Days of the dead 6: My own private carrollton
Ok, well part of what started this whole Days of the Dead post thing was grrremlinski mentioning on her livejournal a conversation about gurus in which i mentioned Ted.
Ted came over to our house to get stoned with my brother one day in 1982 or so. He was this skinny scraggly looking guy and the moment they slipped upstairs mom gave me a sideways glance and said "the people who come into this house get wierder and wierder, don't you think?" Not in a prissy way or anything, rather the slightly amused tone of a '70's era liberal mom to her preteen daughter. For as scraggly as he was, however, he was far more pleasant and engaging than most of the surly lads my brothers usually brought home to listen to music and share recreational experiences.
Not too much later we spent the day over at Mrs. Burk's house for a joint garage sale. Mrs. Burks was my social studies teacher and also my mother's friend and closest colleague. She was pretty much the greatest thing ever as a teacher and everything else and she lived a few blocks away from us, just on the other side of the cemetary. Ted showed up on her porch that day and apparently had a little bit of a rapport with Mrs. Burks. She liked him well enough, thought him to be pleasant and interesting. He lived nearby in a friends backyard. Different people let him set up a tent in their backyards, and that was his way. He rode around on a bike. That day he sat down on Mrs. Burks' porch with me for what seemed like quite a while and talked with me about all sorts of things. He was a vegetarian and he told me all about how fucked up the meat industry was and why it was good not to eat meat. Also, he gave me what was probably the first lecture on the evils car culture i'd ever heard in my entire life. Right there in 1983 on Mrs. Burks' porch. I was rapt.
Well, the garage sale was for the occasion of us moving away from New Orleans. So, except for a possible passing sighting of him by the graveyard or of him slipping up the stairs for a last bong hit or two with the big brother, i never saw him again.
A couple years after our move my brother told me Ted had been killed. He was shot by a mugger when he was riding his bike through the graveyard two blocks from the house where i grew up. Apparently the guys asked him for some money but he stubbornly refused out of some sort of principle. Apparently that was just like him but my brother, for one, was sort of mad at ted for letting his pride and principles contribute to such an early death. He was one of those neighborhood wingnuts who would be missed, even by people who had moved hundreds of miles out of the neighborhood. I remember feeling like it was so silly he was dead because here was this guy who tried to be all low profile and pay attention to his impact in the world and some fool idiots shot him. Of course, now, i didn't know him well enough to know what kind of surreptitious conflicts and contradictions may have surrounded him.
My brother told me more about him after he died, stories which further enamored me to this guy whom i had met maybe half a dozen times. Maybe it was just my brother's proclivity for generous hyperbole where certain people were concerned. But here's the story as i remember it. Ted was the son old south old money (mississippi, was it?). Sometime in the 70's his family shipped him off to Tulane University for college. He took the tuition money but spent the entire four years living in one of those big crazy live oak trees in Audubon park. After he graduated from Tulane, (i believe he graduated), he disowned his family entirely and renounced their blood money. There he was, doing odd jobs and living in tents, eating veggies, riding his bike, and railing on to anyone who would listen about the evils of society.
Now, i know, to most of my friends here in 2007, a story about a wing nut of this nature is nothing spectacular. But, to an 11 year old in 1983, it was totally mind blowing. When i was 14 i became a vegetarian myself for my own reasons. Around the time i met ted i was having my own bicycle revelation in which i was noticing how amazing bikes were. By the time i was in my early 20's i was a raving fanatic about the miraculous world saving possibilities of the bicycle. I had vowed not to own a car until i was at least 35. I had a lot to say about car culture, and none of it was good. There were a more than a few days during that time when i looked at my life and the sources of my fanaticism and thought "Hey, that guy Ted, how wierd, it seems what he had to say really affected me". So, the other day, when a group of us were talking about who we might consider our gurus, Ted came to my mind. And that is the story of Ted.
Ted came over to our house to get stoned with my brother one day in 1982 or so. He was this skinny scraggly looking guy and the moment they slipped upstairs mom gave me a sideways glance and said "the people who come into this house get wierder and wierder, don't you think?" Not in a prissy way or anything, rather the slightly amused tone of a '70's era liberal mom to her preteen daughter. For as scraggly as he was, however, he was far more pleasant and engaging than most of the surly lads my brothers usually brought home to listen to music and share recreational experiences.
Not too much later we spent the day over at Mrs. Burk's house for a joint garage sale. Mrs. Burks was my social studies teacher and also my mother's friend and closest colleague. She was pretty much the greatest thing ever as a teacher and everything else and she lived a few blocks away from us, just on the other side of the cemetary. Ted showed up on her porch that day and apparently had a little bit of a rapport with Mrs. Burks. She liked him well enough, thought him to be pleasant and interesting. He lived nearby in a friends backyard. Different people let him set up a tent in their backyards, and that was his way. He rode around on a bike. That day he sat down on Mrs. Burks' porch with me for what seemed like quite a while and talked with me about all sorts of things. He was a vegetarian and he told me all about how fucked up the meat industry was and why it was good not to eat meat. Also, he gave me what was probably the first lecture on the evils car culture i'd ever heard in my entire life. Right there in 1983 on Mrs. Burks' porch. I was rapt.
Well, the garage sale was for the occasion of us moving away from New Orleans. So, except for a possible passing sighting of him by the graveyard or of him slipping up the stairs for a last bong hit or two with the big brother, i never saw him again.
A couple years after our move my brother told me Ted had been killed. He was shot by a mugger when he was riding his bike through the graveyard two blocks from the house where i grew up. Apparently the guys asked him for some money but he stubbornly refused out of some sort of principle. Apparently that was just like him but my brother, for one, was sort of mad at ted for letting his pride and principles contribute to such an early death. He was one of those neighborhood wingnuts who would be missed, even by people who had moved hundreds of miles out of the neighborhood. I remember feeling like it was so silly he was dead because here was this guy who tried to be all low profile and pay attention to his impact in the world and some fool idiots shot him. Of course, now, i didn't know him well enough to know what kind of surreptitious conflicts and contradictions may have surrounded him.
My brother told me more about him after he died, stories which further enamored me to this guy whom i had met maybe half a dozen times. Maybe it was just my brother's proclivity for generous hyperbole where certain people were concerned. But here's the story as i remember it. Ted was the son old south old money (mississippi, was it?). Sometime in the 70's his family shipped him off to Tulane University for college. He took the tuition money but spent the entire four years living in one of those big crazy live oak trees in Audubon park. After he graduated from Tulane, (i believe he graduated), he disowned his family entirely and renounced their blood money. There he was, doing odd jobs and living in tents, eating veggies, riding his bike, and railing on to anyone who would listen about the evils of society.
Now, i know, to most of my friends here in 2007, a story about a wing nut of this nature is nothing spectacular. But, to an 11 year old in 1983, it was totally mind blowing. When i was 14 i became a vegetarian myself for my own reasons. Around the time i met ted i was having my own bicycle revelation in which i was noticing how amazing bikes were. By the time i was in my early 20's i was a raving fanatic about the miraculous world saving possibilities of the bicycle. I had vowed not to own a car until i was at least 35. I had a lot to say about car culture, and none of it was good. There were a more than a few days during that time when i looked at my life and the sources of my fanaticism and thought "Hey, that guy Ted, how wierd, it seems what he had to say really affected me". So, the other day, when a group of us were talking about who we might consider our gurus, Ted came to my mind. And that is the story of Ted.