Cabbagetown and the Coco Cola House
“Cabbagetown and the Coke House Painting” is part of Ask & Give—stories of asking for what we need and giving what we have. The road is a place where—given the thinness of margins, both between you and me and between “all good” and “oh snap”—people, often strangers, show up for each other. The road is, of course, both metaphorical and real. It’s a feature of nomad living and brick-and-mortar dwelling alike. It’s yours, and it’s mine. And I’m honored to feature stories from your (aka fab readers’ and writers’) roads as part of the collection.
The author of today’s story knows well the tradition of generosity on the road. She’s been living on it for more than a decade. Even cooler, part of that time, her road was made of water. And this isn’t the first time she’s been on the Rolling Desk. Last time, she was a “character” in an Ask & Give piece—“No Room in the Forest”—helping out a stranger (me).
While is new to Substack, she’s not new to writing about the adventures she and her husband, Greg, have been having since 2011 when, in the course of three months, they “bought a sailboat, sold all of our stuff, quit our jobs, rented our house, and sailed to the Bahamas” (“Welcome”). They’ve been nomads ever since. And she’s been sharing gorgeous photos, stories that open readers’ hearts and minds to their own possibilities, and regular expense accounts that’ll help you get an idea of what it takes to keep two on the road all around the United States, through Canada and Mexico, on open seas, and now into South America under their handle and blog site—and now Substack (woot, woot) Make Like An Apeman, When we met, they were rolling in a van called Ballena Blanca. They’ve downsized to backpacks (“Buenos Vientos, Ballena Blanca”). Currently, Duwan’s posting from Colombia, and her photo game, which I fell in love with via her birding shots, is keeping up with the sights there (“One week in Cartagena de Indias”).
Here’s Duwan.
Cabbagetown and the Coco Cola House
How it ended
The incline was steep, very steep. A few of us craned our necks upward and contemplated the acute problem before us.
“Oh yeah. That looks … scary.”
“Who’s going to climb up there and paint that?”
There were no volunteers.
Maybe the project would be OK mostly done?
You see, most of these old shotgun mill houses had additions on the back. The problem was the additions had to be staggered from the original steep roofline, leaving the trim of the original roof and a small portion of the original back of the house isolated and hard to reach.
We went through our mental list of people in the neighborhood who’d have not only the skill but also the balls to take on this project. Finally, someone suggested “the Rev.” The Rev, a self-proclaimed cult leader at 1st Church of Art Cabbagetown and a legally ordained minister, was strong, lean, and had a wicked-long reach. Greg had once seen him wave a slab of 4×8 plywood over his head like it was a piece of paper.
I didn’t have the Rev’s contact info, but I did have the email for Peter, one of the guys in his Monday night man-cave gang, the Barn Raisers. “I have a special project for you guys. Do you think you can help us out?” I asked Peter.
Sure. The Barn Raisers will be there, Peter told me. But he wasn’t sure about the Rev.
No! This was the person we needed.
Project day came. An anxious hour passed before the Barn Raisers started to casually appear, one by one. Then finally, the Rev came striding around the corner, meandering through the crowd making smart-ass remarks and cracking jokes. I jumped up. He showed!
Two of the Barn Raisers were already looking at the precipitous situation when, before anyone knew it, without any questions or hesitations, the Rev had scaled the slope, slayed our quandary, conquered our dilemma, and was asking for paint. Yes! Our Cabbagetown neighbor and friend, Bertha, would get her home’s crowning touch of blue on her very steep peak, and our volunteer project to paint her house would finally be fulfilled.
How it started
But how, perhaps you wonder, did we get to such drama? Well, it started on the high seas—no, no, let’s stop exaggerating, on the low seas—of Key Biscayne in Miami, Florida, in March 2015. Greg and I were on our sailboat, Blue Wing, contemplating our return to Cabbagetown, our dearly beloved neighborhood in Atlanta, where we spent hurricane season in the summer doing house and pet sitting and where Greg had a house-painting business with his partner, Paul. I had just been looking at Facebook when I saw a picture of Bertha. We knew she’d been wanting to have her house painted for a while, but we were also aware she couldn’t afford it. I knew we couldn’t paint the whole house for free; but, I ventured, we could help her with a little touch-up on the worst paint-peeling spots when we returned to Cabbagetown in a few months. That sounded good to Greg. A small project.
That Sunday, during a discussion of the jobs Paul had lined up for the summer, Greg discovered that Paul, too, had Bertha’s house on the brain. She’d asked for a quote. But of course, the price was way out of her range. Paul was thinking the whole house could be painted with a volunteer effort. A much bigger project.
Cabbagetown
Before I go on, I need to tell you a little about Cabbagetown. It’s an old mill village in Georgia about a mile and a half from downtown Atlanta. Of course, now it has been almost fully gentrified. And the old mill the village supported has been turned into lofts. Cabbagetown was originally populated by people from Appalachia and other rural areas of Georgia who came there to work. It was the kind of neighborhood where everyone knew everyone else, a front-porch community. The mill closed in the 1970s, and as drugs and crime moved in, neighbors moved out. Artists, musicians, those looking for cheap property, the slow creep of gentrification moved in. Still, somehow, Cabbagetown managed to retain a lot of its front-porch charm, where everyone knew everyone else.
A little about Bertha
Bertha has lived in Cabbagetown for a long time, long before it was sane for any African American to do so. Cabbagetown was a very white neighborhood (and still is). But back then, it could be rough and was known as a place where black people shouldn’t go. I don’t know what brought Bertha to the neighborhood. But from what she told me, it sounded like she was accepted and protected by her neighbors from any threats against her. She taught martial arts back then but, at some point, developed back problems that I believe kept her from being able to work.
Bertha’s house is a little shotgun shack. Bertha is a collector. And inside, the rooms are cluttered with mementos. The outside is painted in the primary colors, red, yellow, and blue, and decorated with Coca Cola memorabilia. The first time I saw Bertha’s house I thought it might be a business, as a sign with business hours hangs over the front porch.
On to the project
Once we returned to Cabbagetown in May, I stepped up to lead the Let’s Paint Bertha’s House project. I felt a little hesitant at first. How would people perceive this effort? I mean, lots of people in the neighborhood could use a coat or two of paint on their old millboards. Would anyone volunteer? Would there be money for supplies? Would all my friends hate me for not painting their houses?
I wrote a project plan with volunteer dates, things we needed to buy, things we needed to borrow, and people whose expertise we could tap into. I talked to Bertha about offering services and premiums in order to solicit donations for supplies and paint. Then I presented it all on the social media network Nextdoor. “You may not know Bertha,” I said in my post, “but you probably know her yellow Coca Cola house on Berean.”
Immediately, volunteers started signing up for workdays and donating money. The Cabbagetown Initiative, a neighborhood nonprofit, stepped forward to pay for all of the lumber to replace her rotten wood and provide us access to the Atlanta Tool Bank. Milltown Arms, a local tavern, offered a keg for the volunteer days. For the workers’ lunches, another Cabbagetown business owner would provide hot dogs, hamburgers, and veggie burgers, which Bertha would cook on her grill. A donation came in from Panama. I posted on other social networks, Facebook and the Cabbagetown Yahoo group. People gave supplies. People donated food and drinks for our workdays. The owner of Bicycle Tours of Atlanta, who often stopped by Bertha’s distinctive-looking mill house on her tours, purchased $150 worth of paint for the project. Monetary donations kept flowing in. And tons of people showed up at Bertha’s each time I made a post about a new volunteer day—many who didn’t even know Bertha—ready to scrape, prime, caulk, paint, and infuse new life into an historic old Cabbagetown house and home to one of our longtime neighbors. Even the Gladys Kravitz of the neighborhood donated money and supplies.
In the course of things, we found out Bertha had a termite problem. My friend who lived up the street was having her house treated for termites and told her termite guy about Bertha’s. He came over to see what we were doing and was impressed. He offered to treat Bertha’s house for a discount.
The entire project was completed over three weeks, with five volunteer paint days (two 3-hour days and three 6-hour days), a volunteer prep day to move Bertha’s gigantic Coca Cola cooler off her porch, and extra time put in by Paul and Greg to pressure wash the house and wrap up loose ends. Over 70 people contributed to the project either by donating money, volunteering to work, donating supplies, and/or donating food and drink for work days. And nearly $1,000 was raised and spent on paint and other materials. The project was an amazing success.
Click here for more photos.
Why this story?
I have lots of stories I thought about writing for Holly’s Ask and Give series. But this one stood out in my mind because it was not just about what I gave; it included what so many people gave. Bertha has given the neighborhood the joy of her lovely and distinctive house. And so many people gave her not only their labor and money but also their love.
Want more from Make Like an Apeman, aka Duwan?
Of course you do! Click on the photo.
Do you have a story for the Ask & Give column?
Want to write about a time when someone, perhaps a total stranger, had your back or when you helped out someone in need? Hit me up here or by DM if you’d enjoy having your work included in the collection. (Not yet published pieces may be given priority.)
Be inspired by a few past favs. In “Repaying a Karmic Debt,” finds a kindness come full circle. glimpses, “In the Eye of Disaster, the Future.” And Broke and Thawing Near Las Vegas” reveals how a stranded 17-year-old (yours truly) found her way home, with some needed sustenance and a little DIY help.
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Thanks Donna. It was really amazing how it all came together.
What a great story, Duwan! Anyone who paints with those colors--I'm a fan! Seems like that story, if you buy paint, they will come! Thanks Holly for introducing us to Duwan.