A garden is revolution enough.

The New York Times got their picture but they got the story all wrong. The Volvo station wagon filled with dirt and an American flag on a pole coming out through the sun roof screamed NIMBY and disgruntled Yuppies in Birkenstocks. The beige auto sat firmly planted atop a hill next to the clearing for the new highway which cleaved the hip neighborhood in two. The image was perfect but at the bottom of the hill the reality was more akin to 1968 Prague than a corner Starbucks.

Tom Moreland was the head of the DOT in Georgia for forever and his pet get rich quick scheme had always been 2.2 mile highway that would start in downtown Atlanta and dump commuters onto tiny East Ponce ave.
In a rush to get things started the DOT bulldozed 2.2 miles of nice middleclass intown homes before a court order halted the project. For 20 years!
In the south nature abhors a vacuum.
 Over the foundations of demolished little houses grew a truly phenomenal highway of kudzu. It was like having the Ho Chi Minh trail in the heart of Atlanta. Rats the size of bulldogs cruised the tunnels along with junkies and rapists and the mentally ill that wanted to live an invisible urban life. Entrepreneur pot farmers tried growing their crops in the seemingly impenetrable jungle only to see the budding plants vanish before maturity.
Next to this wild river of green at the bottom of a hill was an old two story wood house that was the home to the Albemarle Community garden. Filled with an array of wild haired hippies and a couple of master gardeners the home was a good halfway house between Atlanta and the wilderness of the kudzu.

The garden started atop the ruins of what was unbeknownst as the house next door. The first beds plowed unearthed a rubble of bricks, splintered lumber and old mangled plumbing. Over five years the garden grew from a couple of anemic furrows to an acre of organic wonder. A hub of the community dug out and nurtured from the edges of a bureaucratic boondoggle.
Ah, but every boondoggle has its day.
In 1980's through a bit of ex presidential pressure the project was back on and in a bit of deja vú Tom Moreland fired up the bulldozers and went hell bent for leather with his project not waiting for any damnable court orders to spoil his fun.
Seemingly overnight the kudzu jungle was gone. The roadway was graded and footings for overpasses were being pounded into the red Georgia clay. The river of green was now a bright reddish orange quagmire of mud.
And at the edge of this new geological development sat the Albemarle community garden. A lush oasis of horticultural delight
which according to DOT blueprints was to be paved over for a DOT vehicle parking lot.
The morning the bulldozer showed up to plow the garden under the operator was met by a handful of hippies wielding pitchforks and machetes.
He dismounted his machine and said "I don't get paid enough for this shit".
He was a long haired fellow himself and right nice when he saw there was going to be no violence. He told us that we had 48 hours to try and slow things down before another bulldozer crew would be sent out. He had to inform his company of protesters and said we should watch out for cops later that day.
He eyed the giant concrete drain pipes that had been delivered the day before that were to be laid in the middle of the garden to drain the new parking lot.
"Ya know those things are pretty sturdy but the collars on them break real easy. A shame too because if they break they're no good and can't be used. Another thing," he said looking at a line of old junk cars that lived on the street, " company is really skittish when it comes to moving vehicles. Could hold things up for a couple of days".
Strangest thing happened that night.....every one of those pipes kinda got their collars broke and I'll be damned if all those no running cars and vans didn't up and drag themselves around the perimeter of the garden and take their wheels off. The Volvo made it to the top of the hill before its wheels fell of and it filled itself with dirt.
The next day Wild Bill the welder showed up with a flat bed full of scrap iron and concrete posts and set about an all day welding marathon in which he put together mighty fine tank barricades. Between the junk cars and giant metal x's of the barricades the garden kind of took on a Mad Max ambiance.
On the news that night we saw the incredible fireball of a ruptured national gas main that had been damaged by a construction earth mover up on the 285 interchange project. They showed a quick picture of the operator....oh my god isn't that the same bulldozer guy? Nah, couldn't be.
Next day down the block Mary Jane climbed the construction crane and handcuffed herself in the cockpit.
Well that made the news which woke up a judge who broke out his pen and froze the whole damn project for another five or six years.
The road finally got itself built but not before going through many neighborhood friendly changes. Now Freedom Park runs along both sides of the highway and is the biggest park in Atlanta. And the garden.... It is still there.

A good night out.

"kiss me."
"No".
"You don't have to make that face. Come on kiss me."
"I don't wanna".
"You'll like it..."
"No I won't."
"How do you know if you've never tried it? Come on, put those juicy full lips of yours on mine. You know you want to."
"You do have nice full lips as well... It's just that I'm afraid our moustaches will stick together like Velcro and we'll never get back apart."
"And that is a bad thing? Kiss me."
"Oh for the love of Christ..."
TWO HOURS EARLIER........
Lady D, Mark and I have gone to this new movie that everyone is raving about. All I know is that it is about the IRA and has Stephen Rhea and Forrest Whitaker in it. Pretty good film so far and the girl is smoking hot. She kind of looks like my girlfriend Lady D but D isn't that tall. Same lovely color and sharp tongue.
What a fantastic story line. This movie is really good and it looks like a sex scene coming up to boot! Why are Mark and D looking at me and not at the screen? I Know they have already seen the movie but damn this is hot. Oh boy about to get her naked......?
"oh my god!" I gasped loudly to the giggles of those around me in the theatre. Never saw it coming.
Mark asks after the film "so what do you think?" D is smiling at me as he asks.
"I think....that might have been the most romantic film I've ever seen...even the bit where she kills that awful woman".
"She?"
"Well yeah...I mean...well yeah, she. What is a bigger part of her anatomy her brain or her penis?"
BACK ON THE COUCH......
"Kiss me".
"Mark, I don't feel that way about you. When I look at D I get all jelly in the knees and there is a pulse in my gut of love...of desire."
"Like that fellow in the film had for the girl? My my wasn't he surprised."
"But he was attracted to her as a girl."
"Yet after he knew differently he still went to prison for her. Now that is love."
"Well...hmm. That is love and he did desire her".
"Oh so you don't love me, we're just buddies. But you will kiss your girl buddies."
" No man, I mean, yes I love you. You are my best friend. You are sweet and smart and I guess I do have that pulse in my gut that tells me I love you but-"
"I think you have your pulses a little mixed up. I think that pulse you're talking about is a little lower than your gut."
"But I can't help it. That's just how I am."
" Me too. This is just how I am. At least you have thought about this instead of closing your mind and eyes as to who I am and who you are."
"Awww, kiss me you little scamp."
My toes didn't curl. Nor did I burst into flame or suddenly become gay.
"Mark, you reckon they get together after he gets out of prison and they live happily ever after?"
"yes most definitely my romantic friend."