The universe of Flagpole’s staff, alumni and friends dedicate this issue to celebrating the 85th birthday (Jan. 6) of Special Agent Rollin “Pete” McCommons—our longtime publisher, columnist and editor extraordinaire. Having run the weekly Athens Observer in the 1970s and ‘80s, Pete spent three decades at the helm of Flagpole before easing into semi-retirement in recent years. Yet he remains our spiritual leader, the colorbearer of Athens personified. We asked people close to Pete over the years to share their stories.
It’s difficult to imagine who or where my father would be without his spectacular accent. I’m convinced the silken Southern intonation, bestowed upon him by his mother Lina Belle and daddy Rollin in Greene County, is his lifelong secret to success, the over-the-top sprinkle of je ne sais quoi that ties together his many charms: the talent, the impishness, the generosity of spirit, the savvy instincts, a not-insignificant streak of eccentricity and that soulful, green-eyed visage. You just don’t hear many accents like his, these days—vowels as voluptuous as can be, with a stately undercurrent of genial wisdom, teetering delightfully close to self-parody without going over the edge… mostly. His signature drawl can make the simplest statements sound like prophecy.
Once, in New York, I witnessed a trio of determined ladies attempt to shove past him to seize the cab he had just hailed. “Excuse me, but this is owa taxi,” he informed them calmly (and, by New York standards, slowly.) One of the women snapped suddenly from her pushy fugue, peered up at him and exclaimed, “Are you from ENGLAND?!” My friend Camille will still regale me with her impression of Pete trying to cajole me into finishing my vegetables at dinner when we were kids. “Molleh! Eat yuwh peas!”
Sure, he may polish his columns, but the edited material isn’t too different from his unalloyed speech, which flows readily from some personal inner wellspring with an inexhaustible supply of bordering-on-archaic turns of phrase, fractals of Casablanca and Faulkner and ‘30s screwballs and vacation Bible school and bygone comic strips. I’ve never forgotten what he said when I asked for permission to go to a park with some friends when I was in the ninth grade: “I don’t know,” he mused skeptically. “Might be dangerous. What if a gang of toughs comes out of the woods?” A gang of what? I pictured Guys and Dolls characters snapping fingers and soft-shoeing out from behind the trees.
When I was around 12, he began indulging my musical obsessions by escorting me to rock shows at the 40 Watt Club or, once or twice, the Masquerade in Atlanta, installing himself a discreet distance away from me in the back of the club like the Secret Service while I watched the band. I have so many memories of looking back and seeing him standing patiently by the back wall of the 40 Watt, alone, earplugs in. Another core memory has me pretty young and driving around with him while he sold classified ads for Auto Trader magazine. I loved tooling around together while he went from one sales call to the next, and I washed down Smartfood popcorn with Yoo-Hoo. Hopefully, the presence of a child in the car helped him sell those classifieds. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about during the drives, but I do remember a deep feeling of contentment while we motored and chatted. This was our little echo of his sessions feasting on sardines and Coca-Cola one-on-one in the family store with his own father, as enshrined in my favorite Pub Notes column. Decades later, Pete remains the best company for the journey. Happy 85th, and cheers to the wellspring.
Molly McCommons
The values that Pete projects through his writing in Flagpole are real.
Not only that, but he’s a lot of fun.
To the man of my dreams made real: Happy 85, sweetheart.
Gay McCommons
Here’s wishing a happy and healthy birthday to Pete McCommons and hoping for a grand new adventure as he heads into his 85th orbit around the sun.
If memory serves me well—often it does not—we met in 1971 through a circle of friends that included University of Georgia students (like me), UGA faculty (Pete was among those), community progressives and more, all of whom were politically active in protesting the Vietnam War and UGA policies, and who worked to help organize local unions and to help in selecting delegates to the Democratic party. The group published a regular newsletter using an old mimeograph machine.
In 1973, our friend, Chuck Searcy, a Vietnam veteran who had recently graduated from UGA, began talking about starting up a publication in Athens to compete with the Athens Daily News and Banner-Herald and to provide coverage of issues the dailies would not address. Chuck convinced Pete to join him in the endeavor, and with the help of countless volunteers—including yours truly—The Athens Observer weekly newspaper was born. Its first publication came on Jan. 3, 1974. It became an award-winning model of journalism excellence among the state’s weekly newspapers, thanks to the many wonderful people who we worked with over the years.
That experience provided one of the most enriching, educating and fulfilling experiences of my life. It defined my career. The work we did, the friendships and relationships we made and the memories we shared are priceless. My thanks go out to Pete and to Chuck for inviting me and the late Chatham Murray into the partnership of The Athens Observer and for their generosity of friendship throughout the years.
Pete, of course, went on to become publisher of the Flagpole and quite an accomplished writer. His memory for detail of people and places combined with his keen observation skills and sharp wordsmithing make him among the best.
Thanks, Pete, and, again, have a wonderful birthday.
Don Nelson
I became business partners with Pete in the mid ‘90s. He and I took over the management of Flagpole, and have been treading water together ever since. Who knew how much fun it would be to be partners with someone the same age as my mother? But Pete never treated me like a kid. He always made me feel like an equal partner in the chaos that is Flagpole.
I learned a lot from Pete over the 30 years that we have worked together. He showed me how you can disagree with someone, call them out in print, and then have lunch with them the next week. He is one of the most forgiving people I have ever met, and he taught many lessons through example: like when not to use “reply all”!
Pete goes above and beyond in everything he does—like the time he dressed in drag in order to attend my bachelorette party (don’t quit your day job, Pete!) or when he went “undercover” to interview sex workers at Fantasy World.
One of the most important lessons I learned from Pete is that age is just a number, and I am looking forward to many more lunch meetings and birthday celebrations!
Happy birthday, Pete!
Alicia Nickles
Pete has been my good friend for about 81 years. He was always trying to get me in shape for football since I worked in a drug store and consumed too much ice cream.
He invited me over to his home to work out using the Army Daily Dozen exercises. After we had done four or five, he wanted me to do one for balance. You put one hand on the porch floor and turn around six or more times with your eyes closed. After I stopped turning, I lost my balance and fell toward the window and hit my head on the corner of the window frame. It knocked a hole in my skull. As I lay on the porch, Pete came to my rescue and said, “It’s not that bad, Sonny, but let me get my mother.”
His mom came and called Dr. Killiam, who lived only four or five houses from Pete. He patched me up on the porch and wrapped my head with gauze like a mummy. I never exercised with Rollin (Pete) McCommons again!
Best friend you could ever have!
Gartrell “Sonny” Thurmond Jr.
When I worked at Flagpole as its editor back in the late ‘90s, I did a lot of, well, editing: working with young or inexperienced writers, monkeying with their copy, asking for rewrites and using up my virtual red pencil. I was young and inexperienced myself, and the results were sometimes about what you’d expect—which is to say, modest to heaping shitshows, often of my own making. You console yourself in a situation like that by reminding everybody it’s a goddamned free newspaper. You got complaints? Set up a tip jar.
I never “edited” Pete. He would just show up with his pristine Pub Notes column right before deadline, and I would send it up, untouched, to Larry and Cindy in layout. Then I would feel a moment of smug unearned pride about what a good editor I was.
But here’s the thing: I don’t recall ever having seen Pete actually write the columns. Newspaper people can be performative writers in newsrooms, with lots of loud clacking on keyboards and shouting into the phone, arguing with sources, talking over nut grafs and ledes over cubicles and water coolers.
I would talk to Pete about all sorts of things when we worked together, and I cherished those conversations. He is a hero of mine, you know: erudite, polite, witty, generous, mischievous, with an unerring moral compass and a bottomless trove of anecdotes and stories from decades of bearing witness to the foibles of one of America’s most curious and wonderful college towns. But I never really talked to Pete about what he was writing about that week. The articles just sort of appeared, as if by magic. You couldn’t see the effort behind the work. I’ve seen this in certain great basketball players. They don’t seem to be over-exerting themselves. Then suddenly you hear the buzzer and they’ve put up 35 with 12 assists.
Not infrequently, I would pop into Pete’s office in the afternoon, and he would be knocked out snoring in his chair. I interpreted this as a flex, because the column would never not appear, and it was always good. Sometimes it was great. Some weeks, I thought he was the best newspaper columnist in the country.
Of course, there was no magic to this process. Good writing is nothing but clear thinking, and clear thinking makes no noise. We are lucky that Pete has shared so much of himself with us for so many years. I wish I was there to make a big hubbub and a joyful noise on his 85th birthday. Here’s to many more.
Richard Fausset
In 1986 my mother was dying, terminal cancer, and I and my three siblings decided we would begin staying with her, each for three months, for the next year in the family home in South Georgia. I was at that time a reporter for the Athens Observer newspaper, where Pete was publisher and an owner, and when my turn came that spring and I told him I had to leave for three months, I was not sure I would have a job when I returned to Athens. But the Observer gave me a kind of sabbatical with partial pay so I could fulfill my family promise.
My mother died that April, and one of those in attendance at her funeral was Pete, who made the long drive from Athens—around nine hours round trip—to pay his respects.
That’s a kind of kindness you don’t forget. In the years since I have also come to appreciate that kindness is one of Pete’s essential characteristics, an important part of what makes him the great person he is—along with his humor, his acute observations of our human condition and other traits we might mention.
Lee Shearer
Chuck Searcy introduced Pete McCommons at a reception given by Denny Galis (then the Athens city attorney) and his law partner John Timmons in 1982. They were celebrating new law offices in the Victorian house that is now home to Flagpole. I didn’t meet her that night, but I noticed an excited Teresa Cullen and overheard her tell then-husband John, “I got her on tape saying it. Telling us.” Teresa had secretly recorded UGA Dean of Students Virginia Trotter telling remedial teachers of football players to pass them no matter what. Hugh Henry later used the tape to win Jan Kemp’s millions and bring down President Fred Davison and Dean Trotter. (Nothing happened to Vince Dooley.) So Pete and I have both been mired in Athens history ever since.
Anyway, afterwards Pete and Chuck came back with John O’Looney and me to see our new house. Somehow the evening ended with them suggesting that I run for city council. I thought they were crazy. I had lived in Athens less than two years, partnered with John to buy our dilapidated home and was tackling a new job. So the first time I met Pete McCommons, he was trouble. “Good trouble,” as John Lewis used to say.
Until the Georgia legislature changed the law, classifieds alternated annually between all local papers that fit a certain category that, until then, the Observer fit. The Observer was one of the best newspapers in Georgia, but it could not compete without the classified income. Chuck went off, and Pete took over Flagpole from Dennis Greenia.
Pete McCommons has always been the best arbiter of every person, issue, story or thought he has ever shared. Pete’s publishings and conversations are wise. Pete is my hero.
Pete has been my partner in loving Athens. Our 43 years of friendship have evolved intertwined with Athens history. Pete was the reporter of politics, and his take on things always made a lot of sense to me. His slant on anything is appreciated for the wisdom, humor or shared pathos. My thanks to Pete for helping me define my thoughts and reactions so many times.
Pete’s presence is peaceful. Pete is special! Pete’s home is a nest of two great minds—his and Gay’s. Nothing like a kitchen visit when Molly is home. Thank you all for letting John and I be a part of your Athens.
Happy 85th and many more!
Gwen O’Looney
Pete and Gay became my close friends during our years together at Chase Street (now Johnnie Lay Burks) Elementary School back in the late ‘80s, at the same time that our children were forming their own permanent bond. Through years of St. Simons beach trips, Sunday night “X-Files,” Town & Gown performances and those amazing cake auctions at Chase Street, from quiet summer evenings in our gardens to the long months of losing our dear friend Joe Causey, we have, I now understand, grown old together. And now Pete is celebrating another year of his well-lived life, so it’s time for some stories!
If everybody had a friend like Pete, the world would be a happier place. Pete will do for you what no one else will do. He will attend a meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission with you in support of your protest about a church parking lot that, if approved, will empty directly in front of your driveway. He will get up at 1:30 a.m. to drive you or someone in your family to the Groome office to set out on whatever journey they’ve felt called to undertake. He will come to your garden before the Piedmont Garden Tour crowds arrive and carefully, by hand, remove the spent and fallen cherry blossoms from the hostas below the tree. He will even travel north through the freezing January night on the Amtrak Crescent with your 10-year-old son to attend the inauguration of Bill Clinton, the first Democratic president elected since Jimmy Carter. Pete is the OG stand-up guy, and his friendship is a priceless gift. Happy birthday, Pete!
Dera Weaver
I first met Pete around the time that my friend Jesslyn Shields suggested that Flagpole would be interested in publishing my journals from river trips under the auspices of the Georgia River Survey. She was right: Pete ate it up! Even better, after I eventually found full-time employment at Flagpole, he was generous with schedule flexibility when the opportunity arose for more river time, in exchange for more river stories in the paper. It was a nice counterbalance to all those nights spent in meetings at City Hall.
I have a lot of great memories of my time at Flagpole and working with Pete. Here’s one:
“He may be a wingnut, but he’s our wingnut!” I can still hear Pete’s voice proclaiming this piece of political wisdom, a nugget of knowledge reflecting a perspective on politics that could only be his. The time would have been some time in the very late aughts, and the subject of the proclamation—unless memory fails, which it might—must have been Representative Paul Broun Jr.
At this point in time, we in Athens had been coping with the reality of Paul Broun Jr.’s somewhat wacky, very right-wing political identity as our representation in the U.S. Congress for a few years. The alternative, whoever it was that particular cycle, somehow appeared even worse to us. (And anyway, they weren’t from Athens.) Thus we reluctantly endorsed Broun. As hard as it was to stomach all those realities, I can see now that Pete was ahead of many of us in processing what it all meant and how we should respond.
And as much as Pete delivered the line for laughs—which he did, in his mellifluous accent, heavily emphasizing the “our,” infused with a manic comic energy—he also meant it. Dead serious. It was the best we could do as Athenians in the situation at the time, and it was the best we could do as a paper in making our endorsement.
Our freak-out at Paul Broun Jr.’s emergence on the political scene seems quaint now. Hindsight is 20/20, and I can quite clearly see the Broun thing as a precursor to the worse-than-wacky, farther-right-wing politics that have since hijacked the nation. If any lefty-liberal journalists in the country could have seen things coming, maybe it was us. At least I’m left with Pete’s memorable line, and a perhaps greater appreciation of its wisdom. Plus, it still makes me laugh.
Happy birthday, Pete!
Ben Emanuel
I met Pete (like Cher, no last name needed) 50 years ago when The Athens Observer arrived on the scene. Our friendship grew after I was hired as an inserter at the paper; we bonded over discussions of Southern authors. But, our lasting bond began in 1982 when Pete and Gay entrusted me with the care of their daughter Molly; they became family. Years later he became my astute editor at Flagpole.
On Nov. 9, 1994, the Whirling Dervishes performed their ceremony of “the turn” at the World Congress Center in Atlanta. Coleman Barks had written an article, “Dance of a Lifetime,” announcing it for Flagpole. I was visiting Gay and Molly when Pete came home, waved the paper over his head and proclaimed, “Whirling Dervishes, only 60 miles away and only $15 per ticket for one of the world’s most profound rituals. What should we wear? To a ritual? A profound one?”
Pete and Gay, never ones to miss giving Molly (then 11) a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, bought tickets and invited me along. Indeed, it was a transplendent evening that included readings by Coleman and Robert Bly. Molly, ever the good sport, allowed us to dwell in our profundity. In return we agreed to go to the restaurant of her choice on our way home. And that is how, with visions of dervishes whirling in our heads, we came to land at The Varsity in downtown Atlanta. I have had many experiences involving disparate worlds with Pete, but this proved to be an all-out mind-warping one.
We sat stunned, looking at tables of customers in their sweatpants, slurping frosted oranges and devouring piles of onion rings and fries and heavy-laden burgers and hot dogs. Pete, sensing that if our silence was to be broken it must be by him, said, “I don’t think we should wait on the dervishes to order, What’ll ya’ll have?”
Happy birthday Rollin Merritt McCommons. What’ll ya have? I will do my best to deliver, naked, glorified or all the way, sideways.
Judy Long
Pete has been one of my closest friends for over 65 years, dating back to our days when we both were students at UGA. In happy times and sad times, I always could count on Pete to share those experiences with me and to be a part of my life. I’m honored to call him my friend. Happy birthday, Pete.
When I was a wise sophomore and Pete was a naïve freshman, a few of us in the fraternity introduced him to the game of poker, but obviously had failed to tell him about maintaining a poker face. After explaining the poker hand rankings, from the lowest (high card) to the highest (royal flush), we dealt the cards and prepared to place our bets. Pete, after looking at his cards and looking at the rankings, got very excited and shouted, “WHAT’S THE MOST I CAN BET?” We all folded without playing the hand.
Many years later Hattie, my beloved 1969 Chevy pickup truck, was stolen. Friends and family had been searching for her for almost a year without success, and I was losing all hope of ever seeing her again. Pete, however, never gave up, and when he noticed a “For Sale” internet listing for a truck that resembled my truck, he immediately called to see if that may be it. Knowing every inch of the truck, I confirmed in just a few seconds that it was Hattie. Thanks to Pete, she’s back home where she belongs.
Without Pete’s diligence, it would not have happened.
Chris Foster
I can’t find the photo I took of Pete with Hairy Dawg, so you’ll just have to imagine it. He (Pete, not Hairy) and I had walked out of the Georgia Center after recording WUGA’s “Athens News Matters” 13 or 14 years ago, when I still worked with Pete as Flagpole’s city editor, and were heading to our cars in the narrow lot across the street when we encountered the beloved mascot… headless. What I mean is, the cheer squad kid in the costume had taken off the giant head to get into his own car, and when he saw us see him, he raised a finger to his lips to say silently, “Shhhh!”—we were seeing something secret! Pete, of course, quickly asked for a photo and the kid, realizing he had no choice, replaced the head and wrapped a faux-furry arm around him.
So when you think of Pete turning 85, think of him as I often do: smiling with absurd delight beside an impressively ripped anthropomorphic bulldog, each of them giving a jaunty “thumbs-up,” and remember that Pete McCommons knows everybody.
Dave Marr
In 2017, during the filming of Athens in Our Lifetimes—the 90-minute documentary in which 90 Athenians reflected on how and why, over all or part of the past 60 years, they became Athenians and what Athens meant to them—we enlisted Pete to provide perspective and context.
He had as much knowledge of Athens from personal experience over many decades as anyone we knew. He gladly complied, and his contributions were priceless. But when we showed him some of the first rough takes of the film, he thought for a good while, then asked, “Is there any way you can make me talk a little faster?”
Our editor, Matt DeGennaro, diligently tried, but every change in speed made Pete’s voice sound like a chipmunk. Matt found the perfect solution by eliminating most of the moments of reflection Pete took between each spoken word. Not only did it give Pete a faster delivery, we shortened the film by about 15 minutes!
Thank you, Pete, for being Athens’ guiding light for so many years.
Kathy Prescott and Grady Thrasher
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