39th Annual Orthographic Meet

I found a great site about the "Spelling Bee,"  which is now being held at Manuel's Tavern.   Since some Stein Clubbers fled there over the years, it seems perfectly fitting.

http://atlantaopenorthographicmeet.org/ 

While looking through the past winners section, I, of course, came across Patti Wallace's name.  This leads me to finally posting information John found in an article entitled "Atlanta Ballet Re-Hires its Orchestra,"   from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 23, 2008.  

It stated, "The deal is for the current season only, made possible by a one-year, $200,000 gift from Patti Wallace, a trustee of the ballet who keeps a condo at Midtown's Four Seasons hotel and lives in Montgomery, Ala., where she runs a nursing and rehabilitation management company."

Could this be OUR Patti Wallace?  Boy, howdy, that Midtown condo would sure have been convenient after late nights at the Stein Club.   Not to mention parties . . . and sleepovers.

Always a lover of the arts, this sounds like something she might do.  I sincerely hope she is doing so well.

How many great parties did she make possible, not to mention Sidney Califf's -- was it baby shower or wedding shower?  This stands out for me because, instead of those little games women normally play at these events, the contests were who could drink the most Tequila Sunrises and eat the most chocolate chip cookies.  Proudly, I can say that I won both.

You Mean You're Supposed to Be 21?

I read a book recently in which the author was scared that the pages were flying so fast off the calendar she wouldn’t have time to live her complete life. For me, it was because I was convinced I would die young. Where this feeling came from, I have no idea, but my desperation was slaked by this new world. Gritty, it was also sophisticated. Sensual, it was, by my parents’ moral standards, dirty enough to ban a girl from polite society. There was no lie I wouldn’t tell to be with John and go to the Stein Club.

There we would see Ben Douglas with his girlfriend. Probably in her late 20's, Becky was very attractive and stylish. Though you wouldn’t say she was pretty, her slender figure was so good that she modeled for bra and pantie ads for magazines. Becky could be ill tempered and jealous just in general. But lately she had good reason. Floating around 14th and Peachtree were more and more girls ten-plus years her junior in super-short cutoffs, miniskirts and see-through blouses. The Mandorla was a chick magnet and, increasingly, so was Ben Douglas.

After 40 years, I’m a little vague on how many times the waitresses let me in without asking for ID, but eventually that day did come. John had instructed me to say that I had left it at home. Our server allowed as how when I had it with me, I could come in again. By this time, as little as I had actually experienced there, the Stein Club was a necessity. I just had to get back in.

Mother David and the Mandorla Gallery

Although I had made a couple of visits to the Stein Club with John, a gateway to actually knowing people there was the Mandorla Art Gallery at 14th Street and Peachtree, opened in 1966 by David Braden, lovingly known to the burgeoning hippie community as Mother David. There were not many men at that time who dared to embrace being gay. But David carried his distinct lisp and delicious swish with a fine sense of humor. Combined with his sweet nature, people were naturally drawn to him. The few times I met him, he was surrounded by an entourage, and it was obvious Mother David was a star.

The main level of the Mandorla sold custom-designed jewelry and artwork. Also the Gallery Illien, owned by Anna Belle Illien, was there [More about Anna Belle Illien]. Although I met Anna Belle a couple of times, Yves Illien, her husband, was a Stein Club regular. Yves was French, and like many men at that time, he had a beard. Unlike a lot of the others, his looked good, always trimmed and groomed.

In 1967, I was 18 and John was 27. A lot of the people I met were older than John. My mind simply could not comprehend being that old. Yves will be the first, but not the last, about whose age I can only say he was a lot older than John.

In the basement of the Mandorla was a coffee shop and also a printing press where the first few editions of The Great Speckled Bird were printed. A few years later the basement became a bar called the Catacombs, a very successful hangout for hippies. I remember sitting there one day during some sort of angst playing A Whiter Shade of Pale on the jukebox over and over. It was kind of like catacombs, dark and dank, made of stone . . . perfect for angst.

On the top floor was a shop John and Ben Douglas rented to make jewelry. Ben was older than John, but not a lot older . During this time a strange social mixing was taking place: wealthy, upper-class, Buckhead ladies were slumming in the 14th Street art district. And, boy, did they love that custom jewelry . . . and sometimes the jewelers. They also loved makers of leather goods, painters, potters and, well, you name it. These men who smelled slightly of sweat, wearing nothing under those bell-bottom jeans, rough and ready, were something different for the ladies who lunch.

If memory serves, Ben Douglas was a Leo. If not, he should have been. He was tall, had wide shoulders and a large head. Blond hair down to his shoulders just emphasized his leonine appearance. Raised in a small town outside Atlanta, he had been married and had several grown children. Had he stuck to the straight and narrow path, he could have taken over the family business and his income and inheritance would have been sizable. Instead, he made jewelry and rented a basement apartment on Clairmont Road near Emory University, with John and another roommate. That apartment and the Catacombs had a lot in common.

It always seemed to me that different groups of friends in the Stein Club formed circles. These circles could intersect, with a member of one circle being friends with a member of another, but the basic circle remained intact. Ben stood at the center of one of the largest circles. It even outlasted the Stein Club. Ben was a person of power.

It was the sexual revolution, and John and I were doing our part. On the large Mandorla staircase, things were getting hot and heavy when John led me to the second floor, past the jewelry shop to a room I hadn't seen before. The only thing I remember seeing is this lovely pallette, perfectly made up, with a makeshift night table, and lighted lamp. It just looked so cozy and inviting. Who could resist? Well, probably anybody with any sense of privacy and decorum, but that left us out.

I can't remember exactly how long it was -- except that it wasn't long enough -- when this very gruff voice said, "WHO'S IN MY BED?" It's been 40 years and I don't remember what we said, but I'll just about bet "Hey, man, we're cool," came in there somewhere. The bed owner turned out to be David Frye. Lucky for us, he was one of the calmest, best-natured people ever, and became one of our favorite Stein Club friends.

A sad note to this story is what happened to Mother David. For the first few years, the hippie movement was made up of college dropouts, who were antiwar activists, or just dropping out and turning on. Lots of them came from middle and upper-middle class families. Parents were upset. Business people were upset. The religious community was livid. Something had to be done.

The scapegoat was David Braden and the Mandorla. First, pressure was put on Sam Massell, owner of the building and later mayor of Atlanta, to throw David out. I remember Mr. Massell saying that they were good tenants who took care of his property and paid their lease on time. He refused to be bullied.

Mother David was set up, according to those close to him, and arrested on March 12th, 1968, for selling marijuana. He was placed in solitary confinement under $25,000 bond until his trial on April 22nd. The details of this trial can be found in a contemperaneous article at this link: David Braden Trial. And, once again, I thank TheStripProject.com for the good information and pictures I have found there. Briefly, he pled guilty to possession of marijuana and was sentenced to seven years in state prison. It seems hard to believe now, doesn't it?

I don't know how long he served, but I remember when he got out, and it seemed like a long, long time since the days at the Mandorla. Whether this was covered in a newspaper or on TV, I can't remember, but I do know that he was not well. Who would think such a Wildean story could happen in the 60's? John says his memory is that after his release, David moved to Alaska.

14th and Peachtree

Surfing the net last night, I found a great picture at a site called TheStrip Project. Second from the left is Fifi Fiuk, whom I remember well. I believe she and John Peek were also close. Fifi and I had a family connection, and I know that she had been born in Germany during WWII and her early life was very hard. She was very sexy and had this great throaty, Lauren Bacall voice.

[In a conversation with Terry Hamilton tonight, I verified that the girl fourth from the left is Lisa Deadmore, daughter of Lou and Martha Ann Deadmore, long-time Stein Club regulars. If you click on the picture above, it leads to a much larger version of this picture with a listing of who these folks are.]

The picture is just great. It's very representative in that you have a group of fairly unattractive kids who have gone out of their way to be more unattractive, except for the pretty girl sitting down in the bottom row. Notice that she is surrounded by seven pretty dorky boys. Remind anybody of high school? The body language of the black guy says a lot, too, I think.

If I'm not mistaken, the Antebellum house in the background was a supervised rooming house for girls run by, maybe the YWCA. A girlfriend was staying there and, as always, desperate to leave home, I joined her. One of the many concepts that I've had trouble with in my life was curfew. That was at eleven. About 11:30 we came to grips with the fact that the door was locked and we were out on the street. Milling around with the other couple of hundred people, also on the streets, we met a guy who said that he was going out of town and we could use his apartment. We may have been naive but we weren't idiots, and this seemed too good to be true. On the other hand, we were now getting very sleepy, and maybe you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Taking the keys, we walked several blocks up Peachtree, and found the apartment. Sure enough, the key worked and there was a bed and everything. By now it must have been two o'clock in the morning. Sleep came as soon as we lay down. It was probably a little after dawn that the pounding on the door started. It was the sheriff's office. The tenant was being evicted. That included us. Very tired, I went back to the big, white house, collected my stuff, and did the only wise thing: I called my mother. She was very relived to hear from me and came right away.

The Annual Stein Club Open Orthographic Meet

I have included below a portion of Dick Price's comments to an earlier post describing in good detail the beginnings of the Orthographic Meet. To test your spelling against the experts, click on this link "Last Stein Club Open Orthographic Meet." The 50 words from the 30th and last meet are pronounced on this site, and there are blanks to try your hand at spelling them.

From Dick Price: Your opening reference to what you vulgarly termed a spelling bee had its beginning when I sat at a table in the back room with Daisy Adley, Anthony Pendlebury Jonathan Jackson, and perhaps others when we at the table were immodestly describing our spelling prowess.

That very evening we came up with a scheme to show the world just who was the best speller. Thus was born the First Annual Stein Club Open Orthographic Meet. The year was 1970, the month January, and I won that competition. My prizes were a sterling silver pendant fashioned by Catherine Palmer and a sterling silver ring (I still have it) made by David Frye.

In subsequent years non-Stein Club ringers got word of the contest and infiltrated the winner's circle. I remember Billie Brown and John Peek as perennial competitors from our regular flock.

I just found this quote from an article in, ironically, a magazine named Waste Age geared toward Waste Management companies. It is by Nikki Swartz and dated April 1, 2000. I was just guessing on the year the Stein Club opened, so I will assume that 1961, as quoted here, is correct.

Downtown, the Stein Club has drawn urban dwellers since 1961. If the odd decor, including a chunk of the century-old banister from the Guinness family home, doesn't charm you, the black-and-white pictures of past patrons and the beer will.

The Beginning

Around 1963 or 1964, Jim Calloway, Jim McRae, and Roger Reedus bought a garage near 8th and Peachtree. Their serious renovation of the building included a long bar stretching almost the length of the long, narrow room, tables, chairs and banquettes. With a jaunty, red-and-white striped awning and a waist-high brick planter outside, and a personal stein for each patron decorating the shelves behind the bar, the Stein Club opened for business.

By the time I got there, in 1967, the steins were still there, but just for decoration. There were far too many patrons for everybody to have his own. If I had to use one word to describe the regular Stein Clubbers, it would be beatnik, although that really doesn’t completely cover it either. There were regionally renowned painters and sculptors drinking side by side with college professors and politicians, the unemployed, and a few hippies wandering up from 14th Street. Lots of waiters and bartenders, came in for what I called the night shift. One of the true regulars was the vice-president of a national bank, another was an engineer and another the producer of a national PBS show. It was the great leveler. There were those who made very good money and those who barely got by. But money didn’t matter. If you were smart and entertaining, funny and well-read, you could drink your fill there any night .

There will be lots to talk about in this blog. For example, the annual spelling bee, which brought in spellers from far and wide and was covered nationally at least once. Dick Price was there at its inception. He has told me the story of how this came about, but it’s been many years since I’ve heard it. Maybe he can fill us in.

I’m pretty sure Dan Connolly was an instigator of the limerick contest. There were a couple of years there where he just about drove me crazy waking me up at seven o’clock in the morning to read me his latest overnight creations. Out of all the wonderful limericks that were written, the only one I remember was for the topic: Lester Maddox and Coretta Scott King - Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows. Bob White wrote, “Ring-a-ding-ding, Coretta Scott King.” All those hundreds of lines of poetry, and that’s it.

There was a rugby team, a dart club, a men’s softball team, the greatly admired women’s softball team and an annual party for the Metropolitan Opera chorus. Surprisingly, the Stein Club was always well represented in the Peachtree Road Race. Harold Moore ran the race for years when you thought he’d have trouble even getting up from the table. Of course, one my great creations was the Annual Christmas Pageant, which never actually happened. The planning was great, though. I remember George Caberas [spelling?] was going to be Round John Virgin and Beverly Couch claimed Heavenly Piece. By all means if anybody remembers other Christmas Pageant names, I would love for you to post them.

And, of course, there was the Stein Club’s answer to the Dogwood Festival. Dare I mention the name? Oh, all right, the Dogshit Festival. Now is probably not the time to go into great detail, but I can say, though he denied it to the grave, that Bob Hatcher was involved in thinking this up. It was not all my idea. And, no, I never planned to be the only Queen.

There were probably well over 200 people who came there at least three times a week, and if you could include all the people who were brought there by a friend, the total is in the thousands. Some people could walk in, have a beer, and never come back. For others like me, entering the Stein Club was like coming home, finally finding my real family. It was seductive. College seemed boring. Actually, everything else was boring. And at the center of this wonderful community was beer. And, Lord, how I loved beer, and so did we all.