Our friendly neighbor, Cecil Shannon, operated sort of a towing service, automobile engine repair and salvage shop next door in a 35x80 building abutting the Circus. He also owned a large lot across town which contained a sea of wrecked cars, now available for used parts. Cecil often commiserated about the irritations of having to tend to two businesses so he surely wouldn’t miss the travail when we bought the place and set him adrift, right? Turns out he would, but that’s neither here nor there. The purchase also brought with it the southwest corner lot of SW 7th Street and University Avenue, then the home of a dour, defunct gas station. We leased that to a humorous, good-natured Florida Gator ex-offensive lineman named Dan Iannarelli, who installed a drive-in beer oasis, then we got on with The Great Repair.
It would be tough to overstate the magnitude of the fixup. Automotive parts still littered the building, puddles of oil and grease were everywhere. First, we had to spray the floor and walls with hydrochloric acid, then water, while hauling off the offensive innards. Next, we built a wooden platform, six feet high and fifteen feet wide along the south wall of the building, inserting a connecting double-door to the Circus. Ron Blair, not yet a Heartbreaker, was brought in to shape an exotic curving stairway from the floor of the building to the platform and a stone fountain was shipped in from Mexico in 16 parts and assembled.
In the front right corner, we built a spectacular triangular garden and surrounded it with a rock wall made from stones which were once ballast in a ship which sank off the coast of Miami. A large piece of the ceiling was cut out to shape a plexiglass skylight, which encouraged the plants to grow. Finally, colorful leaded glass lights were hung from the ceiling the length of the building and a Chuck LeMasters original was hung over the door. It might just as well have been called Xanadu, but we named the place Silver City, which accidentally had the same initials as the mother store.
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| Ricky Childs, left, sits across from Bob Sturm at a dinner celebrating the publication of Marty Jourard's book, Music Everywhere. That's the famous author next to Bob. |
Harolyn and Sheila Johnson were the first people to man the counters, followed by the famous Tres Amigos, Ricky Childs, Debbie Brandt and Mike Hatcherson. In later years, Patti Bert and Marilyn Reynolds joined the crew. Ricky hung around for 18 years and developed a large customer base of his own, drawing in gays, African-Americans and women who appreciated his sense of style. Several of them would call in, tell Ricky what they had to spend and leave it to him to select their wardrobes. He never got a single complaint.
Well, maybe one. A regular high-spending woman came in one day, picked out $1500 worth of clothes and shoes and left a nice check. Ricky proudly brought it next door to show Bill.
“This woman always uses a credit card,” said Bill. “Why suddenly a check?” A call to the bank revealed the dreaded Insufficient Funds result and the offender was suddenly unavailable. A call to one of her friends advised she was flying to London the next day. The lady was having way too much fun at our expense.
We drove out to the address on the check and found no one at home. There was a half-open transom above her door but far too small for anyone to crawl through. Anyone except the 5-4, 108-pound Ricky Childs, who managed it in a trice. He opened the door, let Debbie and I inside and we gathered together the illicitly purchased goods. As a tax, we decided it was fair to also purloin a modest lid of marijuana from the refrigerator. We had earlier alerted the cops to the bad check, but decided it would be unproductive to advise them the problem had been rectified. When they eventually knocked on her door, the offender claimed we had taken our stuff back, a laughable fable which no clever policeman would ever believe. The criminal was abruptly taken into custody, but we generously deigned not to press charges. We smoked the marijuana, of course. Like its owner, the pot proved untrustworthy and below par.
Tales Of The Roadrunner.
Gainesville boy Ted Hansen was a sweetheart, a gentle man who spoke in moderate tones and laughed easily. He was a nuanced fellow, neither hot nor cold, with soft eyes and a steady hand. Ted gave you the benefit of the doubt, excused first offenses with a smile but made a mental note of indiscretions. Hansen had an impish side, was a clever observer of the human condition and was not disinclined to push back when someone mistook him for easy. Unknown to anyone, Ted Hansen had a dream, which he took to Bill Killeen.
“I want to open a record store in the Circus,” he said. “Well, who doesn’t?” answered Bill.
In a well-prepared speech, Ted explained why he would succeed. His taste in music stretched far and wide, his knowledge was extensive, he would start with no other employees and his overhead would be low. Mostly, he loved the music, he had a sixth sense for what people would want before they knew it and his work would be as much a hobby as a job. Bill asked him how he felt about dealing with the occasionally irksome public. “I smoke a joint before I come to work in the morning and nothing bothers me after that,” he smiled. Good enough. Killeen proffered a meager rent and Acme Records was in business. Oh, one last thing---why Acme? “I’m a big fan of The Roadrunner,” said Ted. “You can’t stop him.”
To say Acme Records was successful would be like declaring the Hindenburg had a bad day, a monstrous understatement. Ted Hansen’s understanding of his product, his ability to restock and secure special orders almost overnight put him far ahead of his tortoise-like competitors. Ted was a good schmoozer, a fellow who could read his customers and suggest albums they never thought of, and it stood him in good stead. As time went by, he brought his sister Laura and brother Rick aboard, then married the lovely and talented Marcia. Every now and then, of course, there is trouble even in Paradise.
Although the Circus and Acme Records were never robbed, we had our share of shoplifters. One fine evening, three of them purloined a handful of records and fled out the door with Ted hot on their tails. Even though Ted was a competent and athletic fellow, the odds didn’t look good, so I followed him. He caught one, I grabbed another and the third fled. The first one escaped, but not until Ted had torn his coat off, which conveniently carried his identification. I was busily tossing the second into some newspaper boxes---remember them?---and feeling good about it when the third returned and bopped me on the head from behind. Bopped is probably too mild a word because whatever he used left three distinct impressions in my skull. When we returned to the store in victory, my wife Harolyn looked at the blood oozing down my face and said, “My God, you look like that picture of Jesus crowned with thorns.”
Ted got his records back, though. I looked at him and told him he owed me one. He reached in his wallet and pulled out a small piece of cardboard. “And I will reciprocate,” he said. “Here, take my card. Just don’t call on Sundays.”
No Robberies
There were several reasons the Subterranean Circus was never robbed. First, we used an open and very visible cash drawer instead of a register, which hopefully indicated there wasn’t much to be stolen. This was to speed things along during busy moments, of which there were plenty. Second, beginning with the hiring of the Fabulous, Furry Sturm brothers, there was always a .45 or two on the shelf next to the Bambu papers. Word gets around. Bob told Bill when he finally left after several years of service that one of his great regrets was that nobody ever tried to rob the store.
Finally, we beat people up. The police made us do it. Arriving to pick up miscreants one day, officer A.W. Smith (later the chief of Police in Waldo) told Bill “Y’know, if you’d take some of these guys in the back room and beat them up, they’d start looking elsewhere for people to rob.” He was right. We did have breakins at night, though. I followed one kid about two miles with my front bumper about a thin inch from the back tire of his bicycle before he jumped a curb and fled through the woods. Another time, I fired a shotgun blast in the air over SW 7th Street to encourage a midnight marauder to return to the scene of the crime. He did.
Another carload of geniuses wrapped a chain around the Silver City double-door handles and jerked them off the hinges, which immediately set off the alarm, netting them nothing. The cops arrived promptly and one of them was asking me what the thieves’ car looked like when it cruised by again, checking out the damage. I said, “I lot like that one there,” and a half-block later they were in custody.
A long-haired pseudo-hippie sprayed me with mace once on his way out the door with his ill-gotten gains. I couldn’t see much but I was able to grab him around the waist and pull him down by his lengthy locks, pummeling him on the ground in the parking lot until our realtor, Louis Bliziotes motored by. Not one to pester people who were obviously engaged, Louis merely rolled his window down and said, “I came to see you about the property, but I can see you’re busy. I’ll be back later.” And off he puttered.
Some days were diamonds, some days were stones. But there was seldom a dull moment at the Subterranean Circus.
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| Ricky Childs---Subterranean Circus MVP. |
That’s all, folks….
