Will Dockery: The Atlanta Years

The Atlanta Years (1980-1983)
Most of my time in Atlanta (1980-1983) I worked at Carolina Lumber & Supply (Off Monroe Drive and down Plaster Bridge Road, almost buried under I-85 and I-75 roaring overhead) through a "work exchange" deal of sorts made with my friends at Harvey Lumber & Supply down in Columbus with Carolina in Atlanta, they all knew my wife and child were already living there and I was commuting by Greyhound bus every Friday night after work, and taking the bus back home on Sundays since about July of '80, and by October the bosses had worked out a plan, I was highly recommended as a warehouse roustabout and so walked in to the job on arrival in October.

I used to be able to flip through these addresses like a breeze, but haven't tried it in 25-30 years so I will now, just to see how it works. I started out in a small apartment behind Lady Katherine's grandmother's house at 590 Sherwood Road, she worked at Old Hickory House BBQ which was basically just across the street from where we were living, and next door to the somewhat famous Gene and Gabe's Caberet there on Piedmont Road (and down the hill of course was Ansley Mall, and so on), from there I moved, in Spring of 1981, to a little room in a boarding house (long since demolished) right across from the entrance to Piedmont Park. From there, in early summer 1981, into the La Maison Apartments near Cheshire Bridge Road, then back to 590 Sherwood Road for a spell, then some wandering around, sleeping on friends sofas (such as the one at Esquire Apartments, when the big snow came in) and many a night at the old break room at Carolina Lumber. Then in spring of 1982, split a nice house on Orme Circle, off Monroe Drive with my wife, young son, and the owner of the house, Loraine.

From there, summer of 1982, a cool little pad on Rosebriar Drive aka Rosebriar Apartments, a very science fictional summer with a lot of weed, selling flowers for Sunshine Flower Company on various street corner and multiple viewings of "The Wrath of Khan" at the nearby dollar movie theater next door to Plaza Drugs on Ponce De Leon Avenue... then a small apartment at the infamous Darlington Apartments, and with the "good job" I had landed at Archon Construction (where I was sure to soon reach the top Howard Roark style), moved into the somewhat upper scale house... that fell apart fast and decided to go back to Shadowville, with the words ringing in my ears "I do believe I've had enough..."

Fireworks shook the street

Multicolored spiderwebs

Rattled Shadowville

changed the world forever.

Country doctor's job

Mixing medicine with words

Lead from gold

there and back again.

With horse nor hound

I run through streets alone

Blindly through this dream. -Will Dockery

The time in Atlanta, Georgia really began for Will Dockery on a wild Outlaw Country crossed with the dark side of the Beat Generation style night, on the Eve of July 4th 1980, although of course the ' big city'  of Atlanta had always allured and repelled the long haired country boy with stars in his eyes and dreams in his head... truly almost "Billy the Kid Meets Dracula" indeed, as one fair weather friend of the era observed that night of drinks, drugs and explosions of jealousy, frustration and and pure old fashioned "Three Sheets in the Wind" manifested, and, as we shall see become a Vicious Circle, will change Will Dockery's world forever... until the next time.



Atlanta (, stressed, locally ) is the capital of and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia, with an estimated 2011 population of 432,427. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, home to 5,457,831 people and the ninth largest metropolitan area in the United States. Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton County, and a small portion of the city extends eastward into DeKalb County.

Fall 1980, Early Days in Atlanta
Moved up suddenly when invited back by wife Kathy, quickly came back to Columbus and said a few farewells, quit the job at Harvey Lumber & Supply, moved most of the furniture from the duplex apartment at 13th Street, leaving upstairs icons Nadine and Melanie behind, apparently forever so far, including their little brother who I can only remember as singing the Randy Newman knockoff one hit wonder of that year Why Not Me? which may have been a dig at what must have seemed to the redneck proles of East Highlands to have been a laughable and overblown melancholy I had in my love and lost state, the months of July and August of 1980 included some really black and bitter momenets for me, for sure, but I digress, this should be in the chapter before this, of maybe that /is/ that chapter... for some reason all of this is sort of a blur, it had to have happened really fast in any case.

Got there to Atlanta, Ansley Park area in specific, at a rather historic or end of an era sort of time, my wife was working at Old Hickory House BBQ on Piedmont Road, the building still exists under another name, right past where Smith's Olde Bar I think they call it thrives now, where in fact for nice fringe continuity effect two current friends and music partners Henry F. Conley and Sandy Madaris performed at the Rat Pack a few months after I had been ousted from the group. Ironic, as that would have been such an important show for me, personally and sentimentally as well as sort of historical to the Will Dockery Mythos, but it was not to be. I was out of the band, was not invited on any level, and that was that.

It was that the pay phone at the corner of Monroe Drive and Piedmont Road, where the building that now houses Smith's Old Bar now stands, for example, that I stood and watched the

Manifested destiny a manifesto and a part All the actors still agree that ever had a heart. Hazel knew the karma, she kept it in a bottle Black tooth mojo marked index cards Bundles over the side of Dillingham Bridge Splashing as ripples reflect from the stars. Shadowville, Shadowville Speedway Riding slow down a one way street Shadowville, Shadowville Speedway Don't look back, don't admit defeat. -Will Dockery

A little back story on Atlanta, just for kicks, here... Atlanta was established in 1837 at the intersection of two railroad lines, and the city rose from the ashes of the Civil War to become a national center of commerce. In the decades following the Civil Rights Movement, during which the city earned a reputation as "too busy to hate" for the progressive views of its citizens and leaders, Atlanta attained international prominence. Atlanta is the primary transportation hub of the Southeastern United States, via highway, railroad, and air, with Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport being the world's busiest airport since 1998.

Flashes of memory, literally hundreds of little photographic moments, sound bytes, and joys and sorrows of the year 1980.
 * 1) Stoned #Mountain... haven't been there since Fall 1980, got high and walked down the mountain with your mom, her cousin & cousin's hubby .(not-quite 2 y.o Clay stayed with beloved Grandmother #Strickland)Also bought a #Thor comic book at the Majik Market on Monroe Drive earlier that day, great memory, thanks for reviving it, Sarah, Dustin & grandkids.



Will Dockery's first real contact with Atlanta was through his cousin Freddie Whitley, who lived there during the Hotlanta era of the 1970s, an would bring back stories of the amazing adventures to be had there during this time of interesting investigations, and from travelling with his father to the Veteran's Administration Hospital out in Decatur, Georgia, which is actually just more Atlanta. There in that stretch as multitudes of memory that continue to the present, via my continued visits to Wuxtry Records in the present day. These events were in the three or four years before the actual, literal move directly to Midtown Atlanta right in the center of the action, right into the center of 1980.



Will Dockery, musing on the Atlanta, Georgia era from Summer of 1980 to Spring of 1983:

"So much of our old early 1980s Atlanta world is just gone, buried... A recent trip to Atlanta, and bemoaning my old stomping grounds of the early 1980s being paved over with buildings led me to discover the past of that area, Piedmont Road: '...My memories of the area are from around the 1979-84 time period when I lived and worked near there, worked at Carolina Lumber & Supply a bit to the south of this area, on Plaster Bridge Road, and the memories are very vivid. I remember the very day I first heard about AIDs... must have been Summer 1981 sitting outside the warehouse at my job at Carolina Lumber & Supply up in Atlanta. Some day I'll write that novel, no time today, so just this note to myself on it, as an archived reminder." At that time, the Atlanta Flea Market was there, in a building that looked like it was once a department store, although I reckon it could have been the former location of Hastings Nursery, which by that time was located out Lindberg Drive at the corner of Cheshire Bridge Road, a few blocks to the east of Piedmont Road, across from the Varisty Jr. Next to the Flea Market on one side was Shoney's (the caving in building can still be seen there today), and across the street, across Lindberg, from the Flea Market was (in 1979-80) the empty building that once was a Copperfield's nightclub.

Across from there was the small strip that housed Ken's Tavern and Moonshadow Saloon, a couple of hopping nightspots for us working class types of the early 1980s. Past that going up Piedmont, and across from the fairly huge Flea Market space was a Sizzling Steaks, and a Zesto's, which, amazingly, is also still in the same spot. Then Broadview Plaza, which was anchored by K-Mart, Picadilly Cafe, and the Screening Room Theaters mentioned earlier. What isn't mentioned is that before becoming movie theaters, the location was the Great Southeastern Music Hall, where many great rock, pop and country acts performed... including the Sex Pistols with their American debut shows! Piedmont Drive-In was before all this by over a decade, and it was forgotten by the time I arrived..."

Back then, summer-fall 1982, I walked Peachtree Road every day, and admired the weird old Brookwood Hotel. Sometimes I'd take the railroad tracks that passed near there, just above the Darlington Apartments, where I was living at the time, and Piedmont Hospital across the street, a quick walk that would cut across Piedmont Road (and the Plaster Bridge Road area, where I worked at Carolina Lumber & Supply for a couple of years during that time, usually accessed from Monroe Drive and/or I-85 (I know, my shortcuts walking in Atlanta could get complicated, and are probably impossible now that the Marta Trains are built all through those areas now, as well as a much larger and complicated I-85 system, and in fact the original Carolina Lumber warehouse is long gone for who knows how long, I just discovered it a couple of years ago on one of my nostalgic trips down into the Plaster Bridge Road cul-de-sac off Monroe Drive, and "under the bridge".) following these tracks would lead to Piedmont Road right at the Tower Package Store, which I think is still there (?) a porn shop or two, then around the corner, the stretch of Piedmont Road where I spent a lot of fine evenings and days at Ken's Tavern, home of the 25 cent draft beer, Ken's (Anderson?) home made chilli and Polish Sausages, a truly world class and eclectic juke box with a fine mix of classic rock, soul, country and a lot of the more commercial punk and new wave, at least for a country boy from "down south" like me. Harvest Moon Saloon on the corner for more upscale "dates", The Heartfixers were pretty much the house band during that time there, or the guys that would catch my eye and ear when they were booked... Chicago Bob and Tinsley Ellis to set the little T & A dancing.

Ah the back steps of Ken's Tavern, dipping out the back door for a smoke and some conversation... but I digress and residences conflate... there's a Kerouac novel in here. still, or finally afer 30+ years the memories are golden and less jagged with the pain... I know it's only rock-n-roll but I /still/ like it.

I'll get back to all this, or already have slightly, outside the front of Ken's Tavern the view was Atlanta Flea Market way across the street and slightly to the right, Lindberg Drive almost straight ahead, the ruins of Copperfield's there at the intersection, crumbling and possibly a hobo jungle, or would be today, the other side of the Lindberg (Lindburg?) Drive/Piedmont Road intersection, the remains of "Victoria Station" which Kathy (the girl who led me to Atlanta in the first place from Columbus Georgia, both her grandmothers and other family a part of Old Atlanta, but, again, that's yet another plot line in the convoluted epic) and then on north up Piedmont Road, Zesto's (still there, one of the few remaining places) a Western Sizzlin' steak house, across the street slightly a Shoney's Big Boy... and then Broadview Plaza comes up quickly, K-Mart way down in the view, Great Southeastern Music Hall, which by then was a movie theater, Screening Room (?) where I caught first run showings of Jean-Luc Godard's "Every Man For Himself" and The Clash documentary "Rude Boy" and other films I can't remember any more yet.

After that, best hop a bus because the road got kind of long for a walker right after that, eventually finding yourself at Lenox Mall in that way... there /was/ a way to walk and cut through sort of behind the Krystal at Pharr Road and you could come out behind Lenox Mall back then in 1980-83 but I think that was all paved over with a highway by the late 1980s.

Back on the tracks if you didn't opt to emerge on Piedmont Road take the jaunt through the country for another mile or so and walk past Cheshire Bridge Road, or, when I lived down that way at La Maison Apartments on La Vista Road (no, actually that's Lenox Road, where it runs into Cheshire Bridge Road, back then at that area where Dunk-N-Dine, Happy Herman's and Varsity Jr. were, and are all gone now), down one more stretch and get off there, then cut back up to the left and find yourself there. Leaving Ken's Tavern of course the easy trip was cut out Lindberg Road (which then becomes La Vista Road) (anyone remember an old school, already closed down I'm sure, that was on the right side of Lindberg Road just off Piedmont Road about a block? There's some huge apartment complex or something there now, and then a much larger I-85 highway complex just past that) to Cheshire Bridge Road and then come down that way about a block to what was then La Maison Apartments, first complex of what seemed like dozens down there off Lenox Road as it wound on over to, eventually, Emory, Decatur, the lower end of Morningside, and all sorts of other places on the long and winding road, again, best, or rather essential, to hop a bus down that way somewhere.)

But... if I walked straight down, or out, Peachtree Road rather than hopping the tracks, rather than see all that and more, I'd see the Brookwood Hotel across the street, then the 3-4 blocks to Peachtree-Battle, pass the site of the old Peaches Records (which was long gone by 1982), then Oxford Books (Oxford Two was still a couple of years away) and, on the street the 24-hour Burger King. I haven't been up that way late at night in many years, is that Burger king still open all night, as it was in 1980-83 or so?

And it was during one of those days I saw the Brookwood Hotel being demolished.

And so it goes.

Lost Atlanta, Broadview area

Way before all this and that, the Indians ran the trails that became Atlanta streets. I kid you not. Prior to the arrival of European settlers in north Georgia, Creek and Cherokee Indians inhabited the area. Standing Peachtree, a Creek village located where Peachtree Creek flows into the Chattahoochee River, was the closest Indian settlement to what is now Atlanta.



The bridge over Peachtree Creek on Peachtree Road was crossed many times by Will Dockery, almost always on foot during the Atlanta years, walking to and from whatever glittering destination awaited him in the seemingly endless adventure in Atlanta, but I digress... on one side of the bridge was Peaches Records, which was gone and demolished not long before Docker's arrival, but thought of almost every passing, wondering where the slabs of sidewalk all the rock stars had put their handprints into the concrete went. On the other, north side of the bridge was Oxford Books in several incarnations over the years, before going under suddenly after the owner's money snafus did his book selling mecca in.



I do state, often, that the work is very far from finished, and with additional work, that you point out the "holes", it seems the logical path for me is to "fix the holes".

Film Forum of Ansley Mall, circa 1981
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/16291

I know that the Film Forum at Ansley Mall was open at least as late as 1980 into 1981, when I lived within walking distance and watched many films there during that time period, odd selections of foriegn films and cultish works, some offbeat comedies. One that sticks with me over 39 years later I viewed there was one film by Bunuel (The Avenging Angel) back around 1980 or early 1981 in a small movie theater. Really enjoyed it, it made me think of a long Twilight Zone episode. I do think that not far into 1981 the theater suddenly was closed and never opened again. Being new to Atlanta, I knew none of the history of the Film Forum, but it was a cool little theater. Among other great fils I saw there was some Jean-Luc Godard, Ketje Tippel and Belushi's best film (except for maybe Neighbors), Continental Divide.

Michael Pedragon: "In the wiki bio, it seems like you were only living with T, and went straight from squatting in an apartment with her to squatting at a lumber yard alone..."

Okay, that was off, and I'll need to change/clarify that... looks like a jump cut that left off the last few weeks at La Maison Apartments in which the relationship with T went downhill... and there are a /lot/ of episodes and ideas for poems just in those few weeks that have not been written about, either in poetry, prose fiction or non-fiction.

Offhand, the "swimming pool incident", the day T, K an C along with other friends such as Lorraine and Jean, all went to the filming of "Cannonball Run" (a Burt Reynolds movie) to appear as extras in a crowd scene (I wrote a poem that day, which alludes to this but in such an obscure way that another poem, or two are on my agenda) while I stayed home to relax and write, on my day off from Carolina Lumber and Supply Company... and so on... Tina becoming more disgruntled, me and Katherine wanting to get back to a quieter life with just us and our young son, who turned three on November 27 1981.

A couple of weeks of turmoil as K, young C and I discovered one of Kathy's grandmother's rental properties had become available again (we had lived there from Summer 1980 to Spring 1980, before I first moved to rooming house then rented the La Maison apartment around mid-1981) and one afternoon my Brother Dave drove up from Columbus in his pick up truck, we loaded all our meager belongings and moved to 590 Sherwood Road, K's grandmother's house, with the apartment in back (where we had been living the year before, 1980, though such events as the killing of John Lennon, and so much more). I'll have to set the date for sure, but in the early days of December 1981, K never made it home from work that night (from her job just across the street, at Old Hickory House BBQ, Piedmont Road), various moments of crisis follow, including, with more amazing bad luck, there was a fire in the apartment upstairs (this long epic within an epic is mentioned in the bio but is due for expansion of course) where K's father lived, later determined to be some kind off bad wiring mishap. This is how I wound up crashing with friends and sleeping at the break room of the lumber yard, around the time Christmas and New Year's 1982 was rolling around, which made getting to work much easier, obviously, and a small plus, there.



> In your posts here, you were squatting in an apartment with T, K, and C, and you went straight to K's parents' with K and C in tow, while T left for untold adventures of her own.

described in basic synopsis, now, above.

> You've confirmed that you were initially squatting with T, K, and C but the lumber yard's place in the story is still unclear ... nor is it clear whether your family was squatting alongside you there.

This was while, as described above, T was long gone (and I barely saw her ever again until 30+ years later, when we found each other again on Facebook as couple of years ago, K had mysteriously vanished, C was staying with his great-grandmother, K's grandmother. I was alone at this point, mostly focused on my job and for several weeks, trying to figure out the fate of Katherine... one harrowing day when the police called me and said that they may have found her, a young person had been run over by a train on the tracks headed north to Decatur, tracks that I and many other young folks used to get around on foot in Midtown Atlanta, tracks that in fact ran right beside the lumber yard I worked at.

If I went left on the tracks (basically north west) I'd come out at Peachtree Road at a good spot, near Oxford Books, the 24 Hour Burger King, and even the Darlington Apartments, where K's father, grandmother and C moved to when the fire made the house at Sherwood temporarily uninhabitable.

If I went right, I would come out at La Vista Road, about a block from La Maison Apartments, so of course this was my route home after work on most days, a nice "country" walk down the tracks, take a right, and a block away, the back steps of my apartment.

But I digress...

When the police called me, it was to identify a body of a young lady found on those tracks, who had been run over by a train, and her remains fit the description of Katherine they said... one of the most horrifying moments I've ever lived through was hearing that cop on the phone telling me this in his flat tone like Joe Friday.

I stammered... fits her description? Blonde? Yes. Eye color of blue?

"Sorry sir, there were no eyes... left."

I took a bus downtown, in a quiet panic, and when I arrived at the Police Station they gave me the good news... the "body" had been identified, and that day became somewhat headline news. It was a local girl, known to some of my Atlanta friends as a troubled young lady they had been in High School with, last name "Kibbles", and a tribute to that poor girl is overdue, soon.

Monologue on Ansley Mall
> Some of my earliest memories of living in Atlanta happened at Ansley Mall, > and living just across the street, slightly to the north on 590 Sherwood > Avenue, this mall was just a stroll away, and in fact in view from my > driveway. In 1980, Kroger was still part of the mall, on the southeastern > corner of the mall. the Italian Sausage I was cooking when Howard Cosell > announced John Lennon had been shot was bought in that Kroger. On the > outside of the mall, facing Monroe Drive were several excellent shops, a > bookstore that I fondly remember (but the name escapes me at the moment), > near there a small record shop that sold mostly disco and seemed to have a > sort of "gay" leaning (again, I wish I could remember the name but not as > I type this) most notable to me as the place I found Nelson Slater's "Wild > Angel" album, rare even then in 1980 and of course even more-so now, of > note as being produced by Lou Reed, and a small movie theater called Film > Forum that showed some great, odd films, some Godard, some cult comedies, > and so on. My ex-wife Kathy worked at the Woolworth's lunch counter for a > while after leaving the Old Hickory House, a half block up Piedmont from > Ansley Mall. Did quite a bit of laundry at that "Laundry Lounge" which > was sort of an interesting place for the time, with television and video > games. It was also my first sight of openly gay people... my very first > visit I was amazed to see the guys strolling around holding hands, even > one couple kissed! Ah, 1980... such innocent times.

The Great Snow of 1982
Just Walkin': "In '82, Atlanta got 7 inches of snow and the city was shut down for 3 days. Snow Jam '82 the TV called it. People slept in the furniture sections of all the mall stores for 1 and even 2 nights. Me? I rescued a dumpster cat and taught the neighbor kids how to sled ride down Buford Highway safely..."

I was there, and I mean right there!

When the 1982 snow hit, I was working at Carolina Lumber & Supply, and at that moment was crashing on my friends Skip and Pete's sofa at the Esquire Apartments, which overlooked Buford Highway. Generally, after work, I'd stroll to the nearby Ken's Tavern and then cut across Sidney Marcus Boulevard to Buford Highway and over to the Esquire (I think these apartments are gone now but were just abut directly across from the Denny's on Buford Highway, just up from the North Druid Hills Road intersection).

That day was an amusing walk, as there were hundreds of cars just stopped on Buford Highway for what seemed like miles, as I walked along past them. Reminded me of a scene in a Jean-Luc Godard movie I saw just before that at the Film Forum at Ansley Mall, "Weekend", where most of the move took place in a traffic jam outside of Paris... Just Walkin: "In 1983, temperatures went to -3F in Atlanta xmas morning causing everyone's pipes to freeze and many to burst. I had 3 lengths of extension cord running out to a hair dryer I had dropped into the water meter box in the front yard to get water going since I wrapped my pipes and kept a faucet on all night. Neighbors up and down the street came and filled up from our sink. One took a shower..."

I was living in Peachtree Hills near Oxford Books and all that in the early months of 1983 and do remember that it was pretty cold, or was this the later part of 1983? By then I was back here in Columbus, and had just begun working at the Mill, where I'd stay fr the next decade. It gets a bit chilly here, but not very...

Cheshire Bridge Road in Song and Story
A lot of memories specific to that area, which will ne unraveled here, hopefully, many different scenes and situations one of which is captured in this song...

Cheshire Bridge Road

Early Sunday morning walking with you

on Cheshire Bridge Road

passing sound of radio.

Gee, I think it'd be nice

to have a couple of cups of coffee with you

and watch morning come.

Walking on Cheshire Bridge Road

early Sunday morning with you

barefoot in the dew.

Sunlight burns away until the fog is gone

and brings in the dawn.

Every time I see your face

it reminds me of music.

Every time I see your face

across that bar.

Early Sunday morning walking with you

down Cheshire Bridge Road

passing sound of radio.

Still would like to have

a couple of cups of coffee with you

and watch morning come.

-Will Dockery (words)/ Geno Woolfolk & Henry Conley (music)

[http://www.myspace.com/genewoolfolkjrmusic/music/songs/cheshire-bridge-road-dockery-vocal-66805188 Written by Will Dockery, Henry Conley & Geno Woolfolk]

Actually, as I recall it, back in the early Eighties, when I lived near there and the time period this song refers to, there wasn't any strip clubs on Cheshire Bridge Road.

There was the original Johnny's Pizza near the start of the road, on the Piedmont Road side, a big, all ages kind of new wave disco named Numbers up the street from there, across the street was the Colanade Diner, great caferteria "Morrison's" type place, a motel next to that.

On down the road was New Baby Products, which is still there, I think, and then the bridge and railroad tracks I used to travel a lot, led to Piedmont Road, then over to Peachtree Road, and on to Howell Mill Road beyond that, an eventually over the Chattahoochee River, headed to Alabama.

Across the bridge on Cheshire Bridge Road was an industrial park of some sort down in a hole on the left side of the road, later became a recording studio down there, if my memory serves me well, possible a famous one, I'll have to verify, as that may be over on Monroe Drive.



After that on the right side of the road was the old Poster Hut, which seemed old even then, a sort of "Head Shop", actually that was what it was, though I hardly ever had time to stop there.

Next up might be where you're thinking, back when I was there the first clud seems to have been a gay clud, "Crazy Ray's" I seem to think it was, that later became... the name escapes me exactly right now offhand, but it was like "Inferno" or "Desecration", with a spooky looking bat logo, this was in later years late 1980s-1990 "Insurrection", no, it'll come to me soon, probably as soon as I post this. Around the corner from there was the club I often visited, which was related to the Witchburner's Bar on Buford Highway, this one went through a few names, for a while was Hot Line, which was all about having phones on the bar and booths, and folks could call each other from across the bar. I met my old friend Tina Infantino (now Hodges) there, still friends thirty years later.



Then around the bend coming close to Lindberg Drive Cheshire Bridge Road gets "busy", with Waffle House, Dunk N Dine, Happy Herman's Deli, gas stations, and in the back of another building, the infamous Sweet Gum Head, which was a glitter-glam rocker gay bar... Sid Vicious famously hung out there when the Sex Pistols made their Atlanta debut up the road at Broadview Plazz, the great Southeastern Music Hall on Piedmonth Road in, 1977 I think it was.

Sweet Gum Head photos from Cheshire Bridge Road

Then up on Lindberg was varsity Jr., Churches Chicken across the street, the corner where the Flower Girl sold her flowers to the passing traffic, across from there a movie theatre, next to that Farmer John's all-you-can-eat Schmorgasbourd...

Then Cheshire Bridge Road winds on up to Buford Highway, where it changes names, if my memory serves me well.



As for the Cheshire Bridge Road History, way before Will Dockery's time there... here's an excerpt from History

Captain Hezekiah Cheshire and his wife Sarah moved to the area that is now Atlanta in 1838. Captain Cheshire built his house on a hilltop overlooking Peachtree Creek to the North and his vast farm/estate stretching to the West. The bridge over Peachtree Creek was Cheshire’s Bridge and so that was what it came to be called.

Captain Cheshire’s son, Napoleon, lived in the hilltop house on Cheshire Bridge Road after he fought in the Confederate War and he and his family continued to run the farm late into the 1800’s. Napoleon’s two daughters continued to live in the house into the 1930’s.

By the 1870s the triangle of Piedmont/Cheshire Bridge/ Lindbergh Road was turning from large farms into smaller residential lots with a large chunk of commercial activity on all boundaries. We were becoming residential and the farmland was being pushed to the north of us. Cheshire Bridge Road became the path out of town into the farm country.

In the 1930’s life began to change even more dramatically for our neighborhood when the Buford Highway was developed. This new artery opened Cheshire Bridge Road to the north and accelerated the commercial and industrial development all along the road. In 1938, final construction was completed that widened Cheshire Bridge from two lanes to four lanes to connect with the Buford Highway. After the Buford Highway was built, Cheshire Bridge Road became a through street to the north and changed from fashionably residential to commercial.

The scene that Will Dockery encountered in 1980 was an Atlanta in a state of decline, but still vibrant in a seedy yet avant garde way.

"Sometimes I want to go to 1981 and not come back, or better yetr send the 1981 me back here. Trading places! The 1981 me would truly be amazed at the internet & such, & I would know to treasure what he had, and lost."

Late 1981 and it All Falls Down
I lived in the one apartment with T.I., my wife K. and son C.

I, K. and C. left that apartment to move into the other one, and T.I. moved elsewhere.

In the Summer of 1981 the constructive eviction happened, I was living with my wife Katherine, room mate named Tina, and my young son. Moved out of there to the apartment where the story Jim is questioning me about took place, around November of 1981.

My girlfriend of Summer 1981, Tina Infantino asked what happened after she moved out and lost contact with me.

The landlord wouldn't fix the stove which was supposed to be furnished, so my lawyer friend told me I could withhold rent and move out under a "Constructive Eviction" because of this.

Constructive eviction is a term used in the law of real property to describe a circumstance in which a landlord either does something or fails to do something that he has a legal duty to provide (e.g. the landlord refuses to provide heat or water to the apartment), rendering the property uninhabitable. A tenant who is constructively evicted may terminate the lease and seek damages.

That's when we found that Katherine's Grandmother had an apartment vacant again, and we moved out of the apartment without a stove and into the other apartment.

Yes, all the while I'm not sure if you noticed that the rent wasn't being paid! Since the stove didn't work I stopped paying rent and I was evicted less than a week after you left, I don't think we talked much about bills if we did at all?

It didn't help that I was so stupid I rented an apartment right upstairs from the rental office... made it hard for me to sneak out. I guess if I'd have been thinking straight I should have maybe moved out and let you have the apartment, since there was no way I could afford it by myself!

Anyway, I was at least two months behind on rent, lucky that I moved out and had a lawyer friend I used to drink beer with at Ken's Tavern write me a letter to them that I was doing a "Constructive Eviction" because they never would fix the stove, and moved on out... really not long after you left, like a few days later.

Tina: "Since they wouldn't fix it if I remember right the burners worked but the oven didn't we had to do everything on the top..."

It was an excuse, but the rent was just too high at that place, for the money I made back then.

That was really what run me back down here, none of that rent I could afford... I did find a little apartment over near Little Five Points that was $200 a month but that was still a lot of money with only one job, and a little child. There must have been jobs in Atlanta, but I didn't know any of the right people.

The part of the story you probably don't know is we moved out of those La Maison Apartments, owing at least two months of rent (since none of us ever paid rent!) (which was like $365 a month utilities not included!) into her grandmother's house, and then right after Halloween she just vanished, like she was kidneapped.

For about a month she was just gone, and the police couldn't help me at all, she was just gone.

In 1981?

I had one child in 1981, and was living with the mother and child (and married since 1978) in an apartment at the time Kathy mysteriously vanished.

The child was in the same house, the main part of the house, with his grandmother, as we rented an apartment in the back of the house.

I know I wrote all this to you earlier, Jimmy, but that's it again.

I was married to the mother, seemingly happily, in fact, so of course I had "custody" of the one child.

Again, that Friday night, my son was staying with the grandmother next door, who was babysitting him.

Not at all an unusual situation for a Friday night.

It was 1981 so only one child.

It was Friday night and the child was spending the weekend with his great-grandmother, Kathy's grandmother, who, as I wrote last post, owned the house that also had two apartments, one rented by my wife and I, another upstairs attic apartment, where Kathy's father lived at the time.

One house, the child was next door.

I worked, my wife worked, the grandmother was the main babysitter, again, just next door, in the same house, actually.

So, that is the "reason my child was kept". This happened in 1981, and my daughter was not born until 1986.

Katherine died in 2004, the children were adults at that time, in fact, both were married by the time of Katherine's death.

The story we are discussing took place in 1981.

Then, crazy thing, her grandmother's house burned down, her grandmother and father moved into an apartment and I slept at the brak room at the lumber yard I worked at. This was around Christmas and New Years of 1983, after that Summer I knew you.

No, she left the baby with her grandmother, she had went to work at Old Hickory House BBQ like normal, and when it was time to get off she never made it, never came home.

It took a couple of months to finally find her... the only way I found out was that I was at my job and the guy from the front office cane down and said "Hey, we found your wife."

I was just about as insane by then as I could get, and kind of homeless! But I had a job and a nice little break room to stay in...

The only way I found her was the mental hospital she was checked in up in Marietta, Georgia wanted to get my insurance papers or whatever, to pay her bill!

She had been checked into a pretty fancy nut house at that. After the house burned down I lost contact with her grandmother, and father.

When her sister found her she was blanked out crazy, and was about to go to Texas with a Waitress friend she used to work with, Melody, a blonde she worked with at the BBQ place who was married to a Mexican from Texas.

I never got the whole story but I think the "kidnapping" was Melody and Andy Hernandez taking her to their house instead of home where I was waiting. I found out later they had a U-Haul packed to go back to Texas and were going to take Kathy with them, when Kathy's sister came up with the police and got her from them, and had her checked in the mental institution. And nobody felt like I was worth telling any of this, of course.

And nobody felt like I was worth telling any of this, of course.

So, she vanished, the house burned and they found a place to live without me, I worked and drank at Ken's Tavern until closing at 3AM then would go to the vreak shed at the lumber yard which had a good heater and a big chair, to sleep a while until morning, and work!

At some point Christmas and New Years passed... for some reason those days are blanked out of my mind for 1981 - I must have partied...

There was a decent bathroom with latrine and soap at the lumber yard, and I could scrub down pretty good there with a towel... and I stayed on Skip's couch some nights, and showered down there when I got a chance. So after a couple of months of her being just missing, and nobody told me, her father or grandfather, or the Police, who I feel should have been the ones to tell me. I kind of thought she might have been killed by then, and kind of just settled with that idea.

But I went to the office at Carolina Lumber and they had all the information on her, from my insurance company, where she was, the hospital, and I told Jag who took me right out there that night. And they wouldn't let me in to see her, and my mind was so shot I just don't even know what I did then. Probably wanted to cry or something, so I went to the bar I'm sure.

Jim Senetto One more time, your bio as of now, shows your wife abandoning you

If by choice, that would be the proper word, if foul play was involved with her mysterious disappearance, then "abandoned" would not be the word to describe the situation at all.

' Jim Senetto':...lost, found in a mental hospital

Which was great news, meaning Katherine was still alive.

And, as the autobiography continues (not posted in the blog yet), I rent a room from our mutual friend Lorraine on Orme Circle near Piedmont Park in Atlanta, and a day or so later, I return home from work at the lumber yard to find Katherine there, released from the hospital, there to move in with me.

So how about that, the entire scene, as action packed as it was, ends in a happy ending.

And looks like a good time to add this to the wiki page...

' Jim Senetto': And if I'm reading anyone's bio, I would have the same questions your ex deserves better that what you've written

Well, I've written maybe 100 poems and songs for and about Katherine over the 40 years since I met her, so I thin you're being hasty in your judgment of my writings about her.

Here's one, for example, that I think came out good:

Idol Hour Night / a poem by Will Dockery

Written by Will Dockery (words) - Brian Mallard, Jack Snipe and Rob Wright (music) © 2017 (All Rights Reserved)

1982 and the Ayn Rand Influence
"I first read Ayn Rand back in 1982, and was floored and enthralled by the adventures and thoughts of the iconic characters of The Fountainhead... Howard Roark, the ultimate spokesman for Creator's Rights, Dominique Franken the strong-willed and elusive Muse, Elsworth Tooey the borrower and colaborator, and so on and on. And all of these statements by Paul Ryan, I can agree with and chuckle at the irony of roads not taken... Still fascinating and complicated influence, Ayn Rand. Like Paul Ryan, I can say the same as he dows about the influence of Ayn Rand on my life and art. A couple of quick quotes from Ayn Rand herself (or rather Howard Roark in The Fountainhead) that made me set the book down and say "Yeah..." and move forward as a creator myself, immediately typing up and self-publishing my first chapbook of poems, my First poetic /skyline/... Red Zeros, in the Summer of 1983.", says Will Dockery on this early crossroad in his poetic and working life.



The Fountainhead


 * "The creator originates... The creator faces nature alone. The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary ... one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution — or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement." -Ayn Rand

Orme Circle, Spring 1982
Description of a (still un-reposted, I think) poem from 1983 that describes events of that era, or actually spring 1982. after everything was mostly going well again, living at Orme Circle in Atlanta, back with my wife and child renting a room in our friend Lorraine's house.

Notes for the reconstruction/revision of the "Jo Cairo" poem.

Thinking about my "Jo Cairo" poem this morning, and, indeed, writing about it, and then thinking on the poetry chapbook that poem is a part of, the 1983 "Red Zeroes" collection, which was really my first widely published work (besides the poetry I put in the Carver High School newspaper and literary zine a couple of years before, and the small press zine "Phobia" before that) that has never been reprinted, or, mostly, even put on the internet. Some rare "Will Dockery" poetry, and slightly problematic, or the "Jo Cairo" poem in particular, because, as I wrote elsewhere, earlier:

Funny thing, that words such as "f**k" (typed thus because I have become aware my grandchildren are using search engines on "Will Dockery" now, as are others who will find the actual word offensive, and I have no reason to alienate those readers)...

I can remember the exact instant I first saw the word, spray painted in the shell of a building on Morris Road at Mulberry Drive, half way to my daily walk to Edgewood Elementary each morning, starting in May, 1965, when my parents bought a house and moved into that area, and I finished my last bit of 1st Grade there, leaving my beloved Waverly Terrace and all my friends in Jordan City.

I do have a poem that appeared in my first chapbook, summer 1983, that blew it all out of the water, as the poem describes me "going down" on a girl I knew while we were riding to work one morning, and I used the word for vagina that starts with a "p" in the poem, one line in the poem states that I ate it as she drove... a very high profile poetry chapbook that had a print run of 500 copies, was basically my debut as a poet, and /everyone/ read it, friends, relatives, my Uncle John made sure he bought one of the first copies... my wife of course read it. We split up for months, but I just now had it dawn on me that it might have been this poem, "Jo Cairo", depicting an event that did not happen with us, as almost always it was me getting the head, since most of the time I was driving.

What was I thinking?

I honestly don't know... arrogance of youth, I reckon.

The poem was good, told (I thought) a good, interesting story... but it sure could have been, should have been, handled, or rather /written/ differently.

My first son, Clay, was only five years old in 1983, but of course he would soon read my poetry book, and wonder "Did dad eat a cat?"



I still have yet to rewrite or post that poem to the internet, but the time is way past due, and 33 years later I still am not sure how to approach that one.

And so it goes.

I know now that really the events chronicled in the poetry of "Red Zeroes", with the poems there-in such as "Jo Cairo", "Chessmen & Dominoes", "Green Ringlets" and so on, is that there are plenty of details that could be expanded on, such as the prose piece I write last year shows:

I did but the most memorable LSD trip with Bob Dylan would have to be called a bad trip... in late fall of 1981 I did two hits of blotter and suddenly my life, mostly by coincidence, hit a major crisis (one I have yet to fully recover from, or even really write about in detail) unexpectedly and /right then/... there was quite a bit of terror and desperation in the trip, which I enjoyed completely on my own.

The details will wait for another year or two, maybe longer, but the Dylan portion is that as I ran around late night East Atlanta frantically searching for Kathy, who had simply vanished from the less than a block walk from her job at Old Hickory House BBQ on Piedmont Road (building is still there, now a steak house, next door to what is now Smith's Olde Bar, then is was Gene & Gabe's Cabaret) to 590 Sherwood Road, where I was waiting, expecting to trip with her as soon as she got off... but she never arrived.

There was more, with theories that everyone from the local Masonic covens to Ravenwood Church's worshipers, to a Charismatic Californis Religion group, to a white slavery ring out of Texas, CIA types, Sam Massel's real estate sharks, the "gay mafia", and other assorted Atlanta counter cultures... I was most closely aligned with the roofing, construction (Archons) and punk rockers and all these factions and more had certain sways with the eclectic variety of friends we were making, both of us being out-of-towners from down in the country.

The (to me) (and relatively) huge population of Atlanta, and my personality type (young poet looking for an audience and thrills) led to a big and eclectic friend base, most of whom are just fading memories in these modern times.

But on the Bob Dylan content...

Various songs from "Saved" rolled through my mind endlessly that night as the acid trip took on a cosmic, C.S. Lewis scope... the stone hill driveway at 590 Sherwood became a demonic face laughing at me, the long several blocks of Monroe Drive to where I thought (and think) Kathy must have been, friends including her fellow waitress Melody Hernandez, the red headed chick Lorraine, Jo Cairo (Gina) upstairs... another story for another time but none of them were willing or able to give me any information on the vanished Kathy. The horrendous and spooky walk back and forth, trying to get on a Marta Bus but having no "correct change", only a $20 bill... and not being allowed on the bus because of that...

Me with Kathy (& our son Clay) in Atlanta 1981, a few months before The Trip described above: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/357684395383123333/

And people wonder why I don't care much for the Saved album.

Yes (spoiler alert) she did return to me, after some thrills and chills and with a cliffhanger ending (including a surprise cameo rescue by her fabulous, brave, raven haired and heroic sister Victoria, yeah, that Kinks riff cues in right now)... I just awoke here, so let me rev back up on a few coffees and maybe I can type out another chapter.

Me, Kathy, Clay (in Batman suit) and new addition Sarah in 1986: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/357684395378115715/

So, eventually, there was a very happy ending... that lasted for a number of years.

And... to finally answer your question about Luis Bunuel, it happens that I watched his creepy and beautiful, almost made me think of a long "Twilight Zone" episode, a film called "The Exterminating Angel" just before the events described here, just down the hill in a small movie theater in Ansely Mall. Yes, I know this is probably the most obvious Bunuel film to catch, and that's probably why the old gentleman, George Ellis I think his name was, was showing it.

But I digress, and digress, digression on digression like M.C Escher... could be what they call an acid flashback?

34 years later?

Anyway, soon, in 2016, the complete "Red Zeroes" chapbook contents will be revised and posted online, including the troublesome "Jo Cairo" poem.

Red Zeroes cover art: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/357684395381867399/

And so it goes.