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In 1979, age 17, I'd run away from home. I hopped into a friend's '69 Camaro and off we sped, southbound, out of New York and on to anywhere. We had no definitive destination. We were young, naive, often stoned on Colombian gold, and our crazy idea was head to Oaxaca Mexico, to meet the Yaqui "Man of Knowledge" named don Juan Matus, as described in Carlos Casteneda's books. Afterward, we intended to settle in the Mexican foothills, cultivate a marijuana plantation, and become wealthy young entrepreneurs. All this without even possessing passports, or any form of legal ID. What we had was a Camaro and baggie full of pot seeds...

Along the way we stopped to rest in a South Carolina motel. It is there I saw my friend's astral cord, which you can read about on this page. Also while we rested in the motel, we ditched our Mexico plans, and decided to settle on Alabama for our pot plantation project. Now, just prior to departure from NY, I'd jumped off the roof of my parent's house, during a heated spat with my abusive mother. In doing so, I'd busted my knee open on the concrete driveway, and by the time we got to that motel, the wound was already beginning to fester. I was in substantial pain, limping, and unsure what to do. Somehow I managed to get hold of my older cousin Joy on a pay phone. She was living in Atlanta at the time. We wisely decided to visit her.


Joy had me soak in her tub to cleanse and bandage the infected wound, and in that time she convinced us to remain in Atlanta, and avoid Alabama at all costs, on account of us being young long-haired yankee hippies without a clue. Truly sound advice, which altered the course of my life.

So we stayed in the area, and with fake ID and the few travel dollars we'd pooled, managed to rent an apartment in Stone Mountain. There, we met a guy from NC, Jerry, who worked on a construction crew, and he soon helped us hire on as laborers. Rather ironically, the job was adding a wing onto a Dunwoody addiction treatment center. The sort of facility I'd belong, in years to come.

The job was rough, dirty, dangerous. I dug ditches knee-deep in Georgia red mud, operated the backhoe, Bobcat, and learned to drive a stick shift pickup.
I worked shoulder to shoulder with some of the biggest toughest good ol' boys and black men fresh out of prison. Smoking hash and drinking Wild Turkey around a barrel fire, was how we started our work day on those cold winter mornings. I was injured several times, and mocked, cat-called by the workers for having long hair, and being a yankee, but I was a scrappy determined kid, and I stuck it out, for 4 bucks an hour.

However the job and everything else proved too much for my lanky friend to handle, and one morning he snuck off before dawn without saying goodbye, and headed back home to NY. Because of that, my days were numbered. The apartment and utilities were in his name, and with no car, getting to work across town became quite a chore. I had to ride several Marta buses and trains, which I did for maybe a month.

One day, while riding the train out of Little Five Points, I met a kinda grubby guy named Booker, who was dressed in a black leather trench coat, and he invited me to a party on Ponce De Leon ave. Night was falling, and the party hostess was a woman in her thirties. I got pretty high and passed out on her living room floor.

Come morning, I suddenly woke to someone straddling me as if they were riding a dead horse on a rug. I opened my eyes, looked up and saw...
a gorgeous blue-eyed blond angel smiling at me. I'm unsure what was said between us, and she soon hurried off, saying she'd return shortly with her Impala, and drive me home to Stone Mountain. So that's how we met, and where our whirlwind romance began.

There's lots I could say about our time together. The wild Georgia peach, and the Yankee hippie runaway. Many strange things happened. Some good, some pretty bad. One of my interesting memories is the day we visited an unusual structure we thought was a witch house. That story is Here.

I can say I fell crazy in love, and we shared magical nights together in my apartment, her long amber silk hair falling, her bewitching eyes shining in candle light. This was late autumn 1979. I'd adopted an abandoned black cat whose fur some pos burned off with a lighter. I named her October, (Gina's birth month) and I'd become so hopelessly infatuated, all I wanted to do was snuggle in bed with my princess and the puss.

So I lost my construction job, the power cut off, and an eviction notice was tacked to my door. Ahh but who cares when you're crazy in love with the prettiest girl in the world!

I soon wound up moving into her divorced mother's town home in Clarkston GA. Her mom was an odd character, a southern baptist, who sometimes spoke in tongues. She wasn't particulary fond of the arrangement, but she let me stay for a time, in Gina's bedroom, conditionally with door open, which brings me to my ghostly orb story.

I stayed on into summer of 1980, earning my keep by cleaning, and handwriting calligraphy on certificates her mother was paid to produce.

Throughout all this time, I'd met with her sister and father several times. Her dad wanted us to be happy, and offered us a trailer home he owned, but that never came together. Much more I could say, but the bottom line is it all fell apart. Her mom wanted me gone, and I wound up camped out in a nearby vacant apartment a carpenter from Long Island was working on. There, I wrote a song about Gina, which I played for the two on my guitar.
And then... I was gone. Hopped on a plane back to New York. That tore my heart out, and I pleaded with her to come to NY and marry me. I had a steady job and a car, but she refused to leave Georgia and her mother behind.

Many years later, I returned to Atlanta area. I located Gina and we met at a bar. She was married with a child, but we became good friends, and remained friends until she passed away from pancreatic cancer.

RIP Gina
October 28, 1963 - April 25, 2018

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Addendum:
I took the above Polaroid photo of Gina in her bikini. In the background you can see a WBAB radio bumper sticker I'd brought with me from Long Island.

Gina was the daughter of Gene Reeves, a prominent Lawrenceville GA attorney, former chief of police, who later became a judge. As attorney, he represented Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt.
In 1978 the two were shot outside the Lawrenceville court house, by convicted serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin. They both survived the attack, but Flynt was crippled for life. A movie was made about Flynt's life, but Gene Reeves wasn't mentioned. I met Gina less than a year after that incident, and tension was high. She was under enormous stress and subsequently had developed a penchant for Lemmon 714s. She eventually overcame her struggles with sedatives, and found serenity through Christ and the church. But for a long time, Gina and her family worried the unknown would-be assassin would return to finish the job. Franklin didn't return, but he did continue his murder spree elsewhere.

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Gina's father, Gene Reeves, being wheeled into ambulance.
He can also be briefly be seen in court at 2:12

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Gina with her dying mother, Betty. See y'all soon. Hugs in Heaven I hope.

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