in order to follow his precious fish.
"What on God's green earth are these gars doing hooked up in that slough? I’ve got to follow through on this."
Unfortunately, the secret of Jim Spurling’s gars was perhaps the strangest and most tragic of all the unknown things hidden in the oblivion of Lake Euchee's dark water.
CHAPTER 6
Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even
Christ.
Matthew 23:10
“Holy shit! They’re everywherel” blurted Oak, instantly wishing he could take back his words as he anxiously read the printout of the previous evening’s beacon activity.
“Where, Mr. Oak? Where?” asked Edward “Poor Boy” McCray, Oak’s driver and righthand man.
“Them damn lovebugs, Poor Boy. Look at that windshield, and I know you had to have washed it this morning.”
“I shore did, Mr. Oak, I shore did.”
“Poor Boy, let me take that burned—out trailer on the Mars Hill place off your hands.”
“Hmmmm. It ain’t in that bad a shape. The roof is solid. Why, the man that built that trailer used..."
"I got two hundred dollars right here,” Oak interrupted while placing the two bills on the dashboard of the moving pickup. “We’ll trade out the rest.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, remember that I own the land that it’s sitting on and I’ve forgotten about all that back rent. Now, what else do you want me to do for you?”
“Let me fish the upper pond,” Poor Boy knew exactly what he wanted.
"On a trial basis only. You can keep the little ones, but anything over five pounds goes back and anything over ten gets videotaped."
"I can’t work that dang video thing."
"We’ll set it up in the farm house soon. I’ll show you how. We got a deal?’
"Deal."
"Good. Let me off at the zoo and go down to Five Points and load up a crew. If they can read this bill of lading, I don’t care if they’re drunk. It’s 8 inches by 11 inches. Bring a ruler and make them measure this paper. Get me four out to Mars Hill to get started stripping that trailer down to the structural steel this morning and promise another four to work this afternoon. That should take care of everything. Hey, Poor Boy, what is six inches long, has a big head, and your wife, Sonya, loves more than she does you?"
"I don’t want to know the answer, Mr. Oak," Poor Boy replied timidly.
"One of them new hundred dollar bills I just give you. Ha! Hal Ha!"
Oak said nothing more on the trip out to the zoo. Poor Boy also remained silent. Poor Boy didn’t have good sense, but he had sense enough to know to leave sleeping dogs alone.
Poor Boy should have asked a few questions about the way Mr. Oak had planned his day. Poor Boy had never seen a gator trap the size of a house trailer, but by sundown, with the help of Tustennuggee’s most intellectually gifted winos and geek monsters, Poor Boy McCray would oversee the construction of the World’s Largest Gator Trap. Patched together with steel cable and chain link fence, this junk yard contraption would soon make history.
CHAPTER 7
But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable in that
day for Sodom, than for that city.
Luke 10:12
Two miles below Cowpen’s Dam lay the Queen City on the bluff, Tustennuggee, Alabama. Laid out around an old federal armory, the town proved to be an enigma to most outsiders. The convoluted actions of Tustennuggee government and business created by over a century of secrecy seemed to defy all explanation. Yet just underneath the surface of the arbitrary and illogical appearance of each transaction was a spirit of love. Yes, old—fashioned Southern family love. And in the words of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, ‘How do you spell love? M—O—N-E-Y!’
On this Friday morning, as Poor Boy and his crew of inebriated metal workers struggled to strip a well—built firetrap trailer down to its bare steel frame on old Mars Hill, the strangest day in Tustennuggee’s storied history began to unfold.
Down on the riverbank south of the warehouse district, a crew at the foot of Water Street contemplated the near miss of a disaster of cataclysmic proportions.
“I knowed that pipe was coming up back on the day that sorry,
rottenheaded Yankee sack of shit put it down,” yelled Bobby “River Rat” Duncan. “I knowed that drunk dago dick licker loved sand more than concrete. Why, he would steal the quarters off his dead mama's eyes. The day he poured those anchors,
I told him, ‘You walk around here thinking you’re some sort of Yankee prince, but in Alabama, boy, you’re just another Yankee son of a bitch.”
Bobby the River Rat was a ubiquitous character around the lower Wekiwahatchee Valley. With only one 1966 semester of high school trig behind him, he had managed to work himself into important positions on every significant construction project in the region during the past thirty years, and as much as Bobby loved accuracy and straight lines, he also loved beer and whiskey. So much so that each hangover morning began with “The Rat’s Breakfast of Champions——a pint of buttermilk and a Zero candy bar.
Munching on his Zero, Rat contemplated his current boss. On this sunny Friday morning, the Rat’s boss was Ira “Slack” Steele, the most notorious and hated diver on the Gulf Coast. Ira Steele earned his nickname the old—fashioned way: pure meanness. Slack perfected his evil by abusing his dive tenders, so this gained him the name “Slack" from his constant command/complaint, “Give me some slack!”
Rat glared at Slack this morning and decided that Robert Duncan was not working for a corrupt stick of white trash today. Never responding to the inevitable question——"Where you going?”—Rat walked north up River Street to his personal oasis. He contemplated an early brunch. Something light. Something like a tomato sandwich——about the only thing you could get this time of day at the Wheelhouse Bar, home of Odell Swann's Maters and Taters.
Walking through the darkened doorway of Tustennuggee’s most famous nightspot, Rat felt as though he had been going to this old lounge for centuries and, without discounting reincarnation, possibly he had. Legend had it that parts of the original ferryman’s house on the Old Spanish Trail had been built into the walls of this ancient tavern.
The only patron at the bar at this early morning hour was one of Rat's old high school buddies, Grover Moss.
Grover looked up from his plate of tomato sandwiches dripping with hot pepper sauce. “Whoa, Rat! Little early even for you, ain’t it?”
“I took a vacation. Yeah, I’m taking me a good vacation.”
“What ya want to eat and drink?" Odell Swann yelled as she sat an opened Pabst bottle onto the bar’s Formica top in front of Rat. Rat replied, “Give me a ‘mater sandwich plate.”
“So, what happened this time?” Grover asked.
“Standard operating procedure--covering up H and S
Construction Company's stinking shit.”
Grover chuckled and asked, “You know what H and S stands for, don’t you, Rat?”
“Yea, ‘Hire them and Screw them.’”
“Naw. It’s ‘Hold them and Sodomize them!’”
“If you say so.”
“So, what’s up?~
“Damn gas line popped up off the river bottom, and one of WGN’S tows hit it,” explained Rat.
“And we’re still here to talk about it?” Grover asked incredulously.
"Looks like it. No leaks now, but they’ve got to sink that damn pipeline before Channel 4 and the News get ahold of it."
That mission was at that moment being accomplished. “Slack” Steele had used temporary anchors to lower the floating compressed gas pipeline, and he was supposed to be preparing to triple—weld a bolted anchor strap over the damaged pipe.
You could never accuse Ira “Slack” Steele of working himself out of a job. Certainly, he could have made a short order out of this gas line problem, but now was the time for Mr. Slack to make his gravy money, so there he sat on the muddy floor of the sluggish Wekiwahatchee, happily using his magnesium welding rods to
engrave “Ira was here” on a large steam engine boiler he had found on the river bottom.
After finishing his underwater graffiti with the date “7—7—07,” slack cut off his torch and waited for his bottom time to run out.
Suddenly, a force sucked Slack backward so quickly through the darkness that he felt like a marionette whose strings had been jerked. After hitting a fleshy wall, the diver was quickly covered by the soft membranous lining of the inside of Old Tom’s jaws. Reaching for the knife strapped to his calf, Slack prepared to defend himself when the gator’s forward movement brought Slack to the limit of his air line and tether. Jerked in the opposite direction, Slack was almost out of the great lizard’s jaws when the giant alligator instinctively crushed the morsel almost stolen from his enormous snout.
Ira Steele had finally been cut some slack, and so had his pipeline. Tangled in Ira’s tether, the flimsy bolts that temporarily held the line’s anchors snapped, and again the pipeline returned to the Wekiwahatchee’s surface. The second trip up was more than the pipeline could stand, and now it popped——and it popped loudly. High and sharp like a rifle shot and loud like a transformer exploding. But this sound was nothing compared to what was coming. On the bank, the fastest man to his truck, pumped by adrenalin and certain of making his escape, turned his vehicle’s ignition switch.
BAAHLOOM!
That was all she wrote for a large portion of Tustennuggee's waterfront.
Picking themselves off the bar room floor, Rat looked over a Grover and said, “Well, Grover, we both know what that was.”
CHAPTER 8
For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of
the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou
brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou
brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to
be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
Psalms 74:12—14
Oakley Galloway walked across the white rock parking lot of
his roadside zoo and ice cream parlor. Attractively landscaped
with gigantic limestone boulders, elephant ears, ferns, and
cabbage palms, the expansive, white gravel parking lot was shaded
by two-hundred year old live oaks and bordered by massive elephant
ears and philodendrons that shielded the public from the main
building of the Live Oak Zoo, a replica of a 17th century Andean
hacienda. walking along the walkway, Oak whistled for his
gardener, Ernesto. As Oak entered the iron gates of the
hacienda’s walls, he heard Ernesto’s voice coming up from the
direction of the Big Spring, a cavern carved from the soft
limestone that emptied over 50 million gallons of clear ground
water per day into Spring Creek.
“Patron, Patron!” cried Ernesto.
A sudden burst of noise, louder than a clap of thunder, shook
the hacienda’s windows.
Ernesto stopped and yelled, “What is it, Senor Oak? ;Hace
ruido grande! What is it, Senor Oak?”
“Sonic boom. Jets. Come se dice en espafiol? Uh, aviones
de reaccion. Probably the Blue Angels. I saw Trader Jon in
Pensacola Saturday night, and he told me that they’d be flying a
practice run over this way this week.” Oak seemed unconcerned by
the possibility that the sound could have been produced by an
enormous explosion.
“Ernesto, check the fuel in the pontoon boat and tell Pilar
to fix a cooler for overnight. Get the car phones and the
batteries. We’ll be spending the night on the river.”
“Where we go, Senor?”
“Cotton Landing, just above Bloody Bluff Island.”
“I make everything ready Senor. "
“Bueno, mi amigo, muy buenisimo.”
Oak walked up the steps of the hacienda’s porch and moved
toward the open stairs that led to the living quarters that filled
the second floor of the hacienda’s main house. The gift
shop and ice cream parlor guests entered as they began their
tour of the Live Oak Zoo occupied the main building’s first floor.
Entering the trophy room few guests ever visited, Oak walked
over to the manatee mounted on the knotty pine panelled wall.
Pulling on the sea cow’s massive head, Oak opened the secret panel
concealing the cabinet that held a most unusual collection.
Compelled to gaze upon his gruesome treasures once more, Oak
contemplated his future and how his life would soon change.
Oakley Galloway was not your average middle-aged Alabamian.
The Live Oak Zoo was not any ordinary roadside gator farm.
Oak built this business for almost forty years with his skill
as an alligator wrestler and bulldogging gators underwater for all
those years had earned him a fortune, but he was not satisfied.
He wanted another jewel in his crown. He dreamed of another way
to shock the public, and he wanted especially to shock the piss
out of the self-pitying, bleeding-heart animal rights advocates
who hounded him daily, and now diligently threatened to destroy
his beloved gator farm.
He fixed his eyes steadily upon the unusual group of
curiosities that over one hundred years of family business had
amassed from the Amazon jungle. Oak possessed the world’s largest
collection of shrunken heads; today he dreamed of adding another
specimen to his collection.
“I’d like to see that FART lunatic’s head shrunk down and
stuffed in this old cupboard,” Oak hissed.
Ah yes. FART was the acronym for Oak’s archenemy: the
Florida Animal Rights Trust. This sect, composed mainly of
single, unemployed thirty—something neurotics from the southern
portion of the Sunshine state, had sought out new frontiers and
found them north of the Florida Line in Wekiwahatchee County,
Alabama. Oak’s roadside zoo was only one of their targets. One
of their more radical and outgoing members, was Stephanie
Rabinowitz. She used to perform as a carrot, brussel sprout, or
rutabaga but had tired of dressing up in giant vegetable
costumes to promote vegetarianism in elementary schools. Now, she
committed her life to becoming the modern version of Nemesis, the
ancient Greek goddess, to deal out retribution to the owner of the
Live Oak Zoo as well as to the scientists who ran the Cell and
Molecular Biology Department of Wekiwahatchee State University.
Oak was serious about his desire to see Stephanie’s hat size
profoundly reduced. In fact, the dark, wrinkled face with hand-
sown lips of one of his family’s older and unfortunate pests, the
late Reverend Parker Cannon, now resided in Oak’s strange trophy
case. Over seventy years before, in 1921, the Reverend Cannon had
crossed the path of Oak’s family. Reverend Cannon’s Christian
Crusade had targeted Oak’s great uncle, Milton Moss.
Milton’s business was a traveling vaudeville show called
Uncle Milt’s Banana Boat Show. Its main profit-maker was Uncle
Milt’s Miracle Banana Tonic. Parker Cannon claimed that Uncle
Milt’s tonic was nothing more than wild cat rum adulterated with
banana extract and that the Banana Boat Show was nothing more than
a front for an extensive bootlegging operation. Unfortunately,
Rev. Cannon was correct and his campaign was one of many factors
that destroyed Uncle Milt and the Spanish Moss Dairy, the winter
home for Uncle Milt’s Banana Boat Show.
Uncle Milt’s decline led to his new identity as Pap Moss, the
alligator-obsessed peanut vendor, who became a favorite target of
Tustennuggee’s bicycle-riding hooligans. Years after his decline
began, Pap witnessed Reverend Cannon’s strange return to
Tustennuggee. In 1957, Parker Cannon attempted the conversion of
Ecuador’s Jivaro Indians and his life ended in a flurry of poison
arrows. Pap Moss took special pleasure on the day that he placed
the small face, framed by long gray hair, into the trophy cabinet
located on the site of one of Reverend Cannon’s earlier conquests,
the old main house of the Spanish Moss Dairy. It’s strange
sometimes how things that go around come around.
And now, at the beginning of a new millennium and after more
than 70 years, the old Spanish Moss Dairy was under attack once
more. This time, there were no Bible-thumping hypocrites to shut
down a family business. Now, a new generation of barren Prozac—
popping pessimists had started a holy war to protect the
inalienable rights of a bunch of obese alligators.
Oak closed the cabinet and returned the old stuffed manatee
to its proper place. He thought, “If they think an old neon sign
with a gator eating a he-coon is offensive advertising, they’ll
drop their teeth when they see the monster that old Oak is about
to haul out of Irwin’s Hell Swamp. They’ll see a new sign:
The Live Oak—Zoo--Open Daily--See Old Oak wrestle Leviathan,
the Swamp Dragon-—the most terrifying Devil that ever
walked the Earth!
“Miss Stephanie better watch her step in Wekiwahatchee country or
her alligator mouth is gonna write a check that her hummingbird
ass can’t cash!”
CHAPTER 9
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why
art thou so far from helping me, and from the
words of my roaring?
Psalm 22, Verse 1
Without even saying goodbye to Rat, Grover dusted himself off
and walked out of the bar. Damage from the gas pipeline explosion
on Tustennuggee’s riverfront was not severe on the Wheelhouse
Block between South St. Andrew and Cotton Streets. As he headed
down the Water Street sidewalk toward his old van, Grover
contemplated the calm that comes after the storm. Only the distant
wailing of the sirens and the victims three blocks down Water
Street disturbed the quiet of noon that Friday.
Grover couldn’t stand the sounds produced by disaster.
Besides, he’d heard enough bad sounds for one day. Old Grover’s
mind had about given out on him today, so he said a little prayer
for Tustennuggee’s dead, injured and dying and climbed up into his
‘74 Ford Econoline. Grover knew there’d be no shortage of heroes
in his hometown today. He’d grown up with these boys. He knew none
of them would fall off the firetruck. (Except maybe if there was a
meltdown at the George C. Wallace Nuclear Power Plant over at
Black Gum Head.)Grover resolved to return to the riverfront
tomorrow and help with the cleanup.
“Won’t be as much ruckus on Saturday,” thought Grover.
Grover drove his rusting van down Main Street to where the
four-lane to Panama City opened up near the City Cemetery. Looking
east toward the northwest corner, Grover observed the Williams
Plot covering this entire section of Tustennuggee’s forty-acre
City Cemetery for White Persons. When Grover was growing up, T-
Town’s older boys told him that the Williams Plot, with its
copingstone and forty-four-foot high granite obelisk was the place
where God was buried. Grover knew that ground like the back of his
hand. Being a caretaker for Tustennuggee’ s sixty acres of
municipal cemeteries [40 acres of white and 20 acres of colored]
was Grover’s first job after high school. For over thirty years
he’d watched his old job site fill up.
“There’ll be a few more planted there by sundown tomorrow,”
Grover thought.
Boy, Grover missed Zero. He really loved that dog. Losing
Zero was like losing your best friend. Riding south down Bay Line
Road, Grover surveyed acre after acre of the marble and granite
shaded by cabbage palms, palmettos, cedars and live oaks.
“This is a nightmare,” Grover said out loud and in
midsentence caught himself in his habit of talking to himself.
Eight years of living with Zero had exacerbated that problem. That
was probably one of the reasons Grover’s customers called him
ditsy.
“Well, grieving can wait,” Grover continued.
Accelerating the Blue Nut Truck after getting a green on
Tustennuggee’s last light, Grover speeded down the four-lane
toward his small farmhouse two miles south of town on the banks of
Spring Creek just below the Florida Line. Grover really wanted to
get home quickly, put in some porch swing time, and consider all
his options. How could he tell anyone about encountering Old Tom?
Not only would his report divulge the location of his pot patch
but it would dredge up memories of his lunatic grandfather, Pap
Moss. The last thing the old boy needed was to have the Discovery
Channel’s Loch Ness Monster Search Team camped out in that cypress
dome near the banks of Bloody Bluff Creek. It’d have to be
somebody else’s job to inform Wekiwahatchee County’s citizens that
their most awful legend, Old Tom, was alive and well and visiting
close to home.
“Hell, it ain’t that big a problem. They’ll find out soon
enough,” Grover thought. It was already April and the bull gators
down in Irwin Hell’s Swamp would soon be bellowing one coming
evening. Somebody would hear it. Somebody would hear that red-eyed
monster’s deep-throated thunder.
“You’ll be able to hear that big papa gator for miles,”
Grover thought. “They’ll hear him calling down on Alberson Stretch
and even up at the Fish Camp on Boynton Island.”
Grover pulled into the limestone block gates of Oak
Galloway’s Live Oak Zoo and slowed his van to a crawl as he eased
over crushed white gravel toward the sandy trail leading to his
twenty acres on Spring Creek. Blood may be thicker than water, but
stuff like that didn’t matter to cousin Oak and Grover’s blood
pressure always bumped up a notch when he drove past his first
cousin’s Spanish Moss Hacienda.
“Never know what he might be on,” Grover thought as he
contemplated the fear he always felt as he traveled over his first
cousin’s land. “Thank God my deed from Pap included this easement.
I know I have a legal right to be here, but it still scares the
shit out of me every time I have to pull into ol’ Cuz’s gate just
to get to my own house.”
There was no lack of freaks of nature in the Lime Sink
Region. Wekiwahatchee County, Alabama, and Ogeechee County,
Florida, had plenty of hell-demons; two-legged as well as four-
legged.
“At least my little ‘local problem’ with Oak keeps me on my
toes,” Grover reasoned. “Heaven help me if this old ‘74 fuck truck
ever breaks down before I make it to my land line. Oak would
probably shoot me in the back if he ever saw me walking on his
property.”
The Bermuda grass in Grover’s field was making hay this
spring afternoon, and he gazed with pride along the fence line of
the hillside pasture leading down to the white sand bank where
aeons of Big Springs’ cool, clear water had deposited untold tons
of its snow white grains of disintegrated quartzite. Parking his
Ford van by the cookshed, Grover climbed the steps up to the porch
of the grey cypress decked shotgun house he called home. With each
step he felt the burden of his 51 years; years he loved and
thanked God for every day, but years heavy with suffering and
grief.
Grover needed to smoke some reefer.
Opening his unlocked front door, Grover reached up to the
foyer closet’s door casing. Pulling down his little tin box, he
returned to the front porch, pulling the cord on both ceiling fans
as he strode across the cypress planks toward his green porch
swing. After checking the horizon to see whether the coast was
clear, Grover Moss, known affectionately to his friends as “Fur
Trader,” leaned back and took a hit off the pipe he made from the
antler of a twelve-point he’d killed at Ft. Rucker almost 40 years
before.
After five tokes of his favorite blend, Grover gazed out over
his grassy field and accessed his progress.
“Boy, I miss that dog. I’m gonna have to find a little Zero
soon.”
It was lonely without his dog. Walking back to the front
door, Grover reached inside to the corner bookcase that held his
photo albums. Returning to the swing, he poured over the pages
looking for pictures of his beloved pit bull. Sure enough, he
found photographs of Zero, but he also found more than he was
looking for. Grover found the pictures of Lorrie. There she
stood, a Southern angel, in that aquamarine bathing suit her
mother sewed wearing Grover’s Wekiwahatchee High School class ring
on her left hand.
Keeping with his morning’s horrible memories of Zero’s death
in the enormous jaws of Old Tom, and the gas explosion on
Tustennuggee’s riverfront, Grover thought of monsters again. Only
this time the monsters weren’t giant flesh and blood, red-eyed
reptiles. These monsters were made out of strong emotions. These
were green-eyed monsters; disturbing feelings Grover could not
deny.
He was still in love with her.
“How in the hell could this happen?” Grover asked himself.
“What kind of bond could connect me to a damn woman I haven’t seen
or heard from in twenty-seven years? I’ve got to get over that
cunt. Man, I need a drink!”
Back on the swing with a cold bottle of India pale ale,
Grover looked at Lorrie’s picture once more and it hit him. There
was his answer in full living color: so simple, so plain and
simple. Her hands! Grover’s whole world was right there in
Lorrie’s fingers!
Suddenly, stoned and rocking in his porch swing, Grover
Milton Moss, Esquire, made a miraculous discovery. Now he
understood the monster; not Old Tom but his other monster.
Grover’s monster was the thought of never being touched by Lorrie
again in his lifetime. Here Grover found his greatest fear and as
any redneck knows, the best thing to do when scared is to go ahead
well armed. At that moment, Grover completely embraced the
unrequited love he held for his old girlfriend, Lorrie Walker.
“Good God, this feels good” Grover yelled.
It felt good to have Lorrie on his mind. Those thoughts were
more precious than gold. For the first time in almost thirty years
Grover fully grasped the joy and virtue contained in the
recollections of his youthful love with that beautiful woman. Memories of
Lorrie were Grover's most valuable possession and a determination to become the man worthy of Lorrie's affection now consumed Grover's soul.
CHAPTER 10
Blow ye the trumpet of Zion, and sound an
alarm in my holy mountain: let all the
inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day
of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand.
Joel, Chapter 2, Verse I
Leon Walker never named one of his saurian progeny “Old Tom,”
however, the tag certainly fit. Old Tom had gained quite a
notorious reputation over the generations. He had been credited
with every crime imaginable, so why not blame this explosion on
him too?
Leon knew better. He knew Old Tom was nothing more than a
convenient myth country people used to blame all their misery on.
Leon’s big babies weren’t legends. His gators were tools in the
hands of the Almighty God, and their bellowing would be the
forewarning of mankind’s coming doom. Every April morning brought
a warming of the waters and soon melancholy Leon, a hick Dr.
Frankenstein, would hear his monsters barking at the moon;
ferocious creatures who even their demented creator could not
control.
Grover Moss wasn’t the only person in Wekiwahatchee country
to anticipate the excitement Old Tom’s mating call would create.
Leon, the Magnificent Man of God, shared Grover’s assessment that
folks on the river would find out “soon enough” about the giant
gators. In fact, Leon had a hunch that his mutated reptilian
offspring might have something to do with the Tustennuggee blast.
Leon heard about the explosion from a disc jockey who
interrupted his favorite gospel music program to break the news of
the old river town’s disaster. Heading north in his peeling ‘71
Ford E-100 pickup, Leon Listened intently as he moved toward his
destination: the Supreme Cat Food factory in Montgomery. This
would be his last run. Phase I of Leon’s Divine Purpose was now
coming to an end.
Leon had named his four gators Thunder, Wrath, Fury and
Storm, and only one week after their release into the environment,
they were having quite an impact. Consecrated to His Divine
Purpose, these four monsters, each over 30 feet long and still
growing, were the Creator’s instrument of destruction. Their
warning call would not come from the mountain tops. Their bawling
alarm would come from the dark lowlands of terror. It would come
from Irwin’s Hell Swamp.
Rolling down Highway 231, Leon recalled one of his favorite
Bible verses form the Old Testament Book of Amos, Chapter 5, Verse
18:
"Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD!
to what end is it for you? The day of the LORD
is darkness and not light."
In that instant of recollection, Leon considered his
destination, Montgomery, Cradle of the Confederacy and home of
Alabama’s latest tourist trap: The Civil Rights Memorial at the
Southern Poverty Law Center, a religious shrine built to the gods
of affirmative action and a woman’s right to choose.
“Those Manic Marxists certainly didn’t use the King James
Version of the Bible as the source of their inscription,” Leon
fumed, ‘‘ 'Let justice roll down ...‘ My foot! That same chapter of
Amos, Chapter 5, Verse 24, states, ‘Let judgment (that means God’s
final judgment of all mankind) run down as waters and
righteousness as a mighty stream,” and without a trace of guilt,
Leon said out loud to the highway,
“And those waters will be God’s verdict: a
Divine death sentence on the entire human race."
God’s Holy Warrior, Leon Walker, spit out his warning like
the cry of the banshee, and as he bounced down the highway, the
Prophet Leon settled back into the comfort that comes from knowing
you are under the infallible protection of’ the shield of Almighty
God.
Leon hated to admit it, but even he was a little surprised by
the complete success of his endeavor to remove every genetic
barrier which could possibly interfere with the growth of an
alligator. Maybe Leon was able to do it because he had resolutely
set his heart in the right direction. Reverend Leon conceived of
his giant alligators as a dramatic object lesson. His gators
would preach his sermon.
The truth be told, the old Spanish Moss Dairy had a lot to do
with making Leon's apocalyptic gators a reality. lt was a long way
from surreptitiously deciphering and manipulating the alligator
genome to actually secretly raising four two-and-a-half ton
alligators to maturity. Nestled on the backside of the defunct
dairy’s property, an old concrete block milking barn served as the
nursery for Leon’s monsters. Fed by an unlimited supply of
specially formulated cat food and warmed by the hot water from a
geothermal artesian well drilled during a 1928 crude oil
exploration, Leon’s four dragons of the Apocalypse passionately
ate their way to maturity in the darkness provided by the painted
windows of the Old Spanish Moss Dairy’s milk barn.
Ironically, Leon’s gators grew up just over the hill from the
glare of Oak Galloway’s Live Oak Zoo’s neon sign. Little did Oak
realize that the alligator of his dreams, Leviathan, was raised
right under his nose and less than a mile across the road from his
home. By sundown this evening, Leon would return home to see that
garish sign, a flashing neon alligator repeatedly munching on a
cuddly raccoon, and he would head to the milk barn to unload his
last cargo of cat food.
“God made America the greatest country on Earth,” Leon
thought, “And with privilege comes responsibility. I will teach
them the consequences of their sins. It is my task to take God’s
words and write his law upon the hearts of men before the End.”
If you liked what you've read so far, email me at robertoreg@gmail.com and let me know what you think. Then I will print more of the story of the SNAKE DOCTOR.
ABOUT ME
- ROBERTOREG
- NORTHPORT, ALABAMA
I will be happy to answer any questions you might have about me. My email address is robertoreg@gmail.com
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