1972, it was a huge house and we started out with six people and plenty of room. Cary came with the house. It had been an ashram for a yoga society, the Ananda Marga (path of bliss), but because of zoning laws they had to move. The neighbors had pressed for it, since the house was in one of the nicest upper middle-class neighborhoods in northwest Atlanta, Howell Mill Road, and ashrams were not welcome.
So the yogi boys, as we called them back then, had to go – all except Cary. He was tired of being one of the yogi boys and wanted to get back into “real life.” And boy, did he get it when our crew moved in.
We thought it was a great stroke of good luck that our bunch had gotten the house. We were unaware of the fact that we were unwittingly part of a plot by our landlord to get the neighbors to allow him to bulldoze the house and its grounds in order to build condominiums, a concept which was new at the time. When he had first proposed it, the neighbors fought it and persuaded the authorities to deny him permission to build the condos. His first counter step was to rent to the yogi boys. That really stirred the local folk and again they took to the authorities to have it shut down, since it was not zoned for a “church.” Score another for the neighbors.
“Never say die,” must have been our landlord’s motto, so he thickened the plot by renting to us, who were far, far less acceptable than the yogi boys. At least they weren’t coming and going at all hours of the night with the stereos blasting at full volume and other various and sundry things. At times our place must have looked like Woodstock on steroids. One of our roommates, Wade, even took his forty-foot school bus, painted red, white and blue, and parked it in the front of the yard, parallel to ritzy Howell Mill Road, making it arguably the greatest eyesore for miles around. It was Wade’s gesture of good will toward our poor horrified neighbors, sort of a big, red white and blue middle finger! I still marvel that the Atlanta police never showed up.