Someone recently reminded me of the elaborately painted sign on his [Gilbert's] bedroom door in the ghetto: "Ball Room". Connie Clark

Connie reminded me about the "Ball Room" sign when I was in Austin, but later I mentioned it to a fellow fugitive who inquired, "Exactly when did Gilbert live in the Ghetto?" I confessed that I remembered visiting Tortilla Flats and other habitats of Gilbert, Tony and Joe, but I couldn't really remember Gilbert living in the Ghetto. I [think] I remember that sign being in Jaxon's residence, but alas can't envision it well enough to recognize the style. Was it perhaps Jaxon's work? A gift from Gilbert? Did Gilbert live there before my time? Mary Ann Wilson

The "main ball room" drawing was there when I moved in. Tary talked me into renting the pad because nobody else could come up with the rent, and he was concerned lest we lose it. Jack and Hersh moved in at my invitation (Hersh from his apartment across the driveway) and we split the $35/month rent (including utilities) three ways. When I moved in I cleaned it up, washed the windows, painted the walls white and the toilet seat and kitchen counter some ramona green that I found in a can of leftover paint at my parents' house in Port Arthur (avacado enamel) and scored some Chinese red burlap curtains somewhere to go in the living room. Kit Teel painted the Japanese symbol for "foo" on the toilet lid as a finishing touch. Everyone moaned I had ruined it, even though I had left the fine main ballroom sign intact. The cleaning lasted about a week and it was dirty as ever. The apartment had a living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom and a bedroom big enough for the two sperm-soaked matresses that originally came with the place and two dressers (it never occurred to any of us to replace the mattresses). There was a couch/daybed in the living room. After Hersh moved in we had three refrigerators and three window fans all going at once, beer brewing in the enclosed stairway and kimshee rotting next to Hersh's catbox next to the bathroom heater. The landlord began to object to the utility bill when it hit $12/month. The night we pissed some rednecks at the Pig Stand the beer blew up at 2 am and we all hit the floor thinking they had come for us. The quart bottles just disconnected at the neck with such force that they dented the ceiling two stories up, one even embedding its cap in the beaded planks. Hersh had been upset about the Air Force objecting to his living there, and had sugared the beer twice. A week or so later I was awakened by a Daily Texan reporter who stormed up the stairs and wanted to interview me about Wynn Pratt, who had just stolen a friends car and driven off the cliff at Bull Creek with his hifi set in the trunk. (Wynn, son of a UT professor and a local Golden Gloves champion, was the one who started the famous fight at the Big Oak in Louisiana where Johnny Moyer got his jaw broken). One spring evening about four in the morning I was awakened by the familiar sickening smell of peyote cooking and stumbled into the kitchen to find Totilla L. Grandbergs (toad) mixing up a batch on our stove. He explained he had heard in Greenwich Village it would be cool. Such is the price of national fame. Dave Moriaty

WIN Pratt [not <<Wynn Pratt>>]. Stephanie Chernikowski

And that reminds me of the residents in the other apartments at the ghetto. Powell St. John and John Clay certainly contributed to the atmosphere and the nightly parties during the time when Dave, Jaxon and Herschberger lived there. Coming to Austin directly from a ranch near Corpus Christi, I thought it was devine. Freda Miller

About the ghetto as an apartment dwelling. When I moved in, Powell was living downstairs in the apartment closest to the alley. Jack Smith, my brother Tom, and I then lived above him. Ted Klein and wife lived downstairs. Not sure if there was an apartment upstairs from him or not, funny about memory, but John Clay lived above the garage if there was one, or else he lived above Ted Klein and his wife and their little peyote-eating dog. There was an outside stairway up to John's place, and an inside stairway up to our place. John Clay had told me about the place. I had been crashing on the couch at Russell and Cammie's little apartment. I lived in the ghetto in the summer of '62 and on through to the summer of '63 I think. We had parties. Tom and Olga got married. There was the Christmas Tree, actually a pitiful dead branch decorated with condoms and beer caps. There were screeching debates between John and Janis. Janis demonstrated for me the right way to mop a floor. SCRUB SCRUB SCRUB! "Like this, goddammit!" About the Waller Creek Boys, Powell lived there quite a while, it was Janis's home away from home, she and Pepi were over there all the time. For a while Lanny's future wife Sharon lived there with Janis King. I think. Lanny was over there all the time. It was the headquarters and practice hall of the Waller Creek Boys, and of any other folk musicians such as Mike Allen and John Clay who either lived there or crashed there or passed out there. Ramsey and I were going to make a movie. Oh well. We did have parties. Don Kleen, my brother Tom, and I lay on a mattress outside one night for our first peyote trip. The pecan tree kept turning into a giant palace guard that would bow down and wave fronds. Jewels hung suspended from the sky. Don Kleen meanwhile was seeing apocalyptic visions of the mountains in a ring of fire all about us. Tom didn't say much for once. Then when Dave and Jaxon took over my place, since Jack Smith had wandered off somewhere and Tom had moved to D.C. with Olga and I of course couldn't come up with $35 a month, by then I believe Steve Porterfield was living downstairs with Powell. Ted Klein had gone maybe? John Clay stayed there quite a while, and he would be a good source for the succession of tenants during those years. Not too sure if it really happened this way, but pretty sure that when Jack and Dave moved in, I stayed and slept on the couch. When they moved over to Brazos Street, I did, too. After a while I moved next door to stay with McGrew, then Porterfield moved in there. After Dave and Jaxon moved out of the Ghetto, Houston and Gary Maxwell moved into their apartment. That's where I met them. They were the first hipi generation. Many of us old heads and freaks went on to become hipified. Lord knows I did, but I had a hard time at first convincing myself that I were one. Not sure now either. Grew hair long. Got stupid. Wali Stopher

In answer to Mary Ann Wilson's question, I don't believe Gilbert ever lived at the Ghetto. He and Tony and Joe Brown lived at Tortilla Flats among other places, but not the Ghetto. I first visited the Ghetto in early summer, '62, while I lived in Beaumont. I caught a ride with Adolph Schmidt, who later managed The Tavern, for a weekend visit. I had already met John Clay and Bill Beckman, who had come to one of our parties in Beaumont. John was in #8 and Powell, I believe, in #2. Sharon Woosley also lived there, and was involved with Lannie Wiggins. That weekend I heard Powell and Lannie play, and was very impressed. Lannie had a Martin 017 and a banjo. He played both very well, finger picking and flat picking on the guitar. On banjo, he could frail "old timey" style as well as three finger "Scruggs" style picking. He seemed to know all of Woody Guthrie's songs as well as traditional ones like "Railroad Bill". Also, jug band tunes like the Memphis Jug Bands "Stealin" and Leadbelly's "Goin Up That Mississippi River". I had never heard anyone play traditional music so well. Lannie had a huge influence on me and I vowed to learn to play like him. Later, when I bought my first guitar, I found a 017 Martin like Lannie's for $57.00. What a guitar! Powell was (and still is) an absolutely magnificent harmonica player and a wonderful singer. I remember "Sal's Got A Wooden Leg", "Custard Pie", and especially "East Texas". I also heard more of John and was mightily affected by " The Road To Mingus" and "The Anson Runaway". John and Powell were the first hipster songwriters who wrote in traditional style. They are Austin's original hipster songwriters. All of these songs stood the test of time and are as powerful today as then. I slept that weekend in the hammock in the Ghetto yard, and just prior to returning to Port Arthur, I took my first peyote. I don't remember how I got it, but I know it came from Hudson's Cactus Farm in Leander. I smothered the green peyote with molasses to cover the taste - not knowing that the sugar counteracted the mescaline. So luckily, I did not get much of an affect from Mescalito. I did get just enough of a buzz to make the red in the asphalt road around La Grange look absolutely beautiful. I still am moved by that section of road just west of La Grange. I got just enough of the peyote to want to try it again, and I was so impressed by the Ghetto, and Austin in general, that I immediately planned to move. Less than a month later, I returned to the Ghetto, and moved into #4 with Bill Killeen, Kit Teele, and I believe - Wali. The rent was $40.00 a month and it was $10.00 a piece. I remember that we were too paranoid to smoke weed around there, and it was hard to come by. I later scored a $5.00 matchbox from Duffy the Jazz drummer, but didn't smoke around anyone at the Ghetto and did not tell anyone I smoked. We were all very paranoid and rightly so considering Harvey Gann and his crew. 39 cent quarts of Grand Prize beer which gave you a terrible case of the shits, and peyote - which was legal - were the main source of alternative reality. Tary Owens