Georgia RV park offers a roost for free spirits
MARIETTA, Ga. -- In the Allman Brothers classic hit "Ramblin' Man," Dickey Betts sang about being born in the back of a Greyhound bus rolling down Highway 41. On our rambling road to the Super Bowl XLI, I'm in the back of a 31-foot Fleetwood RV parked at the vintage Brookwood RV Resort Park off U.S. 41 in Marietta, about 15 miles north of Atlanta.
The Allman Brothers released "Ramblin' Man" in 1973, about the time construction on Interstate 75 was completed. The sleek new interstate bypassed old U.S. 41 and places like what was then called Brookwood Mobile Home Resort Park. U.S. 41 used to connect South Florida to Michigan like a Rex Grossman bomb to Bernard Berrian.
The Brookwood was founded in 1958 by Leo J. Sullivan and is now owned by his son Bull Sullivan. Bull's 28-year-old son Brendan is part- time assistant manager. He just obtained a graduate degree in physics from Georgia State University.
Brookwood employee Susan Allcock was washing a neighboring RV as we rolled in blaring our best Otis Redding.
During Super Bowl two years ago, Allcock was a limousine chauffeur for dignitaries visiting the host city, Jacksonville, Fla. "Hugh Hefner was with a group of men coming in from New York," she said. "They were staying at the [New England] Patriots' hotel. I can't tell you any more."
Allcock, 37, drove a 2005 Cadillac Seville "six-pack" limo in Jacksonville, six hours south of Marietta. Allcock also has a commercial driver's license and can haul 18-wheelers. And RVs. She also used to be a school bus driver.
"I'm a free spirit," she said. "I love being on the road and seeing different things.
Allcock grew up as a Bears fan near Murphysboro in southern Illinois. Her eldest son, Nicholas, has been accepted to study fine arts at Northern Illinois in DeKalb.
The Brookwood park is in a hilly grove of dense pine trees and shrubs. The park is home to squirrels, two owls and one hawk. There are no bears.
Marietta -- which I like to call "Jay" Marietta -- is 40 miles away from Suwanee, Ga. (population 10,000), where the Bears trained for Super Bowl XX. The campground is popular with football fans, notably Atlanta Falcons fans and visitors to the Peach Bowl at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. Sullivan guessed that RV snowbirds from the North made a beeline to Florida. He looked at his roster of "Wheel People" on Tuesday night and could not find anyone else from Chicago or Indianapolis.
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