MAURY COUNTY NATIVES AND FORMER RESIDENTS INTERRED ELSEWHERE.

GORDON, Albert Roth, b. July 4th 1944, Columbia Tn - died  of cancer September 20, 2015 Isle au Haut, Maine.
 
His Life story

Albert was born in Columbia, Tenn., on the 4th of July, 1944, to Dave Gordon and Helen Rose Roth. Helen died when Albert was 4 months old, and Dave was remarried to Rose Allen in 1955.

Albert graduated from Andover class of �62, Yale class of �66, and Harvard Law School class of �69. But during his law school years, he realized that he was not cut out for the comfortable upper-middle class life for which he had been prepared. He broke from his father�s purse strings and supported himself through the end of law school by going into business as a light show artist. He did psychedelic light shows at the Boston Tea Party and other venues around Boston and New England for the big rock, soul and blues acts of the era: Janis Joplin, Sam and Dave, B.B. King, the Byrds, the Velvet Underground, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Cream, the Grateful Dead and many more. His participation in the anti-war movement, his adoption of the emerging values of the hippie culture, and his profound experiences with psychedelic drugs impelled him to seize a radical freedom to determine the course of his own life, free of the expectations of his family and his past.

After graduating law school, Albert never looked back. He gave away all his possessions and took off hitchhiking with his backpack and his dog, moving around the country as the spirit and circumstances moved him. This nomadic existence lasted for about three years; for the first year he refused to touch money. He worked for a living, but would only accept payment in food or shelter. He also spent about a year without speaking, reflecting a distrust of words stemming from learning how to manipulate the truth in law school.

The hitchhiking odyssey wound down when Albert and some friends co-founded a hippie commune called Skyfields in northern Virginia. The commune broke apart in the mid seventies, and in 1975 Albert washed up as an itinerant hippie on Isle au Haut. He made many new friends on the island, playing music, doing carpentry, and fishing for lobsters. He built an addition onto the house of islanders Billy and Bernie Barter, and while working for them, he learned of a man with a lot of land and a dilapidated house. He proposed a swap of his labor renovating the house for a piece of wild land on the east side of the island. That land, where he built his own house, became his home for the rest of his life.

Albert earned his living building houses and boats on Isle au Haut. He had a lobster license and fished every summer, first out of a canoe and then from an outboard. He was the secretary of the Isle au Haut Lobstermen�s Association for many years. He helped to found the Isle au Haut Community Development Corporation and in the early �90s designed and built the first three of their affordable year-round rental houses. As the chair the Isle au Haut Planning Board, he was passionate about conserving Long Pond, Isle au Haut�s pristine lake. A fine guitarist and singer, he played in local bands and enjoyed countless musical evenings with friends. His encyclopedic knowledge of old rock and roll always kept the music rolling. His sense of humor was legendary.

Albert loved his work and was unendingly generous with his time, his tools, and his friendship. His partner, Kathie Fiveash, an old friend since law school days, joined him on Isle au Haut in 1999 where she taught Music and Ecology at the Isle au Haut School for eight winters. For the last eight years of Albert�s life, they spent their winters in Northampton, Mass., and he became a beloved grandparent to two grandsons and a devoted member of a large extended family. As he said on November 2, 2014, to the doctor in the Emergency Room who informed him of his cancer diagnosis, "Well, I�ve had a good run, seventy good years."

Albert is survived by his partner Kathie, his sister Gail Gilbert, his stepbrother Phillip Allen, his nieces Julie Cohen, Betsy Anderson, and Catherine Allen, his nephews Michael Gilbert, Michael Gordon, and Jamie Allen, and scores of others who loved him.

I'm (Jim Dedman)  passing this along because it is part of Maury County history. While Gordon's dress shop is gone, the logo remains on the sidewalk in front of the store on West Seventh Street (across from the old Wooldridge Building).

Al Gordon was one of my longest friends. We reconnected about thirteen years ago when I discovered him living on the Isle Au Haute in Maine. We corresponded via email and phone up until the week he died. The Gordons are long gone from Columbia, but many remember the Dress Shop on the corner.
Al left Columbia Central High School aong with Bob Klahn in 1960 to attend Andover and prep for the Ivy League.

As compiled by Jim Dedman, Columbia, SC