It’s 1969. And things are getting out of hand.
After I was tossed out of Mississippi State like a dog’s worn out chew toy, I moved up to Tennessee to be near my girlfriend and her family.
Then Uncle Sam got the word that I was no longer a student. Not a good thing. No more “2-S” draft deferment for students. Hope you like jungles!
The letter told me to be back in Columbus, my home of record, on such and such a date. Just to say hello. I wish.
I know that there’s still quite a few of you out there who have had the pleasure of the Draft Physical Experience. Who’s that country singer who wrote the song “We’re Goin’ to Jackson”?
I drove down a few days early to have some extra time to make the rounds and see all my friends, staying at my parent’s house in my old room.
After the physical I said, “Hey, maybe a couple of days more.” Then it was a few weeks more. Then a couple of months more. It ended up being most of the summer.
There was a lot going on everywhere that year. The original “Summer of Love” had rolled across from California and finally burst through into the Deep South. Hippies and more hippies. Everybody – well, a lot of people – wanted to be a hippy.
My younger brother (still living at home) and I decided we would ride this new found wave of freedom and hedonism. We grew our hair longer, dressed like the album covers we saw at Woolco, and hung out with most of our friends doing likewise. Much of our other behavior is now redacted from the Official Record.
This shifting of culture gears did not always go smoothly, however.
Columbus, Mississippi was not San Francisco and we would soon find out that not everyone around town was okay with our experiment in freedom.
At that time in Possum Town, there was only one place within reason that you could get a cup of coffee and food 24 hours a day. Don’t ask me the name or exact location. Those brain cells were given a funeral with honors years ago. Maybe one of you out there could enlighten me.
All I remember is that it was on a stretch of Highway 82 running through town. It was a small diner, and it always seemed to have people hanging out.
One of the groups was known for being there at 2 or 3 A.M. I dubbed them (not out loud) “The Farmboys.” Big, brawny bar battlers. Lots of scars.
I doubt any of them ever worked on a farm, but I don’t use the word “redneck.” I’m from Mississippi. We’re all at least part redneck.
They did not like hippies or anyone who might be an undercover hippy.
A fledgling hippy accidently wandering into the place in the wee hours risked an impromptu hair cut to match the WWII crewcuts proudly worn by The Farmboys. The waitress had large scissors underneath the counter and would wave it to stoke those boys into a frenzy. “Give ‘em a buzz cut!”
The only time us peaceniks would venture in late at night is when we saw Joe Cool’s car parked there. Never knew his real name, but he was a hippy sympathizer and a bouncer at the Southernaire Club. That tells it all. They wanted no piece of him. Sitting at his table was the safest place on Earth.
One late night, a group of long haired out-of-towners dropped in on their way to California. It might have been the hippy hair that set it off, or the rather large motorcycles. Or maybe The Farmboys felt the lettering on the strangers’ jackets was some kind of anti-religious hippy blasphemy.
“HELL’S ANGELS”
No one knows where The Farmboys went to hang out from that point on, but it never was that diner again. There’s some mean hippies in that place.
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.
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