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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview
R-0301, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
Environmentalist MaVynee Betsch removed the letter R from her first name to protest what she saw as Ronald Reagan's disregard for the environment and expunged her middle name, Elizabeth, when she learned that Queen Elizabeth I nurtured the British slave trade. In this interview, she describes her childhood in the 1930s and 1940s in Jacksonville, Florida, a childhood spent in a vibrant black community peopled by pioneering professionals who created institutions to support one another. She remembers her travels in Europe after graduating from Oberlin College in the mid-1950s. And she describes the decline of the African-American neighborhood of her youth, a stronghold of economic and cultural independence divided and destroyed by an interstate and chain stores. But if Jacksonville reveals the predatory relationship between development and the black community, Betsch's life in the resort founded by her great-grandfather, American Beach, represents the potential for black Americans in a changing South.
Environmentalist MaVynee Betsch remembers her childhood in an African-American neighborhood in Jacksonville, Florida, and her experiences with segregation and development.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Mostly the tours, people coming down here in their buses.
I'm going to keep an eye on this. I think it's doing right. I'll set this kind of close to you. I think that should be good. Don't, you shouldn't need to aim for it. It should pick up everything.
Let me just for the sake of the tape if we could start out, if you would just say your name and maybe when and where you were born.
My name is Marvene, naw, the spelling is different now because I took the R out. But it, I know spell it M-A—capital V-Y-N-E-E. I took the R out because of Reagan. I am an environmentalist and of course he had the nerve to say when you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all and that infuriated me so. So I took my R out. The middle name is Elizabeth. I changed that because I found out in my, well, I say the last five or six years, that Elizabeth was the one who started the slave trade. Remember in school—oh yes, darling. I have news for you. See I know I had the same thing. Shakespeare, the Elizabethan age. Bull, that woman financed that slave trade. Okay, so I took my middle name out, and my middle name is now Oshun for the goddess of love, the African goddess of love and the arts. My last name is Betsch, B-E-T-S-C-H. That's the German side on my father's side, way back the grandfather, whatever. So and I was born in Jacksonville, 1935. What a year. That's the same year the Afro got American Beach. I like to think they did it for me. Of course it's also the year of the great hurricane. My mother and daddy used to tease each other, well, it's not our fault we've got this eccentric woman, girl who's just into all things that are a little bit different from us. I grew up in Jacksonville, went to the usual public schools, and then my dad was so disgusted with the school system, we went to Washington. So I went to Banneker Junior High School, which is a black school. To show you how the difference between the southern, real southern and even just DC, I mean God we're taking geometry and I'm coming home, and they're just—are you crazy? They didn't have that until the eleventh grade. It's just amazing how backward the south was let alone segregated schools for the African Americans.
So you come from a prominent, an important family of Jacksonville.
Of course. Yes, my great grandfather Abraham, what else, that name. He'd have to have that name. Abraham Lincoln Lewis was born in 1865 in Madison, Florida, and he was one of the seven founders of the Afro-American Life Insurance Company, 1901. Don't forget now. There was no way to bury black folks in those days. They'd pass around a hat, several of them got together at Bethel Baptist Church, that beautiful church downtown Jacksonville. Each man put up a hundred dollars and they started the burial society. Well, I mean we were it. It's hard for you to conceive what, how completely self-contained that world was. We could go weeks and never see another white person. We lived in an area called Sugar Hill. There was a park and then the white folks usually, there's a railroad or whatever that divides the rich and poor, the white and black or whatever they used, the tracks. Well, for us it was the park. On the other side was Springfield. You'd see some white folks through there, but I mean this wasn't, our world was completely self-contained. The Afro sponsored clinics for the children whenever they got their premiums with the insurance company. The Afro sponsored the big dance at Christmas time. The Afro, once the beach was here, it was a big picnic in August, which was the social event. Of course there was my dad who was, oh God, I mean, don't forget now this little so-called country boy from North Carolina is marrying into money. I guess, bless his heart, he had to prove his worth. I mean, Daddy did everything. He, well, he was vice president of the company. He was what do you call that, the manager over all the districts. At one time we were all the way to Texas, Texas. He did people's income taxes. He was an architect. Oh man we didn't have one kind. We had two. But it was a world, when I think of the way the wealthy and supposedly poorer people live now. It wasn't like that. Our house was always like Grand Central Station. People were there. It was never a question of we were in a different class or whatever from other people. The managers were spending the night at our house, and of course their children would stay there and sleeping in our room and—
So there was a lot of activity.
Oh social, the world. I mean, it's just, I mean,
it's almost embarrassing to see some black people now who
have moved out into the suburbs now and who literally would not be
caught dead in supposedly African-American areas of the city now.
It's just, it's a different breed now. Absolutely.
We were together. I only heard of the NAACP and so forth when I went to
a white college. I mean, we took care of our own. Everybody was there
although we had a maid. My great grandfather had a chauffeur. I
Jackson is on the twenty.
He takes the twenty and puts it back into his pocket, gives the
chauffeur directions. We go to the next little store to get change so
he'd have four fives. Who's on the five? Lincoln.
Even money, this man was so, he must've been a philosopher in
a past life. I mean he was so deep into, he went to Africa in the
'20s, and he used to sit on this
Oh yeah.
Don't you like that one?
Yeah.
It's beautiful. Then he'd tell us about the fact that in the middle of business, what word is in the middle of business?
Sin.
Sin, absolutely. And he'd tell us if it's not a cause, it's sin. That's the reason he went back to get those four five-dollar bills. He said everything you do, you're making a statement. If you'd given that twenty-dollar bill to that man, it's almost like you're condoning that. I mean, how dare you this man—oh God. And the fact that they called it Jacksonville, I can't—. It should be called Johnsonville after Andrew, James Weldon Johnson. But anyway, so was my upbringing. So was my upbringing with this man. Every Sunday we ate dinner with him. We went to church. He was of course, my mother was an organist.
By the time you're aware, he's seventy-five years old, right.
Well, he died when I was ten. He died when I was, that's my great grandfather. He died when I was ten.
So if he died in forty-five, he died at eighty was it?
Eighty, it was '47. It was '47 when he died. But as children, he was such a, I feel sorry for children who have their parents, grandparents in nursing homes or whatever. It's so said because oh the memories of this man are so important to me. I can still hear his voice. We'd go to, there was this ritual. You ate; you went to church; you went to the cemetery. You should go to the cemetery. It's out there on Moncrief in Jacksonville. I have a marker there. From there we'd go to the beach. This was from Easter to Labor Day. It was that ritual. As children we looked forward to this, seeing him.
It seems like there was a consistency in his life, just in terms of his, I mean people don't live like that.
Oh God yes. Yes. Look at this man. Even then he was ahead of his time socially. Now it's politically correct for employees to own—
Stock.
Stock in the company. But you know who owned the beach? The pension
bureau. My great grandfather of course was wealthy. He had stock in Wall
Street, he could've bought the beach by himself. He
could've been the elite. No, no. It was the pension bureau
that owned this. The money that the employees put in. Over there on
Julius Street,
Would you ever remember him talking explicitly about race?
No. No. It's so strange. I know this may sound funny, but because we were, for example we went to school in a car. You see, the wealth, money believe it or not, kept us away from a lot of things that were normally associated with that time. We didn't ride the bus that much. So we wouldn't have come into contact with that. We could go to the beach when they were fighting about the swimming pool, integrating the swimming pool. That wasn't a problem. We could come. We had our own beach, go in the water in there. It was definitely an economic thing. Definitely, we went to a private girl's school. Oh yeah, Boylan-Haven had a girl's school, a school for black girls.
So you went to the boarding school.
No we didn't. We went as day students. It was a boarding school, but we went there as day students. Yeah.
What about in terms of, I've talked to a number of people who remember fondly walking down with their friends to Ashley Street. Could you, would you do that as a—
Oh yeah. No, no. Ashley Street was sort of off limits to us because this
was where they had the poolroom and the, we were girls. We were the
prize of Jacksonville at least the upper class. You know how that is. We
had our debutantes' ball, oohhh. So you just
didn't go down Ashley Street as girls, oh no darling. Daddy
had a poolroom. He had a what else? Hair parlor, beauty parlor, he had a
restaurant. It was called
You went to the theater.
Oh yeah, we went to the movies every Saturday, watched the gangsters. What are you talking about? Was it Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart. Oh God, I'm glad—
To the Strand.
Yes. That's right. To the Strand. We went there, but not this end of Ashley Street. That's where the liquor store was.
So you would go the Strand. Would you need to be chaperoned or how would you—?
Well, we had an adopted sister, Millie went to Edward Waters. She became our baby-sitter. Bless her heart. She's still living. She's up in Greensboro where my sister is now president of Bennett College. Millie was the financial officer there until she retired.
How did, how was she brought into the family?
Well, she was just a student at Edward Waters, and you know how you go get, you advertise for a baby-sitter. She started out as a baby-sitter, and then she just didn't want to go home. Mother and Daddy sent her through college. She, so we called her like our adopted sister. So she was always there. When we went to Washington to live—remember I told you we went to Banneker she went there too to be with us. She was going to Howard.
At what age did you go to Banneker?
Let me see, that was seventh, eighth and ninth. That was middle—what you call now middle school, junior high because then high school we came back to go to this exclusive girl's school for black girls.
So but I'm wondering is did you have, you had, so you weren't gone for your complete, entire adolescence from Jacksonville.
No, no. Just those three years. We went first to sixth grade in Jacksonville. Seventh, eighth and ninth we go to Washington and we come back to Jacksonville those four years. Johnetta went, my sister went directly to Fisk. They had that accelerated program where you could go eleventh grade. She went to Fisk. I went to Oberlin directly from high school. Then she came on up there with me. I was in the music school.
What years were you at Oberlin?
'51 through '55, and then I went to Europe and sang there in the opera.
'51 to '55.
To '55. Yep. Sure was.
Did you find, do you ever remember as an adolescent finding this all as a constraint that the expectations or not being able to go to Ashley Street?
No, because don't forget Mother and Daddy are doing an awful
lot of entertaining. So why would we have to go—there were
always parties and Daddy—oh God, we had two. In fact I
don't know
Always entertainment—
That's a little bit much. Now we're in the house,
but not down there. I know it may sound weird, but that was in his idea
of the way you controlled this thing. At least if they're in
the house, I'm watching them. Okay.
Who were your neighbors?
Oh wonderful people. Mostly family. We were on this—it was like a triangle. We were on this corner. My uncle was on this corner by the way Florida's first black corporate lawyer.
Who was your uncle?
James Leonard Lewis. That was my great grandfather's
grandson. My mother's brother. On the other corner was my
great grandfather. Other people were oh my gosh. What would I say,
Johnetta's godmother who was married to a very prominent
black physician from Palm Beach. I remember the lady down the street who
used to bake our bread for Sundays. The Simmonses who were also part of
the Afro. He was the first black actuary, you know the man who told you
approximately when you were going to die. Let me see who else were some
of our neighbors. Oh the big minister at the Bethel, lived down the
street from us. It was a beautiful community, absolutely. It was on
Eighth and Jefferson, the
Clubs.
Clubs, you had the nightclubs. Oh God this was it. The Two-Spot, we know now that may have been the largest in the south. It had a balcony. That's where we had the ball, the debutante ball.
Now I'm, am I right that you would have never been inside the nightclubs?
No, no.
Because you would have been too young.
Too young—
And by the time you come back they're gone.
Yes. Yes. They're all gone.
They're decrepit.
That's right. I did go, of course I was inside the Two-Spot.
The Two-Spot was a cotillion sort of—
That's where we had the debutante. No, we didn't go inside any of those. Nope. Nope. That was off limits. But I mean even the grocery stores, it's interesting because you had a lot of Syrians and Jewish, people who were in the black community. It was a strange combination although you had segregation. They would somehow own some of the smaller stores within the black community. The other ones were black-owned of course, but you did have that Middle Eastern influence within there. I remember deliberately—
Any Greeks?
No, not Greeks. It was mainly Middle East. The man who owned Daylight I remember was Jewish. What was that little store on the corner? He was Syrian. It was mainly Middle East, just little corner stores. Nothing, the other big ones and stuff were still predominantly black the shoeshine, the shoe repair shop was black-owned. The corner drugstore was black-owned. But you would have one or two smaller ones and they would be either Jewish or Arabic of Arabic descent. Interesting combination. All that's gone now. Once they put that, when I came home, they had put that highway. See I-95—
When you came home from Oberlin or from Europe.
From Europe.
So—
From Oberlin it was still, well, '55 don't forget—when did they have that integrated. What was that Brown versus—
'54.
'54, okay I graduated '55, but I go directly to Europe. So I'm not really noticing too much what's going on. I missed a lot of the fights. I mean, like my brother was in jail and all this other stuff. I don't remember any of that. But I as doing my own thing over there because I remember can you imagine I'm the only black woman in Germany. I mean, I'm for the cause. They would come in and say Frau Betsch, Frau Betsch remember when the woman got the gold medal, the black woman, Wilma.
Rudolph—
Yeah, Rudolph. I mean, the whole theater was alive. There's Frau Betsch. This is someone from America, dadadadada, black American. So I was doing it in an indirect way. They were so proud. Well, here was this African American singing in Germany. Dadada, don't forget now. There weren't that many Americans period in that '50s in Europe.
Sure. This is ten years after the Holocaust.
Yeah, I'm still, I'm like Queen Tut over there. There weren't that many. I'm in the northern part of Germany, not the southern part, where you may have had a few of the military. They would see black people there but they hadn't seen that many blacks in the northern. But no, my brother and sister were more part of that integration. I missed all that. I'm in Europe now. Don't forget when I come home it's '65. So the worst part is over. The Selma—
Was Oberlin a strange move from Jacksonville?
Not really. My piano teacher was, oh God. She was African American, fabulous woman. She did jazz and classical. She did a darned good job. I mean, I was ready for Oberlin. In fact I was going to go to Fisk and then Todd Duncan who was the man who sang Porgy and Bess came through Jacksonville. I remember he was at our house and he told my mother, let her go directly onto Oberlin. Don't go to Fisk. I was going to go as a piano major. When I got there was when I changed to singing.
Where did you begin singing?
Hmm, well, we had a little glee club in high school, but I was mainly
piano. My mom was the singer at the—she had this choir at the
church, Mount Olive AME Church. Oh it was so great because my great
grandfather would get so furious. God, this preacher was long winded.
You see you'd have to, the game was to get to the beach at
two o'clock. So he would give my mother the little
wink—mother would, everybody had a certain spot where you sat
in the church. My great grandfather of course being the elder sat
certain here. My mom sat on this side. Mother would get up and get on
the seat at the organ press that power button and drown, drunn, drunn,
drunn and by
What did he sound like?
Very soft spoken, never, never—we never had a spanking. We
never, they never yelled at us. Never. I never heard a curse word in my
life from him. No, no, nothing. But he had the most awesome stare. He
would just stare at you and say nothing. You just want to
crawl—what did I do wrong? Beautiful voice, beautiful
voice—here's his picture. Black history calendar,
2001 there he is on the other side. Awesome man. Very dark. Small eyes.
God
This was prominent city people, mostly?
Oh yeah. It came from—he even knew the man who was in the
defense department in the federal government and don't forget
now. These are the three. There's the Afro here, Atlanta Life
and
So you're father, obviously he knew Mr. Randolph.
Everybody, oh yes, I don't remember him—I'm trying to visualize this. I remember as a child trying to see him, but that was all part of their talk, their, I guess they met or whatever. Oh yeah. It was a time. Absolutely.
I think of him as somebody with, I don't know, the same kind of poise that you describe.
Oh he was. A. Philip Randolph was very cool, very reserved. My great grandfather was like that too. Very, very cool.
There would be no reason to raise the voice.
He never raised his voice, never. I remember some of the family reunions. My uncle in there all grrr fighting over, my dad or whatever or something. He would just come to the door and stand. He wouldn't say a word, just stand there. Somehow this calm just drifted over the whole room. Talking about, I guess they called it charisma, whatever, I don't know what the word is. But he had it. I mean, just think now back in those days, there was no other insurance company that he could even use as a role model. He's got to fight the white—not fight the white establishment but at least be on which he was—he was first name basis with the head banker, Barnett Bank. It wasn't Mr. So and So and calling my great grandfather Abraham. They both called each other by first names. This is very important in the South. You know this. The names you called. So here is this man. He's got the white establishment here. He's got the blacks because this is all new for them too. Yet, now on I think about this difference between the rich and the poor. God we were never robbed. There was never, I don't know. He was able to just have such a calming affect over the whole community, and I guess the word is respect. That's what you really want.
Was he still, was he involved in the business until he died?
No, he retired. My became the chairman of the board which was, what
would they meet. I think the last couple of years he was just chairman
of the board. My grandfather was at that time the president. I remember
as a child but the house up on the hill, the Simmonses the woman is
still living. She
Yeah.
That's the only and of course you saw the Afro Building.
Yeah. I walked into the Afro. Actually I was, I took a couple of pictures of it.
Isn't that awesome? He built that in 1953. The white folks didn't even have all this glass and steel. We used to go around and brag about—darling, we were the first for everything.
A security guard was sort of, he was eyeing me suspiciously, and so I did go in and introduce myself and said I wanted to look around and they were—
Yeah, that was the Afro. It was built back in—I remember. The original building was there. Of course they tore that down. That was a—oh it was awesome.
It was much bigger.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You had the apartments in the back. There was a printing shop. Afro did its own printing, had their own machines and stuff.
Would you have ever, I know later on you lived there, but would you have ever as a child, were you down at that office?
Oh God yes. Oh we used to love it because my grandfather had this machine that you could make like artificial money. We loved, as children—
Is that a secret?
He would tease us about how he could do this, and oh we used to love to go down there and Daddy, go in his office. Oh yes. I definitely have fond memories of that at the Afro, and then of course he always had devotion. When I came home from school, I was asked to sing. Oh yeah. My great grandfather, he, the spirituality, for him if you do it that way money was sin. I told you. So you would have prayer and what would you call it. The preacher would come and they'd sing and have the—it was almost like another church. This was what, once a week and then all the, not the managers, what do you call the men who go out in the field.
The agents.
The agents would come and give their amount of money and stuff like this, and then they'd celebrate or reward the man who had gotten the most. You know how they did those little things.
Business and religion were fused.
Right, were fused. Were fused. Because don't forget now, all the churches the schools financed, Edward Waters, that's an AME school. All these Fisk. All these, Johnetta's up at—
Bennett.
Bennett, Spelman is by what Methodist school, Methodist church. Each one of them saying, like you have Catholic whatever. These were black. This is where the money went from the church directly in to finance the schools. Of course the insurance company would be there financing the building of the schools or the churches. So it was all fused. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. He was a big man in the AME church. Oh God, the bishop came to our house. This was all—I don't know. Maybe all cultures, people need a big outside enemy to make the thing cohesive. I don't know what it is, but it was such a time and the vibe, people were helping each other and oh God. I just don't know. It's just so different now. Black people are just, well, I mean, Americans we picked up all the bad habits from—I'm not knocking. I don't mean this in a negative way. But for white folks who want to live out in their little exclusive areas, and I've got mine to hell with you. We've picked up that bad habit too. Black people basically are gregarious, but now it's me and all the rest of y'all can go to hell. I just don't care.
But segregation created some of that cohesiveness.
It sure did, sure did, sure did. Sure did. Sure did. Absolutely. Absolutely. It was wonderful. But like I said that Ashley Street, I remember one section because you had the barbershops because we would go down and see Daddy at the barbershop. Oh God my Daddy loved this barbershop. Remember how the men—
Which barbershop?
Okay, you know where the Clara White Mission is? Right next door, it's still there My dad, oh he used to, oh God, they gave these men these packs because black men have this problem with their hair growing in their skin—
Ingrown.
So he would, whatever they would sit there and pick all the hair this pampering and putting all the hot towels. Oh we used to love to go down. Oh Daddy, daddy. He said wait a minute, I've got another hour and then I'll be ready. He loved that. That was once a week going to the barbershop. That was on Ashley Street.
What would you do at the Afro?
Like I said playing with this machine that made money, what else did we—that was the main thing. Like I said these programs.
This was you and your sister—
I would always sing and Johnetta of course, played the violin—
At the programs.
At the programs. We would be like the musical selection.
By this time somebody had realized or you had realized that not just that you could sing but that you had some gifts.
Absolutely.
How did that, when did you first realize, or someone realized.
Well, well, we had this teacher, my teacher who of course is African American. This woman is awesome, taught us jazz and—she'd have her recitals. I was always the last one on the recital. So you'd get the hint oh I must be the star here. You know how you do the little kids first, and you gradually get to the ones who are a little bit more advanced. I was always the last.
So she recognized it.
Oh yeah. She was my—
This was high school aged?
Junior, no, even before then I was taking—my mother was my first teacher. Even when I was in elementary school, we would have those little simple things, dee, dee, dee dee, dee, God. Those little practice things.
But still you go to Oberlin as a pianist.
Oh yeah. My audition was Beethoven. That Pathethique. Dom, da, dom da dee.
When did you make the transition?
Sophomore year. My piano teacher was a woman, and the voice teacher was a man. I guess I was going through that—oh yeah, you know how it is. You're eighteen and oh this man is flattering you and oh God. The voice was there. He was awesome. This teacher was very good. I switched majors.
Were you, you know—
It happens.
More often than not. Were you recognized immediately as—
Oh yeah. I was top in my class. I graduated and they select twelve students to give the senior recital at the graduation. I was one of those twelve. I was selected to sing at the commencement exercise. My senior recital was the recital. Oh yeah, it was big. And then from there I went directly to Paris.
How did that happen? Who, how did you arrange that? Was it initiated by people in Europe?
Oh no, my voice teacher. No, no, no. My voice teacher had studied in
Paris. Ah ha. That's the connection. He had already been
there, and so when I went over, I studied with Madam Th
I see.
So I'm going there, yes, and so I go there and then from
there, one of the pupils of these, this Madame Th
How did your parents feel about?
Well, Dad had passed. Bless his heart. My dad passed when I was a sophomore in college. Mom, I was always kind of spoiled anyway. Since I'm the more artistic of the family, she just pampered whatever I wanted to do. So she said do what you want to do. I'm with you. So sure enough.
It may not have been her preference but—
I went on and did it. Yeah. I'd come home in-between things, and I would go the school, the high school, the black high school there Stanton and the children—
Oh yeah in fact we did a performance of Salome with me directing it. I always, my grandfather, oh God he'd haunt me to death. This idea of giving back, so the children were just fascinated. Here's this local girl going away, making a career in Europe and coming home, coming to our high school. So it was pretty exciting.
Was it, were you always in German—was it primarily Germany was really your base of operating?
Yeah. Then I came home. My grandfather is getting weaker and weaker, and unfortunately Afro was going down the tube too.
By the mid '60s.
Yeah. Yep it's heading. That's over. Of course you read the book. It just goes from then to there but by the—Atlanta Life is in the process of buying it out. So I'm happy of that because they all knew each other. It's almost like a brother coming to your rescue sort of thing. It wasn't a case of some outside white company taking over again and stuff.
Of course you're coming home during this time, but I'm wondering if, was there ever a point when you noticed that what you'd left was no longer.
Oh yeah. Yeah. Because first of all it started when after I'd come home from Europe especially. This pressure to make a sell so that they could put this I-95. Don't forget that completely disrupted the whole commercial area. You had Ashley Street but East, where we lived was also a little shopping area. That was all gone and boarded up and what, I'm saying. You've got that feeling and—
Pressure to sell.
Pressure to sell, but you know one guy didn't. I don't know if you went by eighth street or not but one guy, all these little skyscrapers around here. There he is sitting right there. His name is Mormon. He did not sell. I always raise my fist every time I go by.
He should get a little marker.
Yeah, right. Absolutely. Because that as the area, and of course now it
looks like any other. You know my voice teacher said, and I'm
afraid it's coming true, you know what we're going
to die of. Boredom. Think about it. If somebody put a blindfold over
your face and you got off an airplane, you wouldn't know
whether you were in Atlanta, whether you were in Jacksonville, my God
and the little towns. Look at little Amelia Island. We all left the big
city and then the developers came and spend sixteen years making it look
like what we just left. Dammit. Leave us alone. All right. We used to
brag about the fact that we didn't have a McDonalds. We
didn't have the fast foods. We didn't have the
four-lane highways. Look at it. What is it? It's madness. It
really is. Then these condos, all of them, look at these
Don't you, doesn't that. That strikes me, that's got to be a contemporary architect, it's got to be about the most boring job there is because they're not producing anything of interest.
It's awful. It's awful. I wrote a letter to the editor once, of course, they didn't print it because it was pretty, I compared—look at this seashell. This is very unusual. Notice this one opens to the left. It doesn't open to the right. This is a rare one. Sorry about that Newt Gingrich. If you hold it like this, the opening is to the left. Anyway, I wrote this letter to the editor describing not only this oh God, look at all these other. I've got some gorgeous shells.
I've never seen that and I've lived—
Oh yeah. This is called lightning whelk. This animal lives along here in the gulf. It's a rare one. Anyway, I'm describing all the beautiful shapes of shells and then proceeding to talk about the latest condo or whatever. At the end of my little writing to the newspaper or whatever, I make the remark on something like and who is the higher animal. Question mark, question mark. That's why they didn't print it. A little old mollusk. He's way down on the chain. Can you believe? Oh God. Some of these things are gorgeous. Look at this one. It's a beautiful. Look at this one. Look at the curves. The straight line, it's like a disease.
Are you finding these on the beach?
Yeah. Yeah.
That is nice.
See what I'm talking about how if you hold it up,
Everyone I've ever, and I've been looking at these when I was a kid.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Is this all a result of the book?
No, this is a result of our
Your agitation.
My agitation.
Or agitating.
Everything they hear about me and don't forget, I do tours. It's not like university, the universities have all but adopted us. You've got people coming down from—I just did a tour of a school up in North Carolina. They're coming from Germany, Australia. Don't forget aha, you've heard of Lonely Planet.
Yes, are you in the Lonely Planet.
Darling am I in the lonely planet. They came out here for an interview, I thought well. We'll probably get one little page.
Oh my gosh.
Wait a minute. You think that's bad enough. I have my picture
in here
Oh I had no idea.
I'm it. You just don't realize. You've got Queen Tut here. Here we go. Oh yeah.
These are great photographs. I like that one that I saw in the book.
Here I am in front of the motor home. That was my museum. There it is because I had all the bumper stickers and stuff on. It was famous. God that—
Where is that now?
It's gone. They towed it off because of—that's another story. That's okay because I've got it all in here. I've got it all out before they got it towed and away.
Is it some kind of—was it a nuisance?
Code enforcement. The whole—don't worry.
They know better than to tow—
Oh God. Child. That's illegal. You don't do that.
Even if you're renting property and you're trying
to get somebody out you have to go pay for
It's a process.
It's a process. Look at this. American Beach is all of this
and another half. Are you ready for this? Amelia Island Plantation gets
one paragraph. Remember that film The Mouse That Roared?
Defauskee.
You've got, you don't have any—have you been to Defauskee, you maybe have one, two, three houses. There's nothing left there. It's pitiful. It is pitiful. So we're it. I've even been in this international. You know the magazine Islands. Oh man, I'm going to have to let you go pretty soon. But one day you'll just have to come here. I've got so much stuff. This is Islands, you know the international magazine. Islands.
I've never seen this.
What? Man, this—here we are. Oh God I can just show you. What else you want? I've got all the magazines you can think of.
So what are the current struggles here. What are you working on?
The struggles is to—
What's the CRAS?
That's community development. That's another dirty trick. That will do nothing but get us off of here. I also dance for the Pygmies. You know the little people in the rain forests.
You dance for the—
Oh man. I'm a member. Are you ready for this? Sixty environmental organizations. I'm a life member in ten. Don't forget now. I'm inheriting all of this money from my grandfather, my mom. I was going to save the world well, I did because all my money's gone now. But oh yeah. Here I am. Let's see what else we've got. You're going to have to come down here and spend a whole time. This was in the Atlanta Constitution.
I'm sorry I got in touch with you so late in my visit.
Here we go. Here we go, Atlanta Constitution, a whole page. Of course my hair is another sensation. You know it's seven feet long and that—oh yeah. It's seven feet. It's a record. There it is.
How long have you been working on that?
Twenty years. This is the other part, the part that goes on top of the hair, which I don't do it now. It was at one time it was way up high, all the hair here. You'll have to come back. You'll have to come back.
Yeah.
I'm just showing you a little few of the things. You could spend a whole month. This is good stuff. Here's a copy of the little brochure I give out when I do the tours, my telephone number and address so you can keep in touch. It gives you sort of a history of all the different streets.
Great. I will come back and we'll do a little tour.
Oh yeah. You've got to do a tour man. You know I'm going to be in Southern Living.
You had mentioned that on the phone.
You know what they—
You're not the standard Southern Living fare.
Darling, do you know what they're doing for me? Normally they book two years ahead of time. In other words if they had interviewed it would be at least 2004. They are going to put me in the April issue. The South is changing now. The South is changing. I will be in the April issue.
That's pretty incredible.
It's my great grandfather. It's his spirit. That
man, like he never died. I can walk out on that beach. Oh I
can't. I get all flustered. I think of my—I know.
In fact I told, I tease the developers. I say y'all are not
going to even get rid of me in death because I have it in my will,
I'm going to be cremated and I'm going to put my
ashes right there on the
For the same reasons.
Another one said, let me tell you this, the Jehovah's witness
people used to come by here and bug me because you know they think
I'm this pagan. I am worshipping the sea and the moon and the
goddess. So anyway I put on my motor home, my other car is a broom.
That's keeps them out.
So I'm beyond hope.
I love it. Yeah.
Oh yeah., I'm the legend. I'm the character. You got me right here baby trust me.
Well, let me get out of your hair so to speak.
Well, bless your heart.
But I really appreciate it.
I wish—I'm so glad darling. Like I said you come back and—
END OF INTERVIEW