It’s 1971, and I’m escaping from Tennessee back to Mississippi, leaving behind a short and broken teenage marriage. My younger brother Steve and I arrived in Columbus determined to cast the world aside and become real hippies. We grew our hair long and stopped communicating with our parents who had moved to Florida …we were free!
For a couple of years we had been watching San Francisco on TV, how other people our age were enjoying life without the hassle of getting up every day and dealing with work and paying bills. All that seemed so unnecessary and yes, unpleasant. Laying around listening to music, sleeping all day if you want. That would be the life! No flowers in the hair though…no Mississippi boy would ever do that, hippy or not.
After my five minutes at Mississippi State and blowing the rest of my grant money at the county fair, I had learned the printing trade as an apprentice at Besco Printing in Columbus, but work no longer really appealed to me.
Of course, my brother and I ran out of money pretty quickly once we weren’t working, but we found the perfect solution: We mooched off our old circle of friends. What could go wrong?
Staying here for a few days, then there for a few days, for a couple of months, we were starting to run out of somewhat respectable friends to board with. Seems like their patience was getting thin with us eating their food and taking up space.
So that’s how we ended up crashing for a couple of days at the house of an acquaintance who was a little on the sketchy side. Okay, a LOT on the sketchy side. He was known for being involved with a certain non-garden green herb.
One morning bright and early, there was a thunderous pounding on this friend’s front door.
I jumped up from the couch I was sleeping on and opened it. Four or five men — one in a suit and the rest in uniforms — came barreling past me heading towards our host’s bedroom. Not a good sign. Apparently they wanted a discussion with our “buddy.”
I heard the man in the suit identifying himself in the other room. They initially didn’t seem to have much interest in Steve and I, but then the Sheriff of Lowndes County decided to check us out. The conversation went something like this:
“Where do you boys work?” (I’m sure he knew the answer)
“Uh, we don’t, sir.”
“We’ve got a place for people that don’t work.” (Referring to the county jail)
“Uh, we’re just passing through on our way to Florida.” (Not true, but about to be)
“You might want to keep on passing.”
“Yes, SIR!”
So that’s how we got run out of town by the Sheriff.
We took the opportunity to haul butt into town and surrender our degenerate young selves to our uncle who lived in Columbus. Our uncle, James Salley, was the Chief Engineer at the power company and he knew the Sheriff, so we left out a few details. After a couple of hearty meals and sleeping in a real bed (happy!), Uncle James took us to the Greyhound station the next day and bought us tickets going South.
Heading for Florida we did, landing at my parents house in West Palm Beach, our dreams of living off the land dashed forever.
P.S: We also eventually got haircuts and jobs.
Thom Caraccio ([email protected]) is a retired musician and retired motion picture scenic artist living in West Palm Beach, Florida who hails from Columbus. He graduated from S.D. Lee High in 1968 and still considers Columbus his real hometown. The photo of Caraccio is from his “hippie days.”
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