6 a.m. at our house
I wake up, fumble around the bathroom, return to bed.
“Why are you up?” asks Siobhan.
“Just thinking about what I’m going to write today,” I tell her, turning on the television. She turns it off and says, “Well, why don’t you think about something else.
“Okay,” I say, “I’ll think about pandas.” Thirty seconds go by. “Siobhan….”
“What?”
“The panda says it’s time for TV.”
“Shut up, Bill” comes the weary reply.
And so another day begins.
Your History Lesson for Today
In 1966, nearing the end of the Charlatan era, Dick North, Gerald Jones, Newt Simmons and I lived in a modest stone house on 6th street in Gainesville, about half way between University Avenue and 39th. I’m not sure of the exact address, but if you’re looking for it I think it still has a Church of The Redeemer sign in the front yard. Newt lived in the attic, the rest of us had bedrooms and the Charlatan office was a closed-in porch in front. Newt’s future wife Ann moved in upstairs, Pamme Brewer spent most of her time with me, while Gerald and Dick alternated girlfriends. No, not with each other. Anyway, it was a busy place, and productive.
I’m not sure where Jones ended up. His family owned a very small railroad in Pickens, South Carolina (I think it went to South Pickens), so maybe he’s up there laying track. Newt Simmons is in St. Petersburg, not laying much, while Dick—and Pamme—have, sad to say, passed from this orb. But not before helping me open the Subterranean Circus in September of 1967. I had mentioned to Dick that we needed some kind of money-generator for the summer since Charlatan did not publish between June and September due to an insufficient number of students enrolled in summer school in those days. I was thinking about a bookstore which would sell all the newfangled hippie newspapers, comics, etc. Dick suggested adding posters, which were becoming big on the west coast and in New York City. Pamme found a place in Washington, DC, that sold unusual dresses, etc., so we embarked upon our enterprise. I mean, how could we go wrong—we had all of $1200 to invest!
First, we needed a location. They say location is everything, right? So we found a place on seventh street, just six blocks from UF, that was perfect. Well. Maybe not perfect, but pretty good. It was an old fertilizer warehouse with an office setup out front. It was set back twenty-five or thirty feet off the street, ideal for parking. And it was big. You needed a lot of room to hang up all those posters, right? The rent was, ahem, $75 a month. We didn’t try to bargain them down.
So now we had a building. Unfortunately, when we had the power turned on, water burst loose from thousands of uncapped pipes. Well, it seemed like thousands. But what do you expect for $75 a month? Also, the electric wires were a little spotty, jumbling into a giant, bulging mare’s nest where they entered the fuse box. We made a point of shutting everything off at the box every night when we left. So now we were ready. We just needed something to sell.
The Great Garcia
Naturally, the logical place to go for inventory was New York. The Village had several little stores selling hippie stuff, many of which became wholesalers. Joining me on this trip to the city was Michael O’Hara Garcia, who was always up for a good time.
Mike was not on the Charlatan staff, but being a kindred rebellious spirit, he was always eager to help out. He had a political column in the UF campus newspaper, The Alligator, springing from a previous life in Washington, where he had worked for Florida Senator George Smathers. The job had significant perks, like the U.S. Senate license plate adorning Garcia’s Chrysler (“The Silver Phaeton”). Once, while driving at speeds up to 100 mph on a two-lane road headed to Daytona, a highway patrolman stopped us.
“Senate business.” Garcia told him. Incredibly, he let us go. “Happens all the time,” said Garcia, who resumed his original speed.
Mike enjoyed music, money and other people’s wives, not necessarily in that order. Once I went his house and he met me at the door with a gun. He was in a lather. The previous day some guy, thinking (probably correctly) that his wife was in the house with Garcia, had fired a couple rounds through his bedroom window, barely missing him. After a brief period of reflection, he switched to unattached women. Mostly.
On another occasion, Mike had his place broken into and some stuff taken. This infuriated him and he came up with a plan. Next time he left, he planted a chair just inside the door with a large sign affixed. In bold red lettering, it read:
EXTERMINATOR:
THE RATTLESNAKE IS IN THE CLOSET NEAREST TO THE DOOR. PLEASE FUMIGATE THE WHOLE HOUSE—I DON’T KNOW IF THERE ARE ANY MORE!
Garcia was also responsible for The Diabolical Bonker, which we later installed in the Circus after a breakin. Mike had been in Vietnam and had witnessed the effectiveness of Viet Cong trail traps, one of which was a large spike implanted in part of a tree branch or such, which, once set into motion by someone tripping over vines along the trail, would swing into motion and perhaps impale the unfortunate tripper. Our weapon was more of a giant slab of steel hung in the rafters, which could be easily tripped by a miscreant. Or by Mike Hatcherson, one of our employees, who set it one night, accidentally tripped the wire and dived to the floor just before being demolished by The Diabolical Bonker. Mike (and a few other people) threatened to quit after that so we had to take it down before we killed somebody. Even those thieves have families who will sue you. But it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Bleecker Street
Anyway, Garcia accompanied me on my trip to NYC to procure merchandise for the store, most of which we found In Greenwich Village. Among other places, there was a magnificent poster store on Bleecker called The Infinite Poster. We bought hundreds of posters and, later, thousands of buttons from a place nearby. Garcia was a little worried about all this money being spent on dubious merchandise and kept advising me to take it easy with the spending. After all, he was an ex-senate worker and ex-military and his hippie experiences were limited to an occasional joint. Later, however, when the business exploded into massive profitability, Mike went up to Washington and opened a place himself. It was called the Elysian Fields and it did just fine.
Meanwhile, Pamme Brewer was up in Washington buying a few dresses and other things. We got some color wheels and blacklights and began to set the place up, opening in September, 1967.
The Early Days
The first day we were open, we made $27. The second day, $54. The third day it was up to a little over a hundred, then The Gainesville Sun put a picture of Pamme on the front page in front of the store with a flower in her teeth (Pamme was famous for posing nude in the Charlatan and causing a gigantic stir on campus, ending up with a UF trial covered by Walter Cronkite). After the Sun article, business went wild. We used all our profits to buy more stuff, taking only enough for Pamme, Dick and I to live on. We sold bellbottoms when no other stores knew they existed. One salesman, Danny Levine, sold 50 pair himself the first day he worked for us. Then there were Nehru shirts and Cossack shirts, remember them? We sold so many we couldn’t stay supplied. So we eventually hired 18 women to make them, under Pamme’s direction. The money was coming in so fast it was unspendable, definitely a new experience for all of us. And, best of all, we were having fun.
BULLETIN: Cosmic Song worked in 49 2/5 seconds last Saturday, 5th best work of 77 at the distance. We’re getting optimistic now. One more work—out of the gate—and a race, hopefully by the end of the month.
Cashing in
There are a lot of ways to lose money in horse racing, but there are also a lot of ways to profit. One of the best ways is to have a two-year-old ready early (May—July). Although the races are divided into Maiden Specials, $40,000 claimers and $25,000 claimers at this stage, most people really have no idea of the true talent level of their horses since they haven’t raced. In the earliest races, the fields for the maiden special races are generally weaker than they will be later on and if you can win one of these in a respectable time and by a reasonable margin, there are people who will be happy to give you $100,000 for your horse. If the horse is really fast and has a nice pedigree, you can get a lot more than that. We are in the business because we enjoy racing and are generally not looking to sell our horses but sometimes the offers become ridiculous, to a point where you realize that even with a very good career the horse is unlikely to net what is being offered after one race. There is still the temptation to risk it, looking for the exceptional horse that will carry you to the Big Time….but the fragility of the horse has to be taken into consideration. We have not always sold our horses (Juggernaut, Vaunted Vamp were retained despite nice offers) but we have not regretted having sold the ones we did. In no cases would we have been better off to keep them. Nonetheless, the dream for most people in this business is the same as ours—to have a classic horse some day before we cash in our chips. And we’re not getting any younger. At least I’m not.
Old College Magazine Joke (from 1967):
The student politician was not a potent man and he knew it. His wife knew it even better and prodded him into visiting a doctor.
“Here George,” the doctor said. “These tablets are experimental. They are to be taken before dinner. I’m not sure if they’ll work or not but they’re better than nothing.”
That evening, just before dinner, the politico took two tablets. Ten minutes later, he was filled with a New Power. He jumped to his feet, leaped across the table, swept all the dishes to the floor, grabbed his wife and pleased her more than he had ever been able.
The following afternoon, while out for a stroll, he met the doctor.
“Well, how did the pills work?” he wanted to know.
“Rather well, doctor, rather well indeed.”
“You don’t seem very enthusiastic,” said the doctor. “Did anything go wrong?”
“Well, not really, said George. “It’s just that they won’t let us eat at Howard Johnson’s anymore.”
That’s all folks. Except for a shout out to Torrey Johnson, recovering from hip surgery in Pennsylvania. That’s what you get these days—friends recovering from hip surgery instead of friends recovering from VD.
