Our Broadside Sign

 Y'all know what a sentimental ol' fool I can be. We have recently refurbished all four of our porches and repainted the exterior here at our 155-year-old house on the banks of the Oostanaula. This blank wall on one back porch was crying out for some decoration. This five by three foot sign used to hang in front of the building on Maple street where we spent way too many hours once upon a time. It had been stored for decades in a barn a Mike Burton's place till about three years ago. Now it hangs next to our back door.

From very early in 1975 until late spring 1977 we planned and reported and wrote and typeset and laid out and pasted-up and published and delivered and sold ads for and agonized over our weekly newspaper --- often working all night on Wednesdays to get Broadside to the printer on Thursday morning. Financially we lost our shirts but we remain proud of much of the work we did and the stories we told. We started with a slew of partners but in the end it was just Steve & Laurie Craw (still two of our dearest friends) and me & Sheila.

The sign is two sided and sports the original design used as the flag on our the newspaper's front page. The name was an effort to capitalize on the bicentennial celebrations of the era -- the first newspapers in America were call "broadsides".

The stress and financial worries were severe at times, but the decades have made those things fade a bit in my memory. So I'll remember good friends and interesting times from 1975-1977 every time I come in the house - the Craws, Debbie Reece (now Grigsby), Tim Poor, Dick Pierce, Chris Frazier, John Richardson, Candice Tolbert, Tim Shiflett, Marguerite Plank, Steve Myers, Yolanda McGee, Joe Helbing, -- all involved in the newspaper. Then there are the community supporters like Herb McCartney at the phone company, and advertisers like John Schulz, and the big stories - assorted scandals in law enforcement, a prostitution ring, the big tornado of 77, the strange modern Broad Street redevelopment that fell apart before it got going good, lots of politics including a presidential campaign right here in Georgia.

Type "Broadside" into the search box above and you'll find lots of other pictures and bits of info about Broadside.