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Back in March while attending a lecture by Ralph Metzner, I ran into
Mike Arons and, after telling him about the Foster's Store book, I asked
him if he might consider writing an endorsement for us. He was guarded
of course in his response, but told me to go ahead and send him a
reviewer's copy of the book when I could. He'd take a look at it, and
after reading it, would perhaps consider at least sharing his view of the
book, for whatever that might be worth to us.
What follows then is Dr. Arons answer to my request for an endorsement.
I'm not sure if I got one here or not. I think I got another chapter.
You decide.
Mike Arons Review?
Hi Wayne, from here in France
Well, I got through the Foster Store book "shelf" by "shelf" and,
like any good market shopper, tasted of all the goodies.
The first thing that struck me was that I never knew before reading
the book that the store was or had ever been there, let alone that
its shelves were being filled with such gems of ripe and appetizing
stories. I came to West Georgia College in 1968 and, apparently, all
this was happening by the time I got there. And went on for years after.
I didn't know the store or many of it 'products', but reading about
it now, some 40 years later, I felt quite at home with some of the
memories. At home partially, of course, because the familiar shared
setting, in Carrollton, at WGC. Partially because I shared those times.
But also -- on the other hand -- many of these stories were strange fruits
to my palate. After all, these were students; I was a prof.
Even then, and as much as we tried in the Psych. Department to blur this
line, these were still in some unbreachable yet inseparable ways two
different but (to borrow from Mike Sorrell, Chapter 6) parallel universes.
In phenomenological terms, there was the world of student and that of
the prof, sharing a same scene, a same time, and in our case -- viewed in
large, and then it was about as large as a times could stretch it -- the
same mind-blowing '70's consciousness.
But what is also interesting is that now -- in Foster's Store -- you have
the stored memories of a bunch of old guys, who at this point seem
far closer to my age and stage than they did then. And their stories
are -- as is true for all us old guys and gals -- precious gems
long stored and now put back on the shelves from their memory banks.
I never thought of memory as a jewelry store, or bank, but indeed it seems
to be in that business. By some kind of magically good management,
our memories seem to pluck out the gems from the mass of churning earth
that passes through it, readying these for the time we want to make a
withdrawal from its vaults. Foster's Store was the invitation to withdraw
-- from so many accounts -- the array of gems of a singularly shared
experience: that of being a resident of a store.
Books like this are also, in ways, like marriages and funerals.
The family gets together and all the good old stories come spurting out.
Remember....? But also in the sense that these gatherings are joyous,
nostalgic and even sad, for those lost times now crystallized into
sparkling gems of tales. I found many such gems in Foster's Store during
my tasting orgy.
To take one of a number of examples of what I've called the parallel
universe: that story of Terry Farmer's "Liquor 101" (Chapter 7).
I have a parallel gem to tell. For one thing, Terry's story tends to
center around the student crowd at Jackson Courts. Who in Carrollton
didn't know Jackson Courts (otherwise known as "Sin City")? But where
the parallel between students and prof comes in has more to do with the
state of Prohibition that Carroll County was in at that period.
Terry recounts how the Police confiscated and imbibed their liquor haul
from Fulton County. For most of the nation, Prohibition had ended decades
earlier, but not in most of the Bible Belt, certainly not in Carroll
County. Those of us -- students and profs -- who weren't producing
or purchasing the homemade brew (brewers and preachers then often being
two names for the same "profession") all knew very well that heavily
trekked route to Fulton Industrial Blvd (the liquor Las Vegas of
West Georgia) to bring back our months' supply of sin.
My parallel story goes like this.
For a while back around 1972, we moved into one of those big porched
houses on Cedar Street, about half-way between the old Post Office and
Newnan Rd. Our neighbor, it turned out, was Chief Thredgill. He was
the Chief of Police you would instantly recognize in civies or uniform
in just about any small town in the rural South of that period.
There was that walk, the stance, the look. He was Chief of Police
during the day, the night or even when he mowed his back lawn. Even
there, mowing his lawn, he was always Chief Thredgill, where he wore
shorts, was shirtless -- and his belly bulging out front -- he had his
holster and pistol ever strapped to his side. (I guess you never knew
when a Commie might be sneaking up behind you). Well, one day, my wife
Christiane went to Atlanta shopping. Chief Thredgill came to our side
door: "Doc, don't tell your wife, ah got somethin' for you".
My Lord, I thought I was getting a warrant for arrest or something.
After all, I was one of those Yankee professors from the Psych.
Department at the College who was putting all those kids in sin
(He didn't know a lot of you were going' to Hell on your own).
Anyway, he handed me a brown bag with something pretty heavy inside.
He was being real neighbor-like. "Doc, this is the best stuff you ever
tasted". It did turn out to be pretty good corn liquor, right out of
his special stock.
There were all sorts of other of my memories pricked by this book,
specific ones like that little shop to the right of the front door
into the Maple Street Mansion, that little bit of 10th Street, later
"Little Five Points", or the Haight-in-Carrollton, all on the way in
to get the best pizza ever made in the U.S. I once told Bob, when
he dropped that wonderfully oozy thick Chicago style pizza, I'd never
return there until he brought that back to life. Even though Bob's
pizza chef had left him, he did try it again for weekends. But that
wonderful (and necessary) "accessory" shop never came back from
ghostville. It was great to read about it again in Foster's Store.
I wonder how many times Chief Thredgill visited that shop.
The book is put together the way the stories unfold, a potpourri of
different memories of a shared abode, place, time and consciousness.
A kind of pastiche of gems laid out on separate counters all in and of
the same store of memory...and laced together by delightful editorial
comments and those now famous Harrell "Ink Lines".
To end this reflection on the reflections of Foster Store the way Bob
Hope always ended all his radio shows, Wayne and the whole crowd,
"Thanks for the memory".
Mike Arons
But what about this!
Mike circa 1970 (Photo by Steve Aderhold)
I could of used better copies or photographs, but this is still Foster's Store.
To make a tax deductable contribution to this fund,
contact The University of West Georgia Foundation.
Here is the link:
http://www.westga.edu/~alumni/giving/foundation.html