In The Azalea City

In the Azalea City of Mobile, Alabama the spring dresses the city in shades of hot (azalea) pink, red, white and a salmon orange color. The flowering bushes are indigenous to the South, and they are everywhere from miniature size to a mammoth overgrown wilderness. Mobile is called the Azalea City where sporting events, luncheon events and so many aspects of life relate to being the Azalea City. Azaleas are perennial evergreens that never go away.

Mobile has another overgrown indigenous aspect to life. There is a group called “Old Mobile.” Many new comers find the supposed “Old Mobilians” to be snobby, closed minded and socially untouchable. Growing up in Mobile can be a challenge to the senses of a child and pubescent adolescent. Even today 300 years after Mobile was started the family ties are an essential part of life.

In the south there are those with family money, which many Old Mobilians were considered. Understand, what is still known as family money is not to be confused with wealth. It has never been about the amount of cash or other assets a family has. Family money status is granted by someone who was white, somewhat educated beyond high school, born in a large home with a front porch and preferably with a house in the country or on the beach. In Mobile the optional house was either in Spring Hill, or in Point Clear on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay. It also was important to be raised by a black maid, and partially raised by doting grand parents who once owned the ancestors of the current maid. Acreage and trust funds helped somewhat, but Mobile is full of insolvent blue bloods who inherited the status of family money. It can’t be earned. It has to be handed down at birth.

As with my grandmother my two older brothers and I were trained and reminded from birth of the stringent social graces of a privileged people, and being part of the true “Old Mobile” league of families.

Mammie, my maternal grandmother was one of the women of the “Old Mobile” group of families. I am named after her great-grandmother Cecelia Eslava. The Eslavas first came to Mobile during the Spanish ownership. Spring Hill is where the family estates still stand, some even have historical markers denoting the family ownership, but they were sold to support the generation just ahead of me, and to keep up appearances when I was a youngster.

Mammie’s life was filled with social events on every day of the week. Wednesday was always her bridge club, Monday was the sewing club and on in between days there were numerous other socially responsible activities that she had to attend.

One aspect of the heritage that I appreciate is that both of my grandmothers were college graduates. Mammie, went to Sullins in Virginia, which is now part of Virginia Intermont. Grandmother, my paternal grandmother attended Troy State University in Troy, Alabama, which was known as the teacher’s college. This is outstanding considering they were born in the early 1900’s, and very few women of that era even went to high school much less college.
They both lived well into their 90’s, but I was always saddened by the fact that their full potential wasn’t met because of social standards, and by what women were supposed to do in their era. Mammie told me she always wanted to be in advertising, but as a young woman it wasn’t acceptable for a young lady of privilege to work in such a business. Grandmother did work for a while as a school teacher, which other than being a nurse or secretary was about all that was acceptable for ladies of the privileged and family money.

It was really difficult becoming a young woman in the early to mid 1970’s living in Mobile. Society was being challenged at every angle from the basic eating habits to whether women should go bra-less and wear pantsuits to work. Young women and girls were wearing micro mini skirts, much to the chagrin of grandmothers like mine.
Social rebellion was the scene of the day.

There were riots in the streets of Mobile and many other cities in the country over either the civil rights issues for black people, or there were protests against the government and war in Vietnam. Protests and riots accompanied the evening news along with the daily body count of soldiers lost in Vietnam. It was the first time in history that war was seen every day in the home. We were subjected to the scenes of young girls running naked down a village street as huge fiery plumes of Napalm were exploding behind her in Vietnam to three students being shot by a National Guardsman on the campus of Kent State in Ohio. There was a war of some type raging everywhere in the United States. Black people were being killed, hosed and mauled, and white people were having their businesses, homes and schools firebombed and boycotted. Peace was hard to find even in the stately older homes of Mobile. Feeling safe was not part of everyday life.

With all the protests and riots raging in the late 60’s and early 70’s I saw the privilege of family money as a hoax and a travesty of which I wanted no part. I saw that I was being groomed for being a debutante. I had seen other girls go through the process of being paraded before the men and families of the Mardi Gras Royalty and Courts. To me it was equal to running slaves, cattle, or any other chattel before the buyers.

My soul determined that I would not be enslaved by such standards. I took off my bra, wore my jeans dragging the ground, loose halter tops, my hair was long blond and unruly. No I was not going to conform to the rules and traditions of such a class that held my grandmothers down, and who could rule over the who, what and where aspects of my future. It was a tough act for my grandparents and parents to swallow but eventually they resolved to accept it.

In June of my 15th year I got married to Kevin a man 10 years older than I. He wasn’t from Mobile, nor was he from a Southern privileged family, he was essentially a no body. My grandparents and their friends disowned me. Luke and Lindy were our friends. They got married the day after we did on July 1st, 1972.

After getting married we all left Mobile in Louise, the gray Volkswagon van, to go live in a “hippie commune” in the North Georgia Mountains. Living in the commune meant we had to work the fields and live in sharecropper housing of a Southern family of privilege.
I met some very different characters in the commune. The men all enjoyed being stoned and tripping around the fields and playing music together. Luke, Larry, Kevin and Ken were all friends that met in the Army stockade of Ft. Benning in Atlanta. They had each been put there for charges of being A.W.O.L. They claimed being A.W.O.L. was a protest to the draft and Vietnam War. Kevin said he registered as a conscientious objector, but still got drafted. It was cool then to be a draft dodger, war protester, and hippie.

We were the spectacle of the community up in the mountains of Georgia. Not many people there had actually seen a bunch of hippies. Louise, the van, had flowered curtains in the windows and a mattress in the back instead of seats. As we drove through the streets of Summerville or Rome, Georgia the locals would all point and stare at us. Once a week we would go into town for groceries and occasionally ice cream. All of us had long hair, wore low hip hugger jeans and usually went barefoot. Larry always wore a leather headband, Luke often wore a big floppy hat, but Donna was the one that got the most stares. Donna wore a long sleeved black velvet dress that was cut down to her waist in front with no bra and boots. You must remember this was in June and July of the deepsouth where temperatures usually hit in the mid 90’s at mid day. Often Donna would carry her two year old on her hip. The child was naked. To the religious dignified folks of small town Georgia this was indecent and trashy. They seemed able to call us trash from the doorways of stores and houses, but they never wanted to get too close to any of us.

A couple of the local boys took to hanging out with us, but they stood out as odd in their community. One named Sheepdog drove and old beat up red Camero, and always left the windows open. He was never worried about someone breaking into his car, because he had a three foot pet python that lived in his car. When anyone came close to the car the snake would stick its head out from over the sun visor. Believe me it scared most people from even wanting to get near that car much less get in it. Sheepdog and Mike would take us to see and explore places that only local boys would know about. We went hiking in the woods, spelunking, and riding rapids in Little River with these guys. They were actually two of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet.

After about a month I saw that the hierarchy of the commune was even worse than the rules of living in privilege. Larry had made himself the appointed king and ruler of the commune. According to him the seven of us were to work for him and follow his orders. He was married to a woman living in Oregon, but had Donna come live with him in the commune. Donna was a typical blond hippie girl from California. She had two daughters, each of which had a different dad. I learned that Donna’s mission and purpose was to have sex with as many men as she could to have more babies, because the more illegitimate babies she had the more money California welfare paid. This was way outside of my Southern privilege sensibilities, and actually angered me.

Being that Donna was there for the pleasure and hope of having Larry’s child decided she was queen of the commune. With Donna as queen that left all the household chores to Lindy and I, which included caring for Donna’s two daughters. Understand at 15 I was the youngest of the group, and this was the first time I had ever lived anywhere without a maid to clean, cook and take care of the daily chores of life. I knew nothing of house work, and truly wasn’t interested in being ordered around by two freaked out strung out older hippies. I decided I had enough. After much discussion and arguing with Kevin we left the commune. Not long after Kevin and I returned to Mobile Luke and Lindy also returned to Mobile.

Kevin and I got married in June, and by July when we left the commune summer was still going strong. I hadn’t been to the beach all summer. To anyone who has spent summers on the beach the sand that gets in your shoes is a real visceral part of life that you can literally ache to feel.

We also left in July because not only was I fed up with the charade of life in the commune I had to be in Mobile for my oldest brother’s wedding on August 12th, 1972. This was my social obligation to the family. I know the only reason I was asked to be in the wedding is because I am my brother’s only sister. I am certain that all involved would have preferred that I had never returned from Georgia.

I knew that being back in Mobile would raise lots of questions. After all the only reason a young girl of 15 would get married and leave home is because she was pregnant. It was July and I was back in Mobile and there were no obvious signs of me being pregnant and there was no child in tow.

The first afternoon I was back at Mammie’s house she was having her bridge club. My heart leaped into my throat and got stuck. Were these ladies of privilege and Southern social graces going to chastise me, ignore me embrace me or just tolerate me? Through out my life these ladies had adored me and made me feel loved. They could all be quite outspoken and deadly honest with their opinions.

I remember taking a deep breath and started down the hall to the front room where they were all enjoying their ice cold libations and finger sandwiches. To my surprise they all shouted my name and forgot there bridge hands when I entered the room.

Their questions were heartfelt and sincere.
While I was in Georgia I wrote to Mammie and drew pictures of what I had seen on hikes and riding the rapids. I had no idea that these ladies couldn’t wait for Mammie to read one of my letters to them. They asked me about spelunking down the 200 foot shafts of caves into the depths of the earth, and about riding the raging rapids of the river on sticks. It was great to be welcomed home and still be a free bird, a rebel. If I were to guess, I was the antithesis of what all these women had longed for in their lives.