Dispatch From An American Roadside

 

An American roadside in Madison County, Georgia between Comer and Carlton. Photo by me, September 2026.

Last weekend the weather was ideal with overnight lows reaching forty-eight degrees at home and afternoon highs only in the lower seventies. There was a bright blue sky and the golden light had that cinematic California quality that occurs here in the fall. 

We were out in Madison and Oglethorpe counties, an area I particularly like for its fields and woods, on the last weekend of September. The area is known for the former country estate of singer and actor Kenny Rogers, covered bridges and rock quarries, some abandoned and some active. 

The poster for the film Breaking Away starring Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid and Daniel Stern. It was nominated for five Academy Awards and won for Best Screenplay.

The area, east of Athens, makes me think of the 1979 film Breaking Away which featured a scene where the main characters, townies known as The Cutters, swam and sunned on the rocks in an old quarry. The film was a coming of age tale centered around the American class system, friction between locals and college students and the changing of America in the 1970s. 

Breaking Away was a critical and commercial success and was nominated for five Academy Awards and won for Best Screenplay. It lost the Best Picture category to a lesser film in Kramer VS. Kramer and was nominated among Norma Rae, Apocalypse Now and All That Jazz. Imagine a time when serious films were made for adults, people read books, dressed better and that was the late 1970s. Imperfect as those times were, they were better than today.

Looking back and comparing it to modern life in the United States, we did not understand nor appreciate how well we had it in the seventies. The big shift that would set the country on the path we are on today of runaway capitalism through deregulation, attacks on public education and wider class divides was only two years away in the form of Ronald Reagan. The election and the breaking away from the American dream through responsible governance that came after this movie created the debt we are paying for today and the decaying society in which we live.

I write this as a non-partisan: If only the country had made a better decision in sticking with President Carter. If only... 

The film's success spawned a television series based on it for the fall season of 1980-81. Though the film was mostly shot around Indiana University and Bloomington, the 1980 ABC television series starring Shaun Cassidy was shot in Athens/Clarke County and at the University of Georgia. The local quarries and the traditional college campus of U.G.A. made it the perfect location with better weather and there was no discernible difference in how the film and show appeared on screen.

Breaking Away the ABC television show 1980.

 

Breaking Away the ABC television show 1980. Filmed in Athens.

Despite the star power of Shaun Cassidy, known at the time for his role on The Hardy Boys and his singing career, the show was short-lived and was canceled after only eight one-hour episodes. While the film is still remembered and highly regarded, the magic of the movie did not translate into a successful television show and became a forgotten afterthought. The ratings were so low that the eighth episode was never aired by the network.

I watched the show when it aired, but I was only seven years old and all I remember is it being mentioned in my house that it was shot in Athens. That memory stuck with me as at the same time there was a big hit show on CBS that was set in Georgia and the first five episodes were filmed on location, that show was The Dukes of Hazzard. 

Today, people remark on the film and television industry in Georgia and how popular the state became over the last two decades, but it was actually in the 1970s thanks to the efforts of Burt Reynolds and then Governor Jimmy Carter that Hollywood started coming here for productions. Burt was a big believer in the state and filmed many movies here.

Shaun Cassidy on the cover of Dynamite Magazine Issue 77.

Part of the accompanying article in Dynamite Magazine promoting the Breaking Away television series.

Two shows in Georgia and two very different sets of boys, one was a group of townies finding their way as outsiders in a university town and the other was a pair of down home and uncomplicated outlaws outsmarting the bumbling law. Whatever was in the air in America in 1980 that was poisoning its mind, it chose the outlaw boys. It is likely blasphemous to many of my generation, but Breaking Away was the greater show and represented my home state better. I watched the Dukes for the first three seasons and as a young country boy at the time there was plenty of entertainment with the fast cars and stunts, but as a young gay boy too, Shaun Cassidy in short shorts and on a bicycle in Breaking Away was way more appealing. I had harbored a secret crush on Shaun since his time on The Hardy Boys.

Dominique Dunne in Breaking Away.

The show also featured Dominique Dunne in four episodes. She played the role of an Italian speaking university student who becomes intertwined with The Cutters. Her character had a more prominent part by the last episode and her acting had improved. On the night of November 4, 1982 and after her breakthrough role in the summer blockbuster Poltergeist, at the age of twenty-two, she was murdered. Her death was due to strangulation by an ex-boyfriend in the driveway of her West Hollywood home. She was the daughter of writer Dominick Dunne, sister of actor Griffin Dunne and the niece of writer Joan Didion.

The very end of the seventies and the early eighties were a pivotal time along the American roadside in how we got to where we are in 2026. It was if we straddled a double yellow line and were faced not with which direction to go, but on what side to step. There is a valuable lesson that needs to be learned, I am not red nor blue and neither are you.

Carlton, Georgia. Photo by me, September 2026.

 

We stopped in Carlton and browsed in the detritus of times of gone. It is a place you can in the middle of a Sunday afternoon straddle the double yellow line and ponder your direction.

Photo by me, September 2026.

 

I like coming here and it was the first time returning since last February.

 

The countdown cover of David Atlanta Magazine. Photo by me, September 2026.

Way out in Carlton, upstairs in one of those old buildings, ninety-five miles and on a good day an hour and forty minutes east of Atlanta, was this framed enlarged cover of David Atlanta Magazine. It was an odd find as David is a gay magazine as if that might not have been obvious from the half-naked man staring at his own crotch on the cover. It was the final issue from 1999 and that fluctuates in my mind from being two days ago to twenty-seven years ago. It was funny to see, but it was not something I could ever imagine wanting. The Barbie doll behind it was a nice pairing. I wonder if those items came out of the same house in Ansley and whatever happened to the queen who owned them? 

Dennis Christopher from Breaking Away. Photo by Andy Warhol and included in his book Andy Warhol's Exposures.

Perhaps, he is watching Breaking Away and pining after Dennis Christopher, who was rather cute in the seventies and was once an assistant to the legendary Halston before his big acting  break.

Piano rolls. Photo by me, September 2026.

 

Player piano rolls were stacked high on a shelf next to a yearbook from 1979. I was surprised to learn that QRS still manufactures piano rolls. Clarinet Polka must be exciting. Wringle Wrangle by Fess Parker was rather catchy. 

The jukebox from my last visit here when it was playing Don't Make My Brown Eyes Blue was gone. Whatever played in the background from a stereo was from the seventies. Is it not funny that so many across generations love the music and movies of the seventies? I firmly believe that the seventies were the peak of American culture and freedom. You have to wonder why the country was so dissatisfied then with President Carter and made that fateful, impatient step that set up everything today. Are Americans capable of regret and have we lost the clarity of hindsight through the numbing haze of nostalgia?

Photo by me, September 2026

 

Photo by me, September 2026

 

Outside along the road and under that California quality light, the funky and the junky collection was piled. An old Bluebird bus rusted rested under an oak. The bus may have once served to ferry tubers and rafters on their way to the nearby shoals of the wild Broad River. That river is one of the few and last free-flowing rivers in the state. It was during the 1970s, when the country was becoming concerned about the natural environment, that the river was protected the same as how Jimmy Carter helped protect the Chattahoochee River.

Watson Mill covered bridge. Photo by me, September 2026.

A handful of miles away, two and a half if it matters, is the South Fork of the Broad River and surrounding it is Watson Mill State Park. We stopped in as we had last February to walk. It was a masterpiece of an early autumn day and people fished, picnicked, walked and practiced photography. All of us shared what we had in common, the steps of responsible governance made to preserve this scenic landscape the year I was born in 1973. The covered bridge built in 1885 was restored that year and you can still drive across it today.

Photo by me, September 2026.

Photo by me, September 2026.

Photo by me, September 2026.

The bridge is the oldest of Georgia's covered bridges and is the centerpiece of the park that covers over 1,100 aces of protected land across Madison and Oglethorpe counties for the enjoyment of campers, hikers and nature lovers. If America lacks the clarity of hindsight in modern times, at least we had the foresight in the seventies to do right in terms of preservation. Much of what we enjoy today in terms of historical places or nature came from the spirit of the seventies before the wrong step was made on the American roadside.

In the summer of 1979 and two days after Breaking Away was released in movie theaters around the United States, President Jimmy Carter entered the Oval Office and made a sobering speech live to the nation on the night of July 15^th.  He was behind in the election polls to Reagan, former President Ford and Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy. His lead from the previous winter had faded.

Carter spoke for thirty minutes about the path of self indulgence, over consumption and how materialism was undermining the country's confidence. He said his speech was a warning and that the country needed to take the first steps toward true freedom. Carter balled his fist and said, “The people are looking for honest answers, not easy answers.”

My grandfather, a Navy combat veteran and aeronautical worker, age fifty-six that night and one year older than Carter, would have sat on his large plaid sofa in the living room of his Victorian house in the country two houses from mine. He would have leaned forward, sipped coffee and watched his wood cabinet Zenith television in silence. By the time President Carter ended his speech by saying we needed to work together and that we cannot fail, my grandfather would have nodded in agreement.

That same summer, his mother, my great grandmother, would travel the American back roads to Georgia for a rare visit from Decatur County, Tennessee. I was six years old and waiting to start first grade that fall. It was the last childhood summer that I had true freedom before I understood what school meant. It was a time of eating fresh cut watermelon at our picnic table and avoiding being stung by the aggressive yellow jackets. The only memory I have of my great grandmother is of her standing in my front yard and saying how pretty and green our grass was that day under the hot sunshine. 

In 1976 Andy Warhol was hired by The New York Times to photograph then Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn. He flew to Plains in southwest Georgia. Just consider Andy Warhol in Plains for a few moments. It was a different time, it really was. Photo from the book Andy Warhol's Exposures.

Fall came, the light would have been beautiful and I entered school. My great grandmother died that fall and I never saw her again after that day in my front yard, but that was also for the first time ever, I saw something I had not seen before. My father sat at our picnic table in a side yard under a tulip poplar outside my bedroom window, buried his head in his hands and cried. 

The 1970s were over and my grandfather supported President Jimmy Carter until the end. In the next election, the country chose easy answers. Carter misjudged the will and stomach of the American people. No President has been honest since. 

The false myth about Carter spread in the subsequent decades was that he was weak as if being President was a masculinity contest. The truth was that he had the strength and courage to be honest. No sitting President since from either side of the double yellow line has ever dared to do that again.

 

The early fall light in Georgia woods similar to the ones I grew up playing in. Photo by me, September 2026.

If only...