The Sixties was about NOTHING if it wasn’t about SEX. You know, one of our anthems of the period by CSNY, “If you’re not with the one you love, then love the one you’re with!” And we did. And the derivation of a human estrogen analogue from a South American yam freed us all up to do so. The Pill! And the Supreme Court 9 the likes of which we no longer have) ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut that government stay out of our sex life.
My environmental activism of the period primarily consisted of inspiring young folks to become active, so I ended up with quite a few “camp followers”. Holly was fifteen and sweet and sexy and beautiful…and wanting me. Oh, yeah, it was unbelievably tempting. I will admit the legal prohibition in this case really did come to mind, and when I raised that issue, she said, “My Mom knows. It’s OK with her. Come meet her.” Oh, Brother! I had already had experience with one Mom, my friend Sandy, being OK with deflowering the fruit of her womb, the young witch. But at 13 and not at all developed it wasn’t hard to say NO. What to do? Broke her heart, too.
I had a friend named Joanne Holshouser who lived in Coconut Grove, the Greenwich Village of the South in the Sixties. We had the Gaslight South where Dylan introduced his shift to the Folk-Rock style, appalling all his fans and the entire folk world. And the famous Flick and the coffeehouse I helped start. My recollection is Joanne was in her 40’s by then. I am sure we met through my environmental activism because of the next chapter of this story.
We’re sitting in Peacock Park on Biscayne Bay where everything happened in the Grove. I raise my dilemma. Joanne said there was nothing particularly wrong in it, but she felt that I would come to regret it in later years as something that would not probably have been in Holly’s best interest. I listened. Holly told me I broke her heart. Not the first or the last I am sorry to callously say.
Joanne was quite a character in her own right. Coconut Grove was like a tropical hammock, completely overgrown with semi-tropical lushness. (Which is how another tale about the folksinger Bobby Ingram and the Everglades Jetport happened!) Her house had a big deck in the back yard. We’re there on afternoon and said she needed to call her long-haired dachshund in, Thorndyke.
“Here, Thorny! Thorny! Thorny!” She then told me she named him that so her straight neighbors would think she was yelling “Horny!” She was not a prude so her advice about Holly was easier to understand.
Joanne was in the national leadership of the Episcopal Church, a more liberal of the Protestant denominations. They held national leadership development conferences of their young people, mostly high schoolers. One was coming up in her hometown of Boone, NC and she proposed that I run environmental workshops for the students. By then I had a national reputation as an environmentalist, and it was accepted.
I don’t think we flew because by then I had my traumatic experience in a propellor driven T38 jet trainer while on the research team in the Everglades. They look just like the planes with cockpits in World War II movies. I had always been afraid of heights so WHY did I agree to help Bill Myers, the US Geological Services aerial mapping pilot to help do the photography of the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Preserve? Didn’t get on a plane for eleven years after that.
Oh, my G-d! I remember the car winding its way up the mountains to Appalachian State University. Didn’t think I would survive. The workshops went great. And then Joanne said she wanted to share something really special with me because by then I also had a reputation as being part of the folk music world. We’re back in the car and SHE’S DRIVING US EVEN HIGHER UP INTO THE MOUNTAINS! I knew it was all over for me….
She wanted me to meet her friends Nettie (Hicks) and Edd Presnell. He was a dulcimer maker and she played it. We had lunch at their house. Edd came in from his workshop with an even bigger beard than Jerry Garcia and I had, with wood shavings in it. After we ate, Nettie played. I think it was good I had NO idea who they were at the time. It certainly made it a more natural visit among friends.
Years later, I am at Turtle Records in Tallahassee when I see the album illustrated here. I turn it over and there are three tracks from Mrs. Edd Presnell, so I research her. And what do I discover?
Alan Lomax collected recordings of Nettie which are in the Library of Congress American Folklife Collection. Edd made over 1100 dulcimers in his Life. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has one of the most notable collections musical instrument collections in the world. They have one of Edd’s dulcimers. Yeah, I’ve been one lucky guy over the years.
