maureenmc2000 - Tumblr blog

maureenmc2000 · 8 years ago

Text

Dancing On The Tables: A Celebration Of The Athens-Atlanta Music Scene, Starring The B-52’s, The Fans, The Brains, Glenn Phillips and some act named R.E.M.!

I probably wouldn’t have agreed to write this article, except that Vanessa and Richard pitched an appealing idea: contact people from the Atlanta and Athens music scenes of the 1970’s-80’s and ask them three questions. Whatever you get from them goes in the article. No herding-of-cats was to be involved. No follow-up reminders, and no begging and pleading allowed.

After spending the past five years of my life working on projects that involved boatloads of goading and prodding, how could I resist participating in this experiment? I sent out a copious amount of emails and got back five responses. The thing is, my five correspondents perfectly exemplify the Atlanta/Athens music connection. Keith Bennett was one of the UGA art students who lived in the vortex of the Athens creative scene, a crumbling ante-bellum mansion belonging to UGA Professor Jim Herbert. Darryl Rhoades was the flamboyant and ferociously funny frontman for Darryl Rhoades and the Hahavishnu Orchestra, and Kevin Dunn was the guitarist for Atlanta band The Fans. Doreen Cochran was band coordinator for The Brains, and Glenn Phillips was guitarist in The Hampton Grease Band. From their stories and experiences, you will be able to see how the paths of the two cities intertwined.

I was a product of the interweaving of Athens and Atlanta, having grown up in both towns and participated in the music scenes in both places. Let’s start with me, and move on from there to Keith Bennett and beyond.

Maureen McLaughlin

1. Music scene you were in (ATH or ATL, or both):

Both. Definitely both.

2. Your connection to the music scene:

I was the B-52’s first manager. I also did a lot of networking between bands in Athens and Atlanta and other places as well, getting the Fans their first gig in NYC, shortly followed by doing the same for the B’s. Before that, I was going to concerts at the Twelfth Gate in Atlanta and in Piedmont Park.

3. What was the beginning of the Atlanta and Athens music connection for you personally?

I grew up in Atlanta and went to high school in the Sixties. As soon as I got my driver’s license, my mother turned the family car over to me. The deal was that I had to chauffeur my sisters and brother during the day, and at night I could do whatever I wanted. Having that freedom enabled me to start hanging out at the Twelfth Gate coffeehouse in Atlanta, an experience which changed my life. The Twelfth Gate was started by Grace Methodist Church to minister to the unchurched street kids hanging out on the Strip. It became a mecca for jazz and blues musicians who liked to play there because the audiences were fantastic, and it was one of the only truly integrated places in Atlanta where they could play. The club was in an old house, and the stage was in a corner of the dining room. The audience crammed into every nook and cranny of the first floor, jamming into the living room and kitchen, and spilling out on to the front porch. The house band was (or might as well have been) The Hampton Grease Band, a brilliant group of musicians who made the panes rattle in the windows with their wild style of jazz. I also saw McCoy Tyner there, and Larry Coryell, Pat Metheney, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee, Big Mama Thornton, John McLaughlin and many other incredible musicians, including my favorite, Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Between sets, the musicians hung out with the audience, and since many of the players were on a circuit where they came through town regularly, it was not hard for the audience to become friends with the musicians.

I also spent many afternoons in Piedmont Park listening to music. Many groups would play shows for money on Friday and Saturday nights, and then show up at Piedmont Park to spend Sunday afternoons making music. An incredible assortment of people came through there. The Allman Brothers were at Piedmont so, so many times that their music saturated my soul. It would not be unusual to find Edgar and Johnny Winter, Spirit, or the Grateful Dead playing there. Something was always going on, and it was all pretty wonderful.

When I moved to Athens to go to UGA, I got on the Concert Committee for the Student Government, which was an excellent way to get Atlanta bands to Athens. I also helped to start a coffeehouse in Memorial Hall at UGA, but it got shut down because we were dancing on the tables and playing inappropriate music, according to someone in the administration. All during my college years and afterwards, I ran a rut in the road from Athens to Atlanta, going to shows at Rose’s Cantina, 688, the Great Southeast Music Hall, and a number of other Atlanta venues.

4. What are you doing in music now?

I have been a part of the stage crew for our local music festival, AthFest, for the past 14 years. I get local people to announce the bands on the two outdoor stages. I am also slowly doing the research to write a book about Pylon.

5. Tell us one story you have never told anyone before about your time in a band or working in the scene.

After the Twelfth Gate closed, many of the musicians who played there began playing at the Great Southeast Music Hall. The two venues could not have been more different. While the Twelfth Gate had a bunch of random second-hand chairs along with sofas and armchairs crammed into a tiny space, the Music Hall was a proper theater with a large stage and plenty of room for several hundred people.

The first time Rahsaan Roland Kirk played at the larger venue, I went to see him, and the crowd was horrible. Instead of listening to the music, the audience spent the whole night trying to talk over it. At the end of the evening Rahsaan Roland Kirk told the audience that they were the worst group he had ever played in front of and that he would never come to Atlanta again. “If you ever want to see me again, you will have to come to the Village Vanguard in New York,” were his parting words to the spectators, who by this time had enough sense to shut up.

I went up to him afterwards to apologize for the crowd’s behavior and he told me, “Little girl (he always called me that), you better get out of Atlanta.” I told him, “Yes sir, I will.” Two weeks later I moved back to Athens, beginning one of the most intense periods of my life. The B-52’s had flown the coop, but Pylon was on the rise, as were R.E.M., Love Tractor, The Side Effects, and a whole host of other bands. We had some experiences during that time that can only be told one-on-one, and only then to the most discreet of friends.

Photo: L to R: Cindy, Maureen, The Incomparable Phyllis, Fred, Kate, Keith, Ricky. Photo taken before an afternoon show in Piedmont Park, date and photographer unknown. Courtesy of Maureen McLaughlin.

Keith Bennett

1. Music scene you were in (ATH or ATL, or both):

I was involved in the music scene in both Athens and Atlanta

2. Your connection to the music scene:

The B-52’s, The Fans, Pylon, The Tone Tones, REM. I was mostly a fan of the bands but I did create graphics for the B-52’s including posters for the group’s performances at the GA Theater in Athens and CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City in New York City. I also designed (with Keith and Ricky’s guidance) their independent single on DB Records, Rock Lobster/52 Girls.

In the execution of these projects I designed a logo for the B-52‘s as well. The aforementioned show posters and logo were also part of my exit exam to graduate from UGA with a Graphic Design degree but the work was undervalued by my professors. I received an F for the project and wasn’t allowed to graduate. (I returned the following fall quarter and created an illustration montage in pencil which is what they wanted, not of the B’s but of the Beatles and was able to graduate from college and start work immediately washing dishes at Friends restaurant in the Georgian Hotel, Athens.)

1978 B-52’s poster designed by Keith Bennett. The photo is of Bennett as a child. Bennett designed the now-iconic B’s logo. Courtesy: Chris Rasmussen, Art Rocks Athens.

I also accompanied the group on some trips to NYC and helped out here and there. Later, when they signed with Warner Brothers, I became their first roadie along with Moe Slotin, who actually had much experience in Rock and Roll touring. Since I basically lied to secure the gig, Moe ended up having to train me and he did an excellent job. It was the modern-day equivalent of running off to join the circus, an apt metaphor in more ways than one. Although ultimately it was not my life’s calling, I did end up working three US tours, one Australian tour, and two European tours. I also worked for the B’s in Japan.

At first I did the back line, the keyboards, and set out Fred’s toys and Cindy’s bongos along with being responsible for restringing and tuning every one of Ricky Wilson’s guitars, every show night which was about 5 to 6 nights a week, for 8 weeks during that first tour. Ricky was a unique guitarist to say the least and played guitars strung with 4 and 5 strings instead of the standard 6 and he had a different tuning for each guitar. On some I had to change the tunings during the show as he finished with a guitar that he would be using later in the set, which needed another tuning. I was responsible also for going to Manny’s Music in New York, or sometimes finding a music store on the road and replenishing the crates of super heavy gauge strings that he used on his somewhat funky old Mosrites. He also had a lovely Epiphone solid body (stolen years later at the beginning of Cosmic Thing comeback) and a Sears Silvertone copy of a Dan Electro complete with amp and speaker built into the case. (They actually used the case amp on stage in the early days, setting it up and putting a mic from the PA in front of it just as a normal amp). Later he did have some Fender Strats and some yellow chunky off brand guitar he got somewhere.

Moe set up the drums and ran the sound from the house. We were a pretty tight two-man crew and had it down to every square inch in the truck utilized to its best potential - Moe was anal as hell but had also been around so he was a creature of the rock and roll environment. He told me from day one “there’s no down time in rock and roll,” meaning that after the stage is set and guitars strung and tuned and awaiting the group for sound check or after sound check, there was always something to do and no time to just wander off or not be working. There was always some gear to be checked, case to be struck and stowed, a cable to be taped down....on and on. And he was right.

Poster designed by B’s member Keith Strickland. Courtesy: Chris Rasmussen, Art Rocks Athens.

We would pack the rental truck and repack it at first, looking for the perfect pack regarding the cases and their sizes and shapes, but also the order in which they needed to come off the truck for the set up. We got to a point where we could breakdown and load out in record time and we had to because usually we had to drive an overnighter to the next city, check into a motel for 3 or 4 hours of sleep, maybe, and then get up and head to the venue, always arriving an hour earlier than the itinerary indicated. And do the whole thing: the load in , the setup, the restringing of guitars, the sound check, the non-down-time period before show time, eating crappy bar food in the beer and cigarette smoke ambiance of the venue while the band went out on their eternal search for vegetarian fare, the show, the break down and load out and we were off again, usually with Moe driving at first and me writing post cards to folks back in Athens and Macon. Sometimes I was so tired I would try to sleep under the furniture in the dressing room until Moe would find me. But it was great. The best job I ever had. And although I had volunteered to work for free, Ricky saw how hard I was working and told the band that I should be paid. I was already getting a per diem, so I thought I was getting paid.

We played clubs mostly, the odd college but also opened for the Talking Heads at bigger venues as the B’s and Talking Heads shared the same management. Standouts from those early days include : Club 57 in New York, The Exit Inn in Nashville, The Agora in Atlanta, The Iguana in Austin, U.C. Berkley with the Talking Heads in the middle of the day in front of student union (we parked the Ryder trucks back to back with a stage in between and used them as dressing rooms, The Greek Theater in LA, opening for the Talking Heads, and some crappy Chinese Restaurant by day that transformed into a rock club at night with a load in from hell up two flights of stairs.

As far as Pylon goes, I knew most of them from Art School or just Athens parties.

An early Pylon band photo from 1979 taken by Michael Lachowski in drummer Curtis Crowe’s downtown loft.

I never worked for them but saw them perform around Athens before we left town in fall of 79. I did go out to Nicky Generis’ place in the country one time where I played keyboards and Curtis Crowe played drums while Dana Downs sang and Nicky banged out power chords on the guitar. Dana was a little over served and ended up lying on the floor to sing and I was not that experienced in being in a band so I was not catching on to whatever Nicky wanted us to be doing. He would stop every few minutes and scream at the top of his lungs, “No, No, No! That’s not fucking right! It goes duna duna duna dum bam boom,” or whatever and we’d try again and he’d stop and yell some more. The more he yelled the wider the grin on Curtis’s face and the more incoherent Dana became and I kept thinking, “This sucks. I don’t want to be in a band.” Later that nucleus grew into the Tone Tones. I played piano but I was not really the performing type, that is to say I didn’t have confidence. The only other times I played with folks in Athens were jamming with the B’s in their Hull Street rehearsal space, just once (awesome!), and dropping by to visit Vic Varney and ending up jamming in his basement with him and some other cats. That’s it.

In the meantime, my good friend Margaret Katz had been going to check out a band called the Fans. We knew the keyboardist, Mike Green, from our dorm days at UGA. The first time I saw them at Rose’s Cantina in Atlanta, I was blown away. To actually know somebody who could write songs like that and make that kind of sound live. I was hooked. I would spend many days and some nights at their house on Seminole, either before or after one of their shows or when in town to catch other acts that came through. Those punk and new wave acts often knew their counterparts in other cities: it was a network, and people would come to the band house to either say “hey” or to crash. We first met Chris and Tina from the Talking Heads at that house, out on the front porch after The Talking Heads and Elvis Costello show at the Roxy in Buckhead. Some of Costello’s band showed up later, jammed with some of the Fans and ended up spitting at each other and nearly fist fighting for some reason. I guess it was punk.

After we had moved away to New York City, we still came home often to Georgia and to Athens. One time while visiting I went to the Caledonia to catch REM I had heard so much about. I thought, “Man, these guys suck.” Truly, they weren’t up to the standards of other acts coming out of Athens and Atlanta back then. Then, about 6 months later I saw them again and they were great. Shortly after that they began their journey toward world domination. I got to know Bill Berry and Mike Mills pretty well; both are from my home town of Macon and both were pretty down to Earth, talking about the Braves and such. I got to know Peter Buck some but not as well and Michael Stipe was a mystery for years, seemingly aloof. However, in recent years I have gotten to know him and like him a lot. But they started after we left town.

Once while visiting, we threw a party in the space that is now the Caledonia but was destined to be the 40 Watt Club for a while. Jimmy Ellison’s band played and Cindy Wilson, Paul Scales and others played a few tunes with them and then a band named Love Tractor made their debut. It was a big night.

3. What was the beginning of the Atlanta and Athens music connection for you personally?

I saw the B-52’s the first time they performed publicly, at the party on Milledge Avenue, Athens, Feb. 14th, 1977. The following weekend I caught them again at their second party performance in Athens at the residence of Teresa Randolph. I helped them roll up their rug and pack up their minimal gear in an effort to meet Cindy Wilson. Shortly after that we began dating. Eventually, they signed their major label deal and were going to head out on the road and relocate to New York City (their manager said you couldn’t be in a nationally known band and be based in Athens GA). In order for us to remain together, Cindy talked the manager into letting me be the one crew member that the hired sound guy would be allowed to have. I volunteered to do this for free even, to sweeten the proposition. The manager said “Sure, cheap labor, keeping one of the singers happy, two for one motel room, you’re hired.”

Moe, however, was not happy about that situation, the singer’s boyfriend going to be his crew. He called me up in Athens and tried to talk me out of it. He said I didn’t know what I was getting myself into (he was right) and that it would be the hardest thing I’d ever done (right again). He just couldn’t have somebody with no experience trying to do this when it would only be a two-man crew. I did the only thing I could do at that juncture. I lied. It was for his benefit as much as anything because there was no way that Cindy and I were going to be denied this opportunity, especially since it was already a done deal. I thought that I may as well make the cat feel better about it. I told him I’d played in bands in high school (true) and that I had changed strings on guitars (once in a blue moon if one broke, but it was a pain in the ass which was why I started playing keyboards instead - but that part I left out) and that I had set up drums (blatant lie) and after a while he softened up.

The beginning of the Athens Atlanta music scene represented a life-changing series of events for me and the very thing that was starting to happen unfortunately was the thing that took us far away. Fortunately, the people we knew and still know from those times are so special to us and I feel that no matter where those folks might be, collectively we are all still Athens. It's more than a place but a shared experience and aesthetic.

4. What are you doing in music now?

Well, I am an art Director/Graphic designer so I did not remain in the music field after my early roadie years, aside from an unofficial and unpaid position as guest list facilitator. I worked for years in advertising in NYC and Atlanta and designed and produced LP covers on a freelance basis for bands that included the Landsharks, Dreams so Real, Michelle Malone and Drag the River and years later designed a GoGos re-release of their first LP with additional booklet and bonus material. Also created graphic design for Cindy’s solo project, the Cindy Wilson Band, including press kits, posters, t-shirts and web site. I also designed the B-52’s LP covers for Mesopotamia and Bouncing off the Satellites.

These days, Cindy and I are still married, so I do kid duty while she goes out of town to do shows. Our kids are in bands, and have been since age 9. Their current act is called ARRAY. India and Nolan, our two kids, play bass and keyboards and sing and write songs in the group and they are rounded out by a few other teen aged kids who are all excellent musicians: Mary Frances Kitchens, who has played with Nolan and India since Mary Frances and Nolan were 9 years old, plays guitar and writes tightly crafted songs, Max Leech is their phenomenal self-taught drummer, and the latest addition is Andrew Weisburg on keyboards. I am their manager, crew chief, publicist, booking agent, graphic designer and driver of the car. The only thing I don’t help with is their song writing - I stay out of the creative.

5. Tell us one story you have never told anyone before about your time in a band or working in the scene.

Wow, that’s a tough one. Mainly because I’ve told so much that I don’t know of anything left untold. And if there was it would be for good reason and unlikely I’d tell it here.

Darryl Rhoades

1. Music scene you were in (ATH or ATL, or both, if applicable)

My first band, Darryl Rhoades & The Hahavishnu Orchestra (1975-78) was assembled in Atlanta but worked all over the country selling out venues in N.Y.C., Philadelphia, Austin and beyond. One of my favorite shows was a sold out show in a large concert hall at U.G.A. where Capricorn records came to see us and passed because we were too weird.

2. Name of your band(s) and your position in the band(s)

My first band was Darryl Rhoades & The Hahavishnu Orchestra (1975-78) and the next band was Darryl Rhoades & The Men From Glad (1985-88). I was the leader, frontman and songwriter.

I have been a drummer/songwriter/frontman since 1967 where I played all the Atlanta clubs with "The Celestial Voluptuous Banana".

3. What was the beginning of the Atlanta and Athens music connection for you personally?

I think playing UGA, Between The Hedges (a small nightclub in the student activities building, Memorial Hall) and the 40Watt Club always felt like home. WUGA played a lot of my material anytime I came out with a new recording

4. What are you doing in music now?

Currently, I am doing one man shows (comedy), writing an autobiography and working on my 13th CD. I’m also involved with four other songwriters and about to go into the studio to start working on a group recording.

5. Tell us one story you have never told anyone before about your time in a band or working in the scene.

In 1977, I was invited to perform on the WTBS show “James Brown Future Shock” with my band, The Hahavishnu Orchestra. We were known as a theatrical satirical group that featured dancers, backup singers in drag and usually numbered at least ten members on stage at any given time.

Our set on Mr. Brown’s show was shot during the day with everyone wearing pimp clothes and I made my entrance busting thru a perforated record drawn on a large sheet of butcher paper where I met two dancers that were tricked out in street ho threads. The band was vamping when I grabbed the mic and started singing our underground hit, “Suicide,” which was a dance song about how to kill yourself. James was watching us and later I was told by one of the camera men that James Brown was baffled and didn’t understand these crazy white people singing about killin’ yourself to a dance step. He reportedly turned to the camera guy and said “Issat some kinda of joke or sumphin”. I stuck around to see him do the intro and laughed as he struggled to say the band name. He eventually got it close enough when he said “Darryl Roe and the Hahavishnu”. It aired on Dec. 31, 1977.

youtube

Regrettably, James Brown's intro and outro to our appearance was not put on the video copy they furnished me.

Kevin Dunn

1. Music scene you were in (ATH or ATL, or both, if applicable)

Inasmuch as my Atlanta band of the epoch -- v. (2.) infra. -- contained one Athenian, whose presence in the lineup resulted in a substantial number of the art department's student luminaries and their circle attaching themselves to, nay, creating the group's sociostylistic ambit, that contact in turn initiating a circulation of reciprocal influence that I flatter myself persists to this day, I'm gonna say both.

2. Name of your band(s) and your position in the band(s)

The band was the Fans. I was the guitarist and second-string Komponist; sang mostly backup except on my own tunes. The other personnel were: Alfredo Villar, principal songwriter, lead singer and bassist; Russ King, drummer; and Mike Green, the above-cited Athenian, keyboards.

Kevin Dunn

3. What was the beginning of the Atlanta and Athens music connection for you personally?

V. (1.) supra. When, in 1975, my very old friend Harry DeMille began the association with Danny Beard, whose links to Athens were legion, that would lead to (among other things of well-documented moment) the creation of the music emporium Wax 'n Facts in Atlanta's Little Five Points district, the Fans were in desperate need of a simpatico keyboardist. Danny recommended Mike, he being possessed of considerable avant-garde cred, as a plausible candidate. The recommendation panned out, Mike joined the band, and the bi-urban connection was forged in train. The band was holed up on Seminole Avenue in Inman Park, in what was then a desuetudinous two-story yellow-brick house from the neighborhood's heyday in the 1920s (it's quite nice now), and the art party raged on within the ramshackle hulk's walls pretty much nonstop for three years or so.

4. What are you doing in music now?

Playing stringed and fretted things, either solo (lots of ambient loops, and Middle-Baroque repertory on original instruments) or in the context in divers aggregations, for no money; same as it ever was, as the poet would have it. I released a solo album in 2012, The Miraculous Miracle of the Imperial Empire (kevindunn.bandcamp.com). Having within the twelvemonth decamped from the ATL to the Classic City to get married, I am with my new bride Heli, my intermittently-resident son Malcolm, and assorted other players investigating various configurations of material and approaches thereto.

5. Tell us one story you have never told anyone before about your time in a band or working in the scene.

I being both garrulous and repetitive, I doubt any such anecdote, at least as qualified, exists. I'll instead share with you a top-of-mind bit of rue: it is a permanent source of professional regret to me that I was during the sessions for the B-52s' DB Recs single unable in my capacity as what I like to call "production sherpa" to persuade the band either to deploy an envelope follower-ring modulator combo on a doubled track of the descending guitar figure on "Rock Lobster" or to retain the original Farfisa bass track with the lacuna effected by that one blown analog oscillator on "52 Girls." Pity, really. If they'd just taken my advice, I'm sure their career would have fared so much better LOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOL

And that's all I got. Mwah.

Robert Croker, The Fans, and the Drongz

One of the most influential teachers in the University of Georgia Department of Art was Robert Croker. His art education began at age 15 at the High Museum of Art. Before coming to UGA, he received an MFA from the University of Arizona in 1966. In his words, “Lamar Dodd rescued me from oblivion” at LaGrange College when Dodd recruited Croker to teach drawing and painting at UGA.

Credt for all drawings in this section is as follows:

Artist: Robert Croker (American, born 1939) Sketch from Notebook Medium: Graphite on paper Credit: Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Gift of the artist in memory of Margaret Katz Nodine

During his tenure on the UGA campus, Croker taught Introductory Drawing for seven years. He became a major influence on his students (Including Pylon bassist Michael Lachowski) through his innovative teaching techniques, and in his last year at UGA, his independent study classes and individual critiques sometimes lasted late into the night.

Total immersion in art was the rule, and the art building was open 24 hours a day to accommodate the prodigious amount of work that was being produced.

Part of the discipline – if it could be called that – was that students were encouraged to make drawings (drongz) everywhere they went: — restaurants, bars, and night clubs were favorite places to make some of the 100 drawings that each student was expected to come up with each week.

Croker drew everywhere he went as well. The drawings seen here are from two of his sketchbooks, which he donated to the Georgia Museum of Art in memory of Margaret Katz-Nodine, one of his most talented students. Along with being a gifted artist, Katz, as she was known in those days, was also a “living, breathing part of the [Fans],” according to Croker.

Used with the permission of artist Robert Croker

This particular set of “drongz”, as Croker calls them, came from The Fans performing at Rose’s Cantina in Atlanta, and CBGB’s in New York City.

Doreen Cochran

1. Music scene you were in (ATH or ATL, or both):

Atlanta

2. Your connection to the music scene:

The Brains. Band coordinator

3. What was the beginning of the Atlanta and Athens music connection for you personally?

When the Brains played with the B 52's first time. You were there!

4. What are you doing in music now?

Nothing in music now.

5. Tell us one story you have never told anyone before about your time in a band or working in the scene.

I told my friends about this and they said what story haven't you told? Well, really the story I haven't told is that I am not as knowledgeable in the music biz as everyone thought. I just knew I liked the Brains and I could organize and sell them. I was flattered and just didn't let on.....

An addendum to Doreen’s answers from Maureen:

Doreen was one of the central figures in the Atlanta music scene, in part because she managed the Brains and ran the Brains’ fan club, which was one of the best organized fan clubs going at the time. She was also important because she was a woman doing a job that most women were not given an opportunity to do. I managed the B-52’s and she managed the Brains, so we always presented a united front. Her claim that she didn’t know what she was doing doesn’t hold water with me, except for one thing. We all walked through uncharted territory. The only thing we had that set us apart from the rest of the bumbling idiots was that we had each other. Athens bands and Atlanta bands supported each other and shared information to a degree that would be unthinkable today.

I think the show with the B’s that Doreen refers to here was at the Downtown Cafe in Atlanta. I remember taking a walk with Tom Gray after sound check, and he told me, “Maureen, I have written a song.” His words were full of wonder, and I knew that whatever this new song was, it must be something really special. That night, the Brain’s played Tom’s new song: Money Changes Everything. It was the song that catapulted Tom and his band into the fame stratosphere when Cyndi Lauper recorded it three years later.

Video: Tom Gray performing Money Changes Everything with another epic Atlanta band, the Swimming Pool Q’s, January 28, 2007.

Glenn Phillips

1. Music scene you were in (ATH or ATL, or both, if applicable)

Throughout my 50 years as a musician, I've been based in Atlanta and played Athens countless times as well.

2. Name of your band(s) and your position in the band(s)

I was a founding member of the Hampton Grease Band in 1967, as well as one of the band's two principal songwriters (myself and Harold Kelling). When that group broke up in 1973, I started playing and recording under my own name and now have eighteen albums out, including two with Jeff Calder (of the Swimming Pool Q's), under the name Supreme Court. I've also recorded with Cindy Wilson of the B-52s, Pete Buck of REM, Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, and many others.

The Hampton Grease Band

3. What was the beginning of the Atlanta and Athens music connection for you personally?

The Grease Band was based out of Atlanta and started playing Athens in the late '60s. That continued for me throughout the '70s and '80s, and Cindy Wilson and I did a show together at last year's AthFest. I've always thought of the two cities as being creatively connected, and I feel incredibly lucky to have ties to both.

4. What are you doing in music now?

My first solo album Lost at Sea was recently rereleased as a 40th anniversary double-vinyl album on UK label Shagrat Records (it was originally released on Virgin Records), and this fall they're putting out a live album of my 1977 show at London's Rainbow Theatre. I'm also in the midst of recording my next album of new material and still playing out live.

5. Tell us one story you have never told anyone before about your time in a band or working in the scene.

I've never told the whole story of how and why the Grease Band started the free concerts in Piedmont Park in the spring of '68. Although we’re known today for the eccentric music on our double album Music to Eat, when we first started out in '67, we thought of ourselves as a blues band. This was right before the blues explosion hit the South, although at the time, soul music was quite popular here, like Motown and James Brown.

We considered ourselves blues purists, though, and would never play anything as commercial as James Brown, so when we played one of our first jobs at a high school dance, the reception was not enthusiastic — we cleared out the room. We figured the high school crowd just wasn’t hip enough for us, although it may have also had something to do with the fact that we stunk: We were just starting out and most of us could barely play our instruments.

In any case, we decided to take our music where we thought we’d be appreciated, to an African-American club called the Poison Apple Room. Atlanta was still a pretty segregated city back then, but the owner hired us anyway. He was hoping to expand his business by drawing some white kids to his club and saw us as a possible way to do that. I think he also felt sorry for us — we were like dogs at the pound looking for a home, and he took us in.

Once we started playing for the club’s audience, though, our dreams of acceptance collided with reality. Unfortunately, they knew the difference between the real thing and a group of oblivious suburban white teenagers. Nonetheless, they politely tolerated us, although one member of the audience decided to give us a music lesson. He walked up to the bandstand while we were in the middle of a song, reached into his coat, pulled out a gun, and pointed it at us. Then he made a request, "You play some James Brown or I'm gonna blow your fuckin' head off."

As I mentioned earlier, we’d never played a James Brown song in our lives, but it’s amazing how fast you can learn to do something when there’s a gun pointed at you. We launched into the worst ever cover version of "Popcorn," and from that point on, the club's owner would greet us each night at the door with, "You boys need to sell those goddamn guitars and amplifiers, and buy you some pussy."

The reception we'd gotten at the high school dance and The Poison Apple Room got me thinking we might want to find some other places to play. I had noticed there was an electrical outlet in the Piedmont Park pavilion, and in the spring of '68, I took a clock radio down there and discovered it was a live outlet. The following weekend, the band set our equipment up on the grass, plugged in, played, and crowds of hippies started gathering around us. We asked no one for permission nor did we apply for any permits — prior to our makeshift concerts, no electric bands had played there before, so this was uncharted territory, but we kept it up every weekend, and by the middle of that summer, the shows had grown to include many other great Atlanta bands. By the following summer of '69, we were doing shows there with the Allman Brothers and The Grateful Dead.

vimeo

Great things have strange beginnings.

Video: This clip features Cindy Wilson of the B-52s with Glenn’s band doing "Give Me Back My Man," which seems perfect given the subject of the Atlanta and Athens music connection: https://vimeo.com/170252139

The featured image of the B-52’s at the top of this story was photographed by Terry Allen and is used with the kind permission of the photographer.

(This article appeared on Richard Eldredge’s web site, EldredgeATL.com, as part of series of articles on Athens, GA curated by Vanessa Briscoe Hay.

0 notes

maureenmc2000 · 12 years ago

Text

John Seawright's Death

John Seawright was a stellar human being: a poet, a lover, a drinker, a scholar, and a historian among other things, he conquered everyone he met with his towering physical presence, devastating intellect, and charismatic personality. He was one of the forces that stirred the Athens creative cauldron from which so much art and music emerged. This is the story of his death.

Once again, I have left in the grammatical and usage errors. Apologies to Rodger Brown for the misspelling of his first name.

I am writing this for everyone who could not be in Athens over the past week. It is now Friday, May 18, 2001. John Seawright's body was discovered last Thursday, May 10, at his house on Meigs Street. This is not going to be a polished piece like the obituary I wrote - once these words are down, I don't even know if I will ever read them again. However, I want to try to give y'all the flavor of what the past week has been like. There is no way that I could possibly capture every bittersweet moment, but I will try. These are my impressions.

It was Thursday, May 10, and I had to go to the post office. Since it was a pretty day, I decided to walk downtown. I do this maybe once a month. My usual route takes me from Park Avenue to Prince Avenue, then to Pulaski, then to Hancock Street, where the post office is located. I started off down Prince about 3:00 p.m., but when I reached Milledge Avenue, my body turned right. "This is interesting," I thought. Something was pulling me down the street. It occurred to me that I needed to see John Seawright, so maybe that was it. I started to turn at Hill Street, but no. I had to turn down Meigs.

When I got to John's block, I saw four police cars and a crime scene van clogging the street. A lone detective was talking to Jerry Ayers in front of John's next door neighbor's house. I thought that maybe the neighbor had had a break-in. Since there was such a scene, I thought that I would continue on to the post office and stop in to see John on the way back. Just as I got to John's front door, four police officers came bursting through the door wearing dust masks covering their noses and mouths. At that moment, I knew that John was dead.

I turned on my heel, and went back to Jerry and the police officer, interrupting their conversation. "Jerry, what's happened to John?"

"He's dead, Maureen. Jennifer and I found his body about forty-five minutes ago."

Even though I already knew, Jerry's words hit hard. I felt like someone had heaved a concrete block at my chest. Jerry pulled me close, and we stood in the middle of the street, sobbing. After a few moments, he looked away and said softly, in a voice filled with regret, "It wasn't supposed to be like this for John." I can still hear his voice, gentle and sad, and see his stricken face.

One of the detectives pulled me away to be interviewed. She started asking me a series of bodacious questions, each prefaced with, "I'm sorry to ask you this, but…"

"Did Mr. Seawright have a drug habit?"

"The only drug I ever saw him use was alcohol."

"Did he have a particular lady friend who might have been jealous?"

"John had many women friends, and none was jealous, as far as I know."

"Did he maybe take up with a loose woman in a bar, someone who might have come home with him and set him up to be robbed?"

At that point, I realized that this woman should be home writing mystery novels instead of on the streets detecting. She was determined to find some dark place in John's life where she could poke a stick, and hit a nerve. I told her that I understood that she had a job to do, but no detecting was needed here. I was sure from the outset that John had died of natural causes. I knew that it was brain aneurysm. I don't know how I knew, but I knew.

Jerry came up to me, "I have to go home. I have to go home right now."

He turned and walked towards Harris Street. From the opposite direction, a gray Coroner's van navigated up the street and turned into John's yard. My first thought was that I should stay. Some one of his friends should be there to see John leave his house for the last time. I had to decide: did I want my last memory of John to be hugging him in the aisle at Kroger, or coming out of his house on a stretcher? I simply could not bear to think of him in a body bag or metal box.

I went on to the post office, mainly because I was carrying two bulky manila envelopes, and it was faster to mail them than to take them back home. Then I felt compelled to go back to Meigs Street. By the time I got there, the gray van carrying John's body had left. Betsy Dorminey was standing across the street from John's house, talking to Detective Chris Guest. I remembered him from the Jamorio Marshall murder trial the year before, where I worked for Jamorio's mother, Vernessa. Neither of us mentioned it, but Det. Guest treated me more like a colleague than a citizen.

"I'll tell y'all, I am ninety-nine percent y'all's friend died of natural causes. I will be very, very surprised if it turns out to be something else." That made me feel better.

Betsy mentioned that John had written for the Flagpole, and Guest remarked that he knew he had seen "the name of Seawright" somewhere before. He also said that he was sure he must have read some of John's work, he just couldn't remember it.

"I'm sure y'all understand, since this was an unattended death, we have to do an autopsy." That was the second time that day I had heard that phrase, an unattended death. The first detective had also mentioned it when I asked her if there was going to be an autopsy. How could anything having to do with John Seawright be unattended? He was the best attended person I ever met. People stood in line to talk to him, to walk with him, to listen to one of his stories across the bar at the Globe, or from the corner stool at the Manhattan.

Betsy invited me back to her house. By that time, I was feeling very, very lost. We walked up the front steps of her house and into the hall where Blair was standing. He must have just gotten home from work. Betsy told Blair the bad news. He could tell from looking at our faces that something was wrong.

"Blair, John Seawright is dead." Blair stepped back and all of the color drained from his face. We went into the kitchen and talked for a few minutes, and at that moment, the notification process officially started. I knew that I would have to go home and start calling people. I couldn't call them all. Where would it begin? First, though, I wanted to check on Jerry Ayers. Blair wanted to go with me, so we walked around the corner to Harris Street.

When we got there, a tall young man with dark spiky hair with chunks of dyed blonde in it was standing there at the front walkway. I told him we wanted to see Jerry. "Oh yeah? And how long have you known Jeremy?" I smiled, and exchanged sideways glances with Blair.

"About thirty years, more or less. He'll want to talk to me. I was there on Meigs Street," I said, my voice shaking with emotion.

"I'll go and see if he can talk to you," he said chastely, "He's pretty broken up."

We entered the house and went into Jerry's living room/kitchen, where he was seated on the sofa. All he said was my name, and we all started crying again. The telephone started to ring. The young man with the spiky hair picked it up.

"Let's go out on the porch," Jerry said.

We sat down, and I suggested that maybe we should have a meditation for John, any excuse not to be alone. When Cynthia died, I did a sitting for her. We decided not to organize anything, and just wait to see what happened. It was too much to think about at the moment. Jerry went to answer the phone, and Kai, the tall man we had spoken with in the street, said, "I know that it couldn't have been suicide, because if John had wanted to kill himself, he would have written a note."

I laughed, "He probably would have written a book."

Kai continued, "He would have left a big long note absolving absolutely everybody and anybody from feeling any guilt. That's just the kind of person he is."

Jerry came out on the porch with the phone. He handed it to me, and I spoke to Chris, who said he was on his way up to see Ryan and Polly, John's parents. By that point, I was shaking so hard, I could barely speak. I realized that I needed to get up and walk.

We stood on the sidewalk in front of the house and said our goodbyes. Kai apologized sweetly for being so abrupt when we first appeared. We understood: he was feeling protective because Jerry was so vulnerable.

Jerry and Blair both offered to take me home, but I declined. I decided that the first person I would tell was Mike Marsingill, the minister at Young Harris Memorial Methodist Church. Cynthia's memorial service had been held there, and I thought that John's probably would be, as well. Just as I got to Mike's house, he was pulling out of the driveway to take his family to dinner. I could have flagged him down, but decided to let him eat in peace.

When I got home, the first person I called was Diana Crowe. I knew that she could spread the word to a lot of people, and I wasn't sure how many of these phone calls I would be able to make. Next, I called Jefferson Holt, who was in a tizzy.

"Hi, Maureen, this phone isn't working. I hate this phone. Let me call you back on a real phone." For whatever reason, he never returned my call. I moved on to Vanessa Hay next, but got her voice mail.

Michael Lachowski was next on the list. For so many years, John and Michael and I were a part of the same group of friends. I saw both of them every day. Michael is still high up on the Athens grapevine, and knows many more people than I do now. When I delivered the news to him, he flooded me with his characteristic warmth: "I can't thank you enough for thinking about me. It means so much to hear this from you…" Love and support. That was just what I needed then.

Then I called Leslie Michel in California. Leslie delivers quip after quotable quip at about the same rate of speed as a jackhammer. Here is a snippet of her peroration: "Omigod, I am so bummed out about this. What I want to know is: why did he want to check out so early? When somebody leaves the planet so far ahead of schedule, there has to be a reason for it. When you've been in the floral industry as long as I was, you've seen everything. Obviously he didn't know what a tremendous effect he had on the lives of all the people around him, and even on my life. I will always think of him on Barber Street, eating pecans. And he was a writer. I will always remember him as a writer."

I told Leslie that I thought some part of John just didn't want to live any more without Cynthia. He did not have a death wish; he was not suicidal. He just wanted to go home. Now I'm thinking: maybe his brain just flat wore out. I don't know. I kept waiting for John to publish a book, thinking that he would turn a corner the day that happened. I left Leslie by asking her to call Mike Mills. He would want to know, and the phone number I have for him does not have voice mail.

After my whirlwind conversation with Leslie, I called Cynthia Kutka, formerly Flack.

"Cynthia, I have some bad news…"

After several wobbly minutes of relaying the sad information, I asked Cynthia to call DeLoris Wentzel. I figured that if everyone I called made one call, Athens would know in about an hour, and the world, maybe, by morning.

The phone calls went on. I called Jim Herbert, and found out that he was in Cortona. I sent him a fax via the art department, to be re-faxed to Italy. Herbert is going to be sorry that he could not be here.

Mike Marsingill got home from dinner. He said that he would call Polly and Ryan, and offer the church for use for the memorial service. LaMurl Morris, the music director at Young Harris, is a close friend of Ryan's, so Mike volunteered to call her. We would be needing her services.

I called Keith Strickland, mainly so he could get in touch with Jerry and offer him his support. He did not return my phone call. He was probably out of town and not accessing his voice mail.

Next, I called Jimmy Paulk in New York City. Paulk and I have been friends for thirty years or so. On one trip to New York, we had dinner with Sam and Tara, John's brother and sister-in-law, at Ray's Pizza in the West Village. I thought that it would be nice for Sam and Tara to have someone's support in The City. No one answered at his house, so I left a message.

I took a break for dinner. I went to the Taco Stand, since I wasn’t in the mood to cook, and it was getting late. I wasn't sure I could eat, but I needed a few minutes to rest away from the phone. While standing at the counter, waiting for the food, I saw John. He was in front of the side door, leaning with one elbow propped against the wall, and smiling that mischievous smile of his. I thought I was making this up. I looked away, and looked back. He was still there. I went up to him, and said under my breath, "Go away. I came here to get away from you. Go away." I looked away again, and looked back, and he was gone. In retrospect, I think I was mad that he would show up in a public place where I could not talk to him without looking like an idiot.

When we got home, I called Pete McCommons, editor of the Flagpole. As soon as I heard his voice, I started crying again. He said, "All of Athens is in mourning."

"Pete, can I write John's article?"

All he said was, "I wish you would."

Neither of us could talk, so we hung up.

The phone rang. It was Vanessa Hay. When I gave her the news, she recalled the first two times she met John. One was at a party in Mell-Lipscomb where he sat in the corner, wearing headphones, listening to the Velvet Underground. The second was at a Halloween party in the dorms where John appeared in a black cocktail dress and blonde wig. I have always wondered: where did a man nearly seven feet tall find a cocktail dress in his size? Even a person suffering a profound sorrow can wonder.

About 10 p.m., I called Sam. He picked up the phone on the first ring, his voice so heavily laden with grief that it broke my heart all over again. He told me that when they first told him, he started hyperventilating, and that for the first little while, whenever someone mentioned John, he would start hyperventilating again. Now he could talk. Sam told me, "Now that John is gone, I'm never going to see anything or feel anything the same way again." We spoke of other things: of the autopsy yet to be done, of funeral plans yet to be made, of a memorial service not yet scheduled.

When I got off the phone with Sam, I was glad that he had taken the time to speak with me. Both he and John learned how to be ministers at a very early age. Neither of them would ever turn away a living soul, regardless of how they were feeling at the time. That was about all that I could take for that day. I thought about trying to find Jerry, to see how he was doing, but I was too tired. By 11 p.m., I had fallen into an exhausted sleep.

Friday morning, I got up and started writing. I wrote about John's parents, and about his relationship with Sam. I recalled a road trip I had taken with John one lazy summer afternoon, and of the people he had introduced me to in Washington, Georgia. After about three hours, the phone rang. It was Pete. "Maureen, I was just wondering. How long is this thing that you're writing?" Pete knows that I sometimes forget about length restrictions, my not being a real newspaper writer. He told me that he needed 1,000 to 1,200 words, max. I got off the phone and looked at what I had written. So far, I had 705 words, and I had just gotten John to his first day at UGA. This would never do.

Vanessa Hay knocked on the door. She had come over for coffee. As usual, I was out of milk, and she had brought some with her. We sat on the back porch and drank our coffee. To deal with our serotonin deficiencies, she had brought a box of Godiva chocolates.

I told Vanessa about my article, and that I decided it had too many facts in it. It would be impossible to write the encyclopedia of John Seawright. I was going to have to take it in a different direction. We also talked about the people we had contacted.

Vanessa had e-mailed Sandy Phipps, up in Vermont. Sandy is a gifted photographer, and a dear friend. She wrote Vanessa back with the story of how John kept showing up at her house after her best friend Carol died. He didn't think that she should be alone.

Finally, after all these years, Vanessa gave me a full account of Cynthia and John's wedding. John had told me about it my very first night back in Athens, but it was still too soon after her death for details. Vanessa described how beautiful Cynthia looked, and how she kept the whole assembly waiting because she was too overcome to walk down the aisle. When she finally appeared, she had to be supported by her mother on one side and her father on the other. The whole Seawright family was beaming. Cynthia was carrying a bouquet of sunflowers, and wearing a long green linen sheath. With her long red hair in curls, Vanessa said, "She looked like a mermaid rising out of the woods." I continue to think about that image when I get too sad.

Vanessa and I decided to go and get some tomato plants. "It's always good to plant something when somebody dies, even if it's just a bunch of scraggly old tomato plants," she said. We went over to Cofers and got three kinds of tomatoes and a pepper. I went back home and tried to write some more.

The phone rang. It was Jimmy Paulk. When I told him what happened, he told me that he and Sam and Tara had gotten to be "quite good friends." In fact, at that moment, Sam had a showing of drawings at Jimmy's office in SoHo. If Sam and Tara needed anything, I knew that Paulk would be there for them.

I went back to my Powerbook, and re-read what I had written. How am I ever going to get this magnificent man's life distilled into a thousand words? Too many facts. I had to get rid of the facts. I craved companionship, but I was so emotionally exhausted, I didn't think I could deal with seeing anyone else. I knew that there were other people to call, but I was not going to break the news to another soul.

Then I called Rhett Crowe, and asked her if she had any good John Seawright stories. "Why," she asked, "is he going somewhere?" Oh, Lord, I had to do it again. I was certain someone would have phoned Rhett. I am never going to call anyone else as long as I live.

The rest of Friday and most of Saturday passed, with me sitting in front of my computer screen, thinking, "What am I going to write?" Anything less than the best simply would not do. John was always my most exacting critic. I never saw him happier than sitting with a page of typescript and a pen in his hand. He was the only person whose opinion really mattered when it came to my writing.

On Saturday, I spoke again with Cynthia, or Chynthia, as she is known to her friends. David Gamble and DeLoris and Ken Tapscott were at her house. Chynth and her husband were leaving town Sunday morning to go to Denver, so she and Gedas would not be in town for any of the events of the next three days. We talked about going to the funeral home: we both wondered if the casket would be open, in the true Southern tradition. I am afraid of small dead animals. How would I react to a great big ol' hulking dead John Seawright? I could not imagine.

At the same time, I did not want to miss a minute of the proceedings of John's Homecoming. Even though I knew it would be hard, I wanted to be there for everything. In the future, I did not want to have to look back on those three days and say, "I wish I had…"

Ken said in the background that there was No Way he was going to the funeral home. I said that I was going. I called Vanessa, knowing that she would be up for the trip to Toccoa. Since she is an oncology nurse, she deals with death all the time. A little funeral home time was not going to bother her.

Then I talked to Paul Nelson. "John is one of the lucky ones," he said. Paul wanted to go, and he needed a ride. He said that he would check around and see if anyone else needed to come with us. He mentioned John Jack, John's cousin, whom I had not seen in at least fifteen years. By the end of the evening, we had determined that Paul, Joe Bennett, Vanessa and I would be riding together to the funeral home on Sunday.

I went to church at Young Harris on Sunday morning, and cancelled the young children's group I was supposed to be leading that night. The children were puzzled, because I never cancel their time together. All I could tell them was that my friend and died, and I was too sad to come to Pathways.

At about 5:45 p.m., Vanessa came to pick me up. Then we went over to Harris Street to pick up Paul and Joe. Almost immediately, the stories started coming out. We began by making a list of everyone each of us had talked to in the past twenty-four hours, and of all the people we had no idea how to find. John Taylor had called Paul. I had tried to call Taylor, but the number I had for him did not work. I was glad he knew.

Many of the people we wondered about were women. John loved women, and he had a very impressive list of women friends. We mentioned Megan, Sam's old flame. I knew that I could find her, but until that moment, it hadn't occurred to me to call her. There were the art girls: Margaret, Phyllis, and the rest. I had spoken to Phyllis in New Mexico a week earlier, but didn't have the heart to call her now.

We arrived at the Acree-Davis funeral home, a modest pink brick building, and the process of carrying John home officially began. As we rounded the corner from the parking lot, I saw Ben Barks. He looked sad and lost. I gave him a hug as we continued in. So many, many people were standing in line. I saw people from Young Harris UMC, people from my past, and people from today. The atmosphere was almost cocktail party-like. Most people were standing in a receiving line to pay their respects to John's family. Others were standing small groups, talking. Some conversations were strained, but most of them were easy. Wallets were being pulled out and pictures of children were being displayed.

From our position in the back of the line, I kept trying to see if the casket was open. I couldn't tell. That made me nervous. Keith Bennett came up and showed us pictures of India, his and Cindy Wilson's daughter, and their baby. He described in graphic detail how Cindy had to spend the entire third trimester in bed because of a problem with her uterus before the first baby was born. Vanessa knew what he was talking about, but when they got to the part about sewing up the uterus with the second baby so Cindy wouldn't have to stay in bed, I kinda zoned out…

The line moved from the foyer into the viewing room. It was an old time living room - a parlor with couches, chairs, and little tables everywhere. Ryan and Polly and Sam and Tara were standing in front of an oversized gunmetal gray casket. The lid was closed. I said a small prayer of thanks. As we moved closer to the family, I could see that the Seawrights were doing what they do best: comforting everyone else. They were so calm. I was getting really, really nervous. When I reached Ryan, I burst into tears. We talked about how long I had known John. Ryan said, "Even if you had only known John for one day, you would have known you had a true friend." Polly was composed and gracious. Tara remembered me from dinner in New York. Then I reached Sam. Living in New York obviously agrees with Sam: he gets more handsome and self-assured with each passing year. He told me that he had always felt like he could leave Athens because John was there, looking out for him and letting him know what was going on. Now, he and Tara would have to start coming down more and keeping in touch. I was afraid to even look at the casket up close. Could John's body really be in there?

We moved on, to make way for others to speak with the family. There were flowers everywhere. Most were huge wreaths, with a variety of flowers beautifully arranged, like the one from John Taylor in Charleston. Betty Alice Fowler and Heli (Montgomery) Willey brought a big bucket of daisies and nandina that they had bought, augmented with intensely violet-colored blossoms from BA's yard. There was a pound cake sitting on a desk in the foyer. I was sure that many of its brothers inhabited the counters of the Seawrights' kitchen. I went out on the front steps, where a number of people were gathered. Most of them looked vaguely familiar. Others, like David Gamble, Lori Shipp, Blair and Betsy Dorminey, and Ken Tapscott needed to be talked to. I went to Lori first, because I had heard that she was trying to gather up her courage to go inside.

One day in 1979, I made up an encyclopedia article about Athens. The entry for main export read, "Big, pretty girls." Lori is certainly a good representative. When I first met her, her blonde hair was in long ringlets, framing intensely blue eyes, and a fair, freckled face with model-quality cheekbones. Whenever I saw her walking down Prince Avenue with Vanessa Hay, the pair of them nearly six feet tall, with blonde and brunette hair waving in the breeze, I was in awe of their beauty.

Now Lori wears her hair cut short and close to her face. It is the kind of cut that someone with her cheekbones wears well, but I miss her ringlets all the same. Just as I slid in next to her on the landing, I heard her saying to a man standing three steps below her on the sidewalk, with her eyes blazing, "Well, I see you gave up the carefree bachelor life." Ouch. Wish I could hear the story about that one.

I told Lori that going through the line wasn't so bad, since the casket was closed, and that she would feel better after talking with Ryan and Polly and Sam and Tara. We talked about her husband, and her life as a German teacher. She needed to see Vanessa, so I moved on to David Gamble.

David and I exchanged a few John Seawright stories. He told me about the time that he had two people from Germany come to visit him in Athens. He asked John for the best place to take them to get a good dollop of Southern culture. John suggested a Barbecue Museum he knew about. It sounded like an absolutely horrific place, since the owner was a hunter and chose to decorate the walls of his restaurant/museum with the heads of dead animals. Of course, David thought it was perfect, and John was delighted that they went.

Next, I was re-introduced to an old friend I did not recognize. "Maureen, I'm Roger Brown." How could I have not recognized him? His hair is darker, but otherwise, he looks almost the same. The boyish quality has left his face, but the man who took it over looks satisfied and relaxed. I could see his wife standing a few feet away, so I immediately introduced myself to her. I assumed that I couldn't count on a man to remember to make an introduction.

I drifted back inside, and wound up next to a table where pictures of John were displayed by the side of the casket. Sam was telling stories about the various pictures: there were John and Cynthia at their wedding, looking unbelievably happy. In the center was the photo that had appeared on John's brochures when he ran for City Councilman. He looked so young and optimistic. Then Sam showed us a photo to end all family portraits. It had been taken some time in the seventies, when Washington, GA was celebrating its bicentennial. They had a rule that all of the men in town had to wear beards, or spend time in the stockade. In the photo, Ryan had grown a full beard. Most priceless, though, was the image of the gawky high school John with straight, long brown hair halfway down his chest. He and Sam both had the deer-caught-in-the-headlamps look on their faces. To top it all off, the entire family was wearing the best the seventies had to offer: garish plaid, polka dots, and stripes. They looked like the Brady bunch disembarking from a return trip to Hell. A group of us stood there and laughed until we cried.

I reached over a touched the casket with three fingers. It was cool and smooth under my hand. I still could not believe that this strange gray bullet held someone I loved so much. I needed to feel it, to make the experience more real. There we were, talking and laughing and telling stories, and John's body was not three feet away. That took a little getting used to, but at the same time, it felt so right. I noticed other people doing the same thing: just a little touch, just a small goodbye.

I asked Polly about all of the various places they had lived when John and Sam were growing up. She told me that both of the boys were born in Toccoa, which I did not know. When the boys were young, the family pastored congregations in Toccoa, Augusta, Clarkesville, Atlanta, Athens, Washington, and Athens again. I may have the order wrong, but I am pretty sure that those were all the cities she mentioned. They were in Washington when John and Sam were in high school. Of the places they lived, I am pretty sure that outside of Athens, John loved Washington the best.

The visitation was scheduled t o end at 9:00, but no one wanted to leave. By 9:15, the crowd started drifting away. Paul, Joe, Vanessa and I re-boarded the van for the trip home. This time, we were more relaxed. Going to a funeral home is not a task one engages in lightly. It takes a certain amount of determination just to make it through the receiving line. On the way home, we talked about many things, like the guy who had gotten drunk and passed out while walking on the train tracks, trying to take a shortcut home. When the train passed by, all of him was lying on the ties between the tracks, except for one elbow. Between Paul knowing the guy and Vanessa knowing the people who treated him, I think we covered pretty near every bump, scrape, and operation. The best story, though, was Fishhead.

"Here’s a story I told John that he really loved," Joe Bennett said. "There was this guy I knew that was pretty stupid to begin with. And every time he would do something wrong, his cousin would whomp him upside the head. Well, it got to the point where he had been hit in the head so much, his head got all lumpy looking, and everybody started calling him Fishhead.

One night, a bunch of boys went out drinking, and Fishhead was with them. They got knee-walking drunk, and Fishhead decided to drive himself home. He got in his car and drove off, and nobody thought much about it until the next day when Fishhead turned up missing. They looked for him every place they could think of, but Fishhead was no where to be found.

It was all a great mystery until two years later, when the highway department went to clear out a patch of kudzu on a road between Winder and Athens. They found a car buried in the kudzu, with the driver in it. It was Fishhead. He had been so drunk, he had driven off the road into the kudzu patch and died. All that was left was a skeleton wearing clothes, but he still had his seatbelt on when they found him."

We were laughing so heard, tears were streaming down all our faces by the time Joe got to the seatbelt. Then we howled. By the time we got to Paul's house, I think we all felt much better.

I had to go home and begin the process I had been dreading: writing my Flagpole article. It had to be good enough for John Seawright to read. I got a glass of sherry and sat down to write. I thought about all of the stories I had heard over the past four days. I had to put a smattering of all the people I had spoken to in the past eighty-one hours: Vanessa, Betty Alice, Lori, Blair, Betsy, Jerry, Kai, Paul, Joe, Vic, Keith, Heli, Roger, Elena, Jennifer, Pete, and so many others. There were all the ones I hadn't spoken to as well, whom I knew were equally feeling the loss. I think that it was Rhett who had said that she knew I would write something that would help Athens heal. Sam told me that I had taken on "an awesome responsibility." All I could tell anyone was, "I know that he would have done it for me."

I sat, staring at the empty screen, trying to think. The first sentence came, " Life is such a wonderful, horrible thing." I stole that line from my dear friend, the late Elizabeth Bennett, a British adventuress, wife of J.G. Bennett and teacher of the ideas of G.I. Gurdjieff. When I was going through a difficult time of my own, Elizabeth taught me to embrace adversity, and to see it as an opportunity for spiritual growth and Work. Life is a wonderful, horrible thing, and the sooner one realizes that there is no wonderful without the horrible, the richer life becomes.

"Someone shares a new band they just discovered with you, the one with a weird name … the Velvet Underground." Okay, Vanessa, there is your first contribution. John is at the beginning of his freshman year at UGA, the earliest time that most of the people reading this could have first met him.

"Someone comes over to your house every day to help you catheterize your sick dog." Paul Nelson needed help with his dog. John helped Paul every day until Paul was able to insert the catheter alone. No one but a true friend would do something as gross as that day after day.

"Maybe someone shares their pain at the loss of their beloved, telling you the dream they had the thirty-ninth night after her death." Over lunch at the Last Resort, John told me about this dream: he was in a parking lot downtown, and on the other side of the parking lot, he saw Cynthia getting out of a car. There was an old man with her with gray hair. They ran to each other and embraced. After a few moments, Cynthia stepped back and exclaimed, "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" A few moments later, the old man told her it was time to go, and the vision ended.

I told John that this was not a dream, but a transmission. We spoke about how communicating with the dead is like talking on the telephone. The vehicle of communication is always with us, but the phone doesn't work unless we pick up the receiver. In this case, the receiver is the ability to meditate, or bring oneself to an open, quiet place where it is possible to really listen. Now we have to listen for John.

"Maybe you find a friend, a real friend. Maybe you meet John Seawright." Sometimes I think about the capriciousness and arbitrariness of life, about how if I hadn't gone to that party or taken that class, I wouldn't have met someone who turned out to be a lifelong friend. As I wrote these words, I cried. I still cry every time I read them.

I continued to write, I continued to cry. I wrote, re-wrote, erased, and wrote again. I chose each word with the delicacy and care of a jeweler assembling the stones for a diamond necklace. When I stumbled, I called aloud, "Come on John, give me a word. You got to help me write this."

At the end, I tried to come up with one final phrase to describe John. The words leading up to this phrase were, " Those of us who love John Ryan Seawright are broken-hearted, and nothing can take away the pain losing him. To know that we will never again see his sweet smile, hear the deep rumble of his voice, or feel the shelter of his embrace is almost too much to bear. He was "

How to fill in that blank? What would you say? I spoke one final time, "Give me a word, John. Come on, buddy, tell me what to say."

Two words flashed into my mind: inimitable comrade. Such a wonderful word, inimitable. It means "that which cannot be duplicated." It smacks of breaking the mold, of fresh thinking, of undaunted exploration. Comrade, of course, is in homage to John's political thinking. Populism, equality, and justice were all part of John's ideals. Never had I ever put those two words together before. The ending read,

"He was an inimitable comrade, and a truly good man. Godspeed, John. Thank you for everything."

I looked at the clock. It was exactly 6:00 a.m. I had written a 1,054 word goodbye in six hours. All that was left was to e-mail the results to Pete and wait for his reaction. I was afraid to re-read what I had written. What if Pete didn't like it? Maybe it wasn't as good as I thought.

I waited until 8:30 to call the Flagpole office. Pete answered the phone. I asked him if he had read my article. "I just opened the e-mail, and I'm fixin' to read it now," he said. "Is the title of it really '"An Attended Life?"' He sounded skeptical. Okay, I admit, if you just came upon the article in the paper, it sounded a little weird. That phrase, though, "an unattended death" stuck in my mind, and I knew before I left Meigs Street on Thursday that I was going to write John's farewell, and that it would be called "An Attended Life." Wasn't my idea - that's what it called itself.

Pete said he would call me back after he read it. I was breathing funny and looking at the phone the way my dog looks at the dog biscuit box. It had to ring.

To take my mind off the phone, I decided to take a bath. Before the tub was full, the phone rang. Hallejulah! It was photographer extraordinaire, Terry Allen. I had called and left him a message Friday night, asking if he had any photos of John to go with the article.

"Am I too late?" he asked.

"Pete has a picture from the family that Coleman was going to take by the Flagpole, and Jeff Gilley's girlfirend Laura was going to take one by, too. Have you got a good picture of John?"

"Yeah, baby. I have got a great picture."

"Call the Flagpole and see if you can get it to Pete."

He hung up, his voice so full of excitement that I knew he must have something really exceptional.

The phone rang again. I might never get that bath. This time it was Pete. He was in tears. "Maureen, I can't talk because I'm crying, but it's beautiful." He hung up.

Damn. I made Pete McCommons cry. John would be proud. I slid into the water, grateful for the warmth. The phone rang again. It was Pete. This time, he was at the peak of the emotional rollercoaster.

"Terry Allen just came by here and he brought the most amazing photograph I have ever seen. You're just not going to believe it. He took it for some book of Athens authors or something, but for some reason or other, they didn't use it. You have to see it. It's as good as your article. We're going to put it one the cover if my printer can figure out the registration."

Now, I was excited. Terry takes great photographs. His best is really something to see.

Next stop: the funeral. I printed copies of my article for John's family, for Jerry and Jennifer, and for Bob Hay, who could not come to the funeral. As it emerged from the printer, I read each page. As I stood at the ironing board, coallating copies and putting them into envelopes, it made me sad all over again, but it also made me feel better to read it. There was a balm in the words.

I found the tube of my favorite lipstick from the B-52 days. I had been saving the very last of it for a special occasion. I applied the hot hot pink Stagelight Fuschia-ristic lipstick one last time, and threw the tube in the trash. Got to go Party Out of Bounds one last time.

I wore the same dress that I had worn to Gedas and Cynthia's wedding. Since they would not be there, this was my link to them. This was not going to be easy, but there was the solace of knowing so many old friends would be together once again.

Vanessa left for the service a little before noon. We knew that Sunshine United Methodist Church, Ryan's pastorate, was very small, and we wanted to make sure that we got inside. The service was slated to begin at three. When we pulled into the parking lot a few minutes after two, the parking lot was already three-quarters full. We peeked inside the fellowship hall, where Ryan's congregation was busy preparing dinner on the grounds.

When we entered the church, LaMurl Morris was playing old familiar hymns, surrounding us all with pensive, tender airs. I watched as a mixture of people filled the pews. Don Chambers stood against the wall next to where Vanessa and I sat. Everyone looked sad, and a little nervous.

"Look." Vanessa pointed to the wall across from us, where Jerry, Kai, Michael Stipe and others stood. Jerry looked devastated. Michael was in ruins. Everyone was holding hands. Looking at them made me start crying again.

At that moment, the service began. The pallbearers came in escorting the casket, which was on a frame with wheels. As it passed, I once again refused to believe that John's body could be in there. I thought about his beautiful, giant hands. I always had to hold one of his hands with two of mine. How could those hands be contained in a box? It just doesn't seem real. The feeling ascended on the wings of a hymn.

We began by singing the song that traditionally is always the first hymn in the Methodist hymnal. "O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing," one of Charles Wesley's masterworks, and one of the first hymns every Methodist child learns. What a great choice. History was honored; the creed was unfolded.

Coleman Barks delivered the first eulogy. I'm sure he was tickled to listed as "Clergy" in the program. As Coleman mounted the pulpit, I looked over at Jerry and Michael again. I can't look at John's death without looking at my own death, and thinking about these loved ones. It seems like only yesterday that we were all dancing together, drinking daiquiris and permanently leaving the blender on cruise control.

In rich, warm, honeyed tones, Coleman presented words of comfort along with remembrance. I can give specific quotes from his elegy, since it was printed in the Flagpole. After delivering a particularly poignant line, Coleman would look up from his notes, pause, and grin. There is no way to reproduce the cadence of his speech on the printed page, but here is a try.

"John Seawright did not love pause/smile television twinkle/scan/pause or the cheapening dilution of our spiritual longing, however that occurs. John did not love pause/smile banana pudding.twinkle/scan"

In the back of my mind, I could see John looking at a bowl of banana pudding that had been sitting outside for a couple of hours at a potluck dinner, pointing at it while wrinkling his nose and saying with great glee, "Eeeuw. That's nasty." Nobody can say "Eeeuw" like John.

Back to Coleman: "John loved asking about cow vetch and white mulberries and the spotted sandpiper and pause/smile the joy of the moment when identification settles in, he crosses a leg, holds up one finger, wagging finger and says, hushed voice in John's dialect "That's it, whisper that's it."

Coleman read a passage from the end of King Lear, one he said John loved:

Come let's away to prison:

We two will sing like birds I' the cage:

When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down

And ask thee of forgiveness: so we'll live,

And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh

At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues

Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,

Who loses and who wins, who's in, who's out;

And take upon's the mystery of things,

As though we were God's spies…

(V,iii,8-17)

"John Seawright did take on the mystery of things, and was, head nod for a fact, pause God's spy."

Coleman ended by reading two poems that I assume were from Jehlaladdin Rumi. Although they were both beautiful, I will end his part of the program with the second one:

On the day I die, when I'm being

carried toward the grave, don't weep.

Don't say, "He's gone! He's gone!"

Death has nothing to do with going away.

The sun sets and the moon sets,

but they're not gone. Death

is a coming together.

The tomb looks like a prison,

but it's really release

into Union.

The human seed goes down in the ground

like a bucket into the well where Joseph is.

It grows and comes up full

of some unimagined beauty.

Your mouth closes here

and immediately opens

with a shout of joy there.

What a great gift, this poetry.

Coleman sat down, and Reverend Charles Wilson took to the pulpit. I do not have access to his notes, so I cannot give as detailed a report on his eulogy as on Coleman's. The two speeches were complimentary, in that Coleman only knew John as an adult, whereas Charlie knew him from the very beginning.

I believe that someone told me later that Charlie and Ryan went to seminary together. Bound together by life and work, Charlie and his wife and Ryan and Polly were life long friends. Charlie began by speaking of John as a baby. When John kept the new parents up all night, Ryan would find something to do while Polly changed the diapers. He told us how happy John was when his new brother Sam arrived.

Charlie spoke of visiting the family wherever they happened to be serving: Clarkesville, Augusta, 10th Street in Atlanta. When the family moved to Atlanta from the mountains, the boys couldn't understand why they were no longer allowed to roam free.

He painted a picture of the life of a Methodist preacher's family: moving from house to house, never owning your own furniture. Having church members greeting you at the door of the parsonage, telling you not to get any dirt on the white rug, and to take particular care about a certain item in the house. Polly managed to turn every surrounding into a home. The boys thrived, even if they did sometimes leave the furniture a little bit worse for the wear.

Charlie spoke of how Ryan and Polly never tried to turn John and Sam into Christians. Rather, they led by example, and made sure that both boys were surrounded by positive, nurturing influences. They always had ample opportunities to explore their relationship to the Creator.

The last time Charlie saw John was a Christmas. Ryan had opened a gift from John: a big picture book about trains. There was nothing special going on - just a family enjoying each other's company. I know that this is an image both Charlie and the family will be returning to many times.

When Charlie first began speaking, he seemed sort of dry and boring. He was trying hard enough, only the Spirit wasn't in his words. By the time he finished, though, he had managed to move everyone in the church with his descriptions of life with the Seawright's. Time provides a depth to a relationship that is absolutely irreplaceable. To have someone who visited you in the hospital when you were born be there to deliver your eulogy … wow.

The service ended - I can't quite remember how. By that point, I was too swept away to notice. There was music. It seems like there was another hymn, but I cannot recall what it would have been. I do remember the pallbearers escorting the casket out of the church. We all filed out of the church, and made our way over to the funeral tent set up over the gravesite.

There was a hubub of voices. A little nervous laughter, a sniffle, a sob. People naturally gravitated towards their friends. Betty Alice was standing by herself on the far side of the grave. Dressed all in black with tears running down her face, she looked like the loneliest person in the world. Vanessa and I went to stand with her.

As the final rite of the day began, we stood together holding hands. We were asked to bow our heads in prayer over the coffin holding the mortal remains of our dear one. I realized that I had gotten used to looking at the pewter-colored case. I wasn't quite ready to see it go into the ground. Someone said a prayer and few words. I was too dazed to notice who it was.

The same someone who said the prayer then told us that it was time to go inside where the members of the church had prepared lunch, so that we could "leave these gentlemen to their task." The gentlemen in question were five burly, florid-faced men standing next to a backhoe. For some reason, I remember that one of them had on a red t-shirt with holes in it that strained to cover the greater part of the expanse of his belly.

People milled around, hugging some friends, consoling others. I found myself in front of Jefferson Holt. I remember how radiantly white his perfectly pressed shirt was. Sunbeams bounced off it. Through our tears, we embraced. His shirt felt soft against my cheek. All I could say to him was, "It's good to have old friends." He nodded, and we parted.

I drifted around the corner of the church, in search of iced tea. Michael Stipe was standing with a knot of people in the shade at the corner of the church. Michael was wearing a green dress shirt. I swear, the entire time I have known him, I have never seen him dress up in anything other than a green shirt. Maybe it was the same shirt from all those years ago. After all, I had on Stagelight Fuschia-ristic lipstick. Anything was possible.

Michael and I drew together, ending with our arms around each other. If anything was said, I can't remember what it was. All I remember is looking into his eyes. For me, looking into Michael's eyes has always been like falling down a well. Old habits die hard.

After a moment, I looked around and saw two ladies from Young Harris Church: LaMurl Morris, who had played piano so beautifully, and Birdie Craft, the quintessential church lady. Miss Birdie sings like an angel, and has a personality to match her name. She is a tiny, blue-haired dynamo.

I had a sudden inspiration.

"Michael, I want you to come with me. I want you to tell LaMurl how much you enjoyed her music." He looked unsure, but he allowed me to take him by the arm and escort him over to the women.

We must have made an interesting pair, the nervous bald-headed man in the green shirt and the matron in the linen dress proceeding across the yard. Birdy had a look on her face that said, "Oh, my goodness, he's coming to kill me." LaMurl looked amused. She knew what I was doing.

"LaMurl, Michael and I were just talking about how beautiful the music was."

"Yeah, your playing was really nice," Michael mumbled, eyes downcast.

LaMurl made the obligatory thank-you comment, and we turned and walked away, still arm-in-arm.

Halfway across the yard, Michael suddenly threw his head back. "Is my nose okay? I have a sinus infection."

I laughed. "Your nose is fine." You don't ask nobody but your nearest and dearest a question like that. We parted company, and I drifted back down to the gravesite. The coffin, laden with its blanket of flowers, was sitting over the hole, and people were standing around, talking.

A tall woman, a fine example of Athens main export, turned around and asked, "Are you Maureen?" The way she said my name, I knew who she was. "Are you Erica?"

This was John's dear friend, Erica McCarthy. He spoke of her to me many times. We hugged, standing directly next to the coffin. Now, of all times, I finally get to meet Erica.

Although I didn't feel hungry, I went into the Fellowship Hall for lunch. The line was much shorter than when I was in there previously. Ryan stood at the front door, speaking with people. I asked him if he had eaten anything. "No, all I need is to have you here," he said.

That made me feel even less like eating, but I got a plate and started down the counter. The members of Ryan's congregation had put out a spread that did the Seawrights proud. There were platters heaped with perfectly cooked fried chicken, field peas cooked with fatback, fried okra, macaroni and cheese, green beans, butter beans, corn pudding, sweet potatoes, coleslaw, congealed salad, potato salad, and just about anything else you associate with home cookin. A whole table was devoted to the dispensing of sweet tea. Desserts were on another table in the corner, whose custodian was on a mission to keep flies away from the sweets.

I found a spot in the middle of the middle table, and sat. There were conversations going on all around me. Instead of talking, I eavesdropped. Then it hit me. I was eating with Blair and Betsy, DeLoris, Mike Richmond, David Gamble, Ken Tapscott, Vanessa, Betty Alice, Megan, and Paul Bouchart. There were others sitting there as well, but those are the faces that come readily to mind. Twenty years ago, such gatherings were commonplace. And now…

Stunned, I turned to face the middle-aged woman sitting to my right. She had just spoken to me, and I had not responded. She went on, "He even had time for an old woman like me. My Momma was in the hospital in Athens week before last, and I was real worried about her because we don't have any people there, except John. I really wasn't expecting him to come to the hospital at all, and he came and visited Momma three times in one week."

This little vignette blew me away. I said almost nothing to this sweet lady. She probably thought I was the rudest person she ever met. Another wave of emotion crashed over my head. I pictured John sitting in a hospital room at ARMC, talking to an old woman. He was probably holding her hand, because that's what all the Seawrights do. They can't hardly talk to you without holding your hand. He was certainly telling her stories, and, since she was family, he was asking family questions: "Did you ever meet your great-grandmother's first cousin's sister-in-law, Susan? I heard that she…" And he would be off to the races, telling another story.

I left the table, and went back over to the gravesite. The gentlemen had lowered the coffin into the hole in the ground. A big mound of red earth stood at the maw, which was ready to be filled in. People were passing out flowers to put in the grave. There were sunflowers, Cynthia's favorite, and Betty Alice and Heli's bucket of blossoms. Betty Alice pulled out a long stem of greenery, "I think I'll put some nandina in there," she said.

I took two daisies and threw them on t op of the coffin. From the far side of the grave, one of the gentlemen invited us to add a shovelful of dirt. I walked around, and watched as several people before me contributed a portion to the grave. When it was my turn, I pushed the long-handled shovel into the pile of good red Georgia clay with my foot, getting a heaping scoop. The clay was mixed with sand, and it felt substantial and real on this unreal day. I tossed it into the grave, where it landed with a solid "thunk." I passed the shovel to the next person, Elena, and walked away, thinking for the millionth time that, in all the years I knew him, I never once imagined that I would outlive John Seawright.

For the next little while, I wandered from place to place. I was so very thirsty, I revisited the Fellowship Hall for cup after cup of iced sweet tea. Outside, I finally had the opportunity to speak with one of my all-time favorite people. He was standing in the parking lot, with a boutonnière in the lapel of his funeral suit, wearing a bow tie and carrying a three-legged-dog. “Armistead Nelson Welford the Third,” I called, as I crossed the dusty tract towards him. After hugs and kisses, he handed me one of his four-color business cards, with a tiny portrait on it. Vanessa and I spoke with Armie for several minutes before moving on. It was nearly time to go, but I had one more duty to fulfill.

I went back into the Fellowship Hall and the man at the iced tea table handed me the last glass of tea. “We run out and had to make more,” he said, “but I don’t think we got any more to make.” I thanked him, and took a sip of the tea as I went back outside. I rounded the corner of the church and saw a lone figure standing a John’s grave, talking, saying goodbye. After a few moments, he left, and I took his place under the funeral tent.

The flowers that had covered the coffin now covered the grave. Cynthia’s grave was about half-covered with flowers also. I knelt down, and told John goodbye. Then I moved the flowers aside, and poured sweet tea on John Seawright’s grave. The tea sank into the earth, leaving a shine and a pile of ice. I scattered it with my fingers, feeling the red clay and sweet tea melding together on my fingertips, viscous, gritty, and somehow comforting.

I walked back toward the church, marveling at the red stain on my fingertips, wanting to make the promise that all children make when they have been specially touched, to never wash my hand again. Jerry Ayers and Kai were sitting on the church steps. Jerry looked like he had been crying.

“I just poured sweet tea on John Seawright’s grave,” I said, “a libation to the departed.”

“Oh, Maureen, you didn’t,” Jerry said with breathy laugh. And he smiled. I walked on.

Michael Stipe was around the corner, sitting in the shade in his green shirt. “I love you, Michael,”

“I love you, Maureen.” We embraced, and I turned away so that I wouldn’t start crying again. I see Michael so infrequently that every time I see him, I am afraid that I am never going to see him again.

Vanessa looked up at the tree under which her car was parked and said, “The magnolias bloomed last night. That’s good.” Indeed, their heavy lemony perfume was falling on our shoulders. Of all the flowers in the world, magnolias and gardenias are my favorites. Of course the magnolias decided to open today.

Vanessa and I got in the car, and left the granite-dusty parking lot. On the way home, I told her that I wanted to write all this down – it felt like it was already fading away. This must be a dream, this day. This coming together, this loss, it seems so unreal. Part of me wants to go home an call John Seawright. He would so enjoy hearing about the poetry and the pole beans, the impromptu reunions and the all the reconciling that went on this day.

When I got home, Susie Songster immediately appeared in the front yard with a pair of clippers, eyeing the rose bushes. “One of my neighbors died, and we are collecting flowers from the neighborhood for the memorial service. Can I take your roses?” I told her that I had just come from the funeral, and that she was welcome to whatever flowers she could find. I went in the house and changed into sweatpants, and promptly feel asleep on the sofa.

Tuesday morning, May 15th. Today we will have a Memorial Service, and then we will be able to go back to regular life. The Flagpole will come out today. The tomato plants Vanessa and I bought were languishing in the middle of the kitchen table. My first task for the day was to put them in the ground. I decided to put them in the flower bed in the front yard, where they would henceforth be known as the John Seawright Memorial Tomato Patch. Since they were such rangy, scraggly things, I dug deep holes and buried them ‘maters up to their necks. After spreading mulch and giving them a good watering, the JSMTP was off to a good start. It does feel good to plant something when someone dies.

Tuesday afternoon, I went to the field on Oglethorpe Avenue and gathered batchelor’s buttons, daisies, and other wild flowers for the memorial service. I was literally knee deep in blossoms, shearing the prettiest from the stems of the plants, placing them in the bucket of water I had brought along. Once again, I felt the unreality of this day like the five before it. I was gathering flowers for John’s memorial service. “Why does he need to have a memorial service? Maybe I should go over to Meigs Street and see if he’s gotten home yet.” I guess this is what they call denial.

When I went to take the flowers to the church, I ran into Heli Montgomery in the parking lot. “Are you going to sing with us, Maureen?” Without thinking, I said, “Sure,” not realizing that I had committed myself to being part of a group of eight people who would lead the congregation in singing that night.

An hour or so later, I was standing in the sanctuary at Young Harris practicing two hymns with Heli, Blair and Betsy, Vic, David Gamble, Betty Alice, and a woman whom we “volunteered” to join us, since we needed another alto. The hymns Heli had chosen were “What Wondrous Love Is This,” first published in Southern Harmony in 1835, and “Jerusalem, My Happy Home,” a traditional American tune with roots in the 16th century. Both are slow and sad, and very, very beautiful.

We sang, facing empty pews, lifting our voices to the balcony. After a few tries, we started sounding pretty mellifluous for a bunch of people who hadn’t sang together in a long long time. Vic made sure that we always started in tune. David added a deep bass end, Betty Alice tried to get me to sing alto, but my voice just would not go that low. Heli kept us all in line, conducting our little choir.

Someone said, “Pete just brought in the Flagpole.” We all rushed to the narthex (by the front doors), where the heavy glass-topped table bore a giant stack of Flagpoles. When I saw Terry Allen’s picture of John on the cover, my heart soared. I have never seen a better representation of who someone really is than that picture of John. In the clutter the rooms where John immersed himself, he sat, almost smirking, certainly bemused, with his hair flowing down around his shoulders, surrounded by stacks of books, papers, newspapers, an ancient manual typewriter, something that may have been a shoe, and something else that certainly was a giant satin-covered heart-shaped chocolate box.

I looked inside, making sure that my article had, indeed, made it into the paper. No matter how many times I submit something for publication, I still have to make sure that it is actually there.

The choir adjourned to the Fellowship Hall to finish practicing, since people were beginning to drift in the front doors, past the blooming magnolias. Calvin Smith came rushing in. We begged him to sing with us. “I can’t sing but one song today,” he said, as he pushed up the steps. We continued to practice, and the more I sang, the better I felt.

Betty pulled a hip flask out of her straw handbag, and we each tried to take firs one swig and then another as discreetly as possible. My voice started to open up, and I sang in a way I haven’t sang in years. As we all loosened up, BA stowed the flask, our initial uneasiness faded, and our voices began to weave together. Each time we reached the stanza, “There David stands with harp in hand,” we would all turn and motion at Gamble. We were ready.

Finally, it was time to enter the sanctuary. I sat between Heli and Betty Alice on the first row on the right hand side, with everyone else in the choir either in that pew or the one behind it. I turned to look at the crowd: the church was rapidly filling. It was a beautiful sight. Faces were of all colors, all ages, all economic and social strata. It looked like someone had called a town meeting, so diverse was the group. Mike Marsingill, the pastor at Young Harris, later told me that the real church was in the building this night. He marveled at how when a baby began to cry, there was always a pair of willing hands to bring it comfort. Babies were being passed up and down pews like collection plates. Everyone spoke to their pew neighbor, regardless of how they were dressed or what they looked like. We were together.

At last, the service began. My memories of the service are not very good. I did not take notes, and sometimes it was hard to pay attention. People were spontaneously erupting in tears, myself included, so my recollections are not complete. Here is most of what I remember.

Jeff Gilley spoke first. Tears splashed down his big good ol’ boy face as he spoke. I can’t remember a single thing he said, but I do remember that he was wearing a suit. It looked so strange to see someone feeling such pain, yet wearing a suit.

Coleman got up next. He talked about how he liked to surprise John by memorizing an unanthologized Emily Dickinson poem and reciting it to him at work. He read a couple of Dickinson poems, then told a story. He had gotten up this morning and decided to do the old divination trick: open the book and see if you get a “message” from the text. The poem he opened to was about the funeral of a lanky young man. We all got chills as he read it.

The next person I remember is Calvin Smith. Calvin told about the time that he mentioned to John that he was getting ready to go to a family reunion, and wished he knew more about his relations. John rose to the occasion, going to the library and tracing Calvin’s family history. He found that the Smiths were related to Judge Barrow. It gave Calvin a great deal of satisfaction to tell our assembly that he is related to the Barrows, one of the oldest families in Athens. Then he said, “I know this song isn’t religious, but John would have liked me to sing it for you.” In his magnificent baritone voice, he began to sing, “Old Man River, that Old Man River…” Time stopped for everyone in the congregation. His voice rose, and the glass in the windows began to tremble. By the time Calvin sang, “I’m tired of living but scared of dying, that Old Man River, he just keeps rolling along,” the very air was impregnated with the sound of his voice. So pure. So full of longing. I found myself thinking, “If I could just have one more minute with him…” Suddenly, it was over. That last note hung in the air for a moment, and Calvin fled the podium – and the sanctuary – in tears.

Next, a remarkable woman historian from the Midwest got up and read some of the e-mails that she had received from John. She had met John when she came down here to do some research, and they had become friends. The last e-mail she read was the most poignant. He wrote about redoing his kitchen, and cleaning the house. “I think the time has come to put aside the research for a few weeks. I will open a salon. I will learn to speak French.” There was much more wonderful, wonderful stuff. We laughed through our tears.

Then it was time to sing. We stood facing the congregation, with Heli conducting. She instructed the crowd that the would sing a verse first, then everyone would sing all verses. I looked up as we began to sing, “What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul? What wondrous love is this, O my soul? What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of Bliss To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul, To bear the dreadful curse for my soul?”

I wish I could sing this for you now. There is something so sad, yet so uplifting in this old tune. As we sang, I looked around at all the people. Up in the balcony, where there were barely any seats left, down on the main floor where people crowded around the sides of the church. Every voice lifted up the melody. Maybe none of us was Calvin Smith, but we sounded fine.

Heli fearlessly moved on to the second song. “Jerusalem, my happy home, When shall I come to thee? When shall my sorrows have an end? Thy joys when shall I see?” The choir sang the first verse, then once again the congregation joined in. As I looked into the crowd, I saw a light in their faces. Maybe it was just the tears in my eyes, but each individual stood out from each other, and the room was suffused in a kind of golden glow. I was so grateful to be here, and to be able to go through this with so many people that I love.

After the singing, I think Roger Brown spoke next. He related how he became John’s roommate because John wanted to live with someone who did not own a stereo. They became dear friends, and over the years, whenever Roger came to Athens, he went to see John. He spoke of being with his wife at the Globe, and John inviting them over to his house for tea. “Let me leave first, so I can clear a path.” Roger’s wife thought John was joking – until she saw his house!

Blair got up and said a few words. Like Jeff, I mainly remember how Blair was – shaking, holding on to the pulpit – rather than what he said. All I remember him saying is, “I never thought that I would…”

Ken Tapscott was supposed to be the last speaker. He spoke of how he met John at Governor’s Honor’s Program, and how they became fast friends. John skipped his last year of high school and came directly to UGA, where he and Ken met up again. At the end of his speech, he urged everyone to give John an ovation. I will never forget the look of determination on his face as he stood at the pulpit clapping harder and harder, as if the applause had the ability to mediate the pain.

After Ken, though, there were two more speakers. The first speaker came down from the back of the left side of the sanctuary wearing a stained Wilson’s Soul Food t-shirt. She had come directly from work. “I was sitting in the back thinking I wasn’t going to say nothing but something kept telling me, ‘Get up, Teresa, get up.’ So I got up. I used to always see Big John at the Globe after work and he would say to me, ‘Teresa, you don’t need another drink,’ - but then he would always pour me one.” The House howled. Teresa was just what we needed right then.

There was one more speaker – Sam. “I don’t know if I can get through this. Y’all are going to have to help me.” He pulled a paper from the front pocket of his shirt. It was the poem that John wrote for Sam and Tara when they were married. I wish I could remember it. John read it to me one time, and as Sam read in a halting, shaky voice, I heard John once again. John was so proud of that poem, and I was so grateful to hear Sam share it with all of us.

Afterwards, Tom and Melissa invited everyone to their house for a wake of sorts. On the steps of the church, I spoke with Jerry Ayers. I also saw Elena, and Linda Hopper, and Annie Fahey, and Diana Crowe, and I don’t know how many others. I followed the crowd over, where I proceeded to get so drunk that I was afraid to drive three blocks home. I spent a lot of time talking to Linda about her experiences in California, and with Heli and Tracy, and, and, and… I can’t remember. I was back in the kitchen with the wonderful Midwest historian, then I was talking to Kurt Wood about record collecting, then Heli was talking about driving a semi. Conversations swirled around me. I wanted to talk to everyone there, even the people I did not know. After several hours, I started looking for a ride home. Armie was driving Vic and David and Farley home, so they dropped me off on the way.

Since then, there have been all sorts of opportunities for coming together. Farley had a potluck supper at her house the following Sunday, where we stood around beer kegs and told stories until 2 a.m. Old friends have come to town, seeking to re-establish the connections can never be broken. John’s cousin, whose name just happens to be John Seawright, called me. As I write this, it is the 11th of August. It took me this long to finish. I am not making individual “Dear So and So” copies of this letter, because I hope it will range far and wide.

If you are reading this, I hope you know that I love you. If there has been anything that has been keeping us apart, I don’t care what it is. It doesn’t matter any more. I want you back. Let’s go to a movie or the 40 Watt. Let me send you a bouquet of my insane rambling e-mails. Come sit at my kitchen table and I will make you dinner. Let’s sit on the porch and watch it rain. Whatever form it takes, I want you back.

I got an e-mail from a total stranger who wrote to me about John today. She was missing him, and just wanted to tell someone. In my reply to her, I wrote “I don’t take my time with my friends for granted any more. That was John’s final gift to us.”

Let’s put that gift to good use. I hope I hear from you soon.

Love,

Maureen

8/11/01

4 notes · View notes