Guy Mendes
from the coffeehouse.   It's hard to imagine the sargent as a child, but one must assume he once was.   As for the coffeehouse,  Lockwood says, "Everyone is entitled to their own view, as long as they keep it across the street and it doesn't affect me.   As soon as they come across the street, they're gonna get stomped. "  That statement was followed by a slow, wheezing laugh, that rolled out of his immense belly.   He was greatly pleased with his wit.
"If these boys want to fight, " he continued,  "there's a place for them. We'll give them something to fight for--their life, mostly. "   (Cue the evil laugh again.)
Lockwood said people were"laugh-ing at it" over at the base.   But Sgt. Ronnie Baize, a Ft. Knox Vietnam vet due to be discharged next month, differed.   "Over at Knox,  everybody is for it. . .well, all the lower people. The higher people have pretty well got it made; the lower people are the ones that get treated like dirt.
As he exited the parking lot in front of Perry's, Baize concluded, "After all, this is a free world. "
But tell that to the Meade County courts.   H. H. Basham , the owner of the coffeehouse building asked the court to evict Youth Development, Inc. , the coffeehouse sponsors, on the grounds that they had not paid the $250 per month rent.
However,  spokesmen for Youth Development said rent had been offered both in person and by certified letter but was refused by Basham after he realized there was a great deal of local opposition to the coffeehouse.
Later, Meade County Attorney J. R. Watts said the operators of the coffee-
house had failed to get required permits from the State Health Department, the City of Muldraugh and Meade County.
Those permits w^f^^jfefused the coffeehouse sponsors on the grounds that the coffeehouse was an illegal and immoral operation.   Illegal because of a large, upside-down American flag painted on the coffeehouse wall (a standard signal of distress in the service). Immoral because neighbors said the coffeehouse people passed out obscene literature to children.    (A copy of FTA with the old four-letter baddies in it--the coffeehouse people say they don't know how one of the local kids picked it up unless they had been inside the coffee house. )
When Judge Bert Allen ruled against the coffeehouse and it became apparent that the coffeehouse people would appeal the decision, the judge placed a $3, 000 traverse bond on the renters of the coffeehouse.   The purpose of this type of bond is to protect the building's owner from possible financial loss due to the lengthy legal proceedings
Traditionally, the bond is set at three times the rent, or in this case, $750.   Within several hours of setting the $3, 000 figure, Judge Allen raised
the bond to $10, 000---which amounts
to a year's rent and a blatant attempt to deny the right of appeal. Before raising the bond, the judge was apparently informed that the coffeehouse people had raised the $3, 000.   By contacting civil liberties groups across the country, the coffeehouse sponsors managed to raise the $10, 000.
The coffeehouse people claim the
U.S. Army has brought its power to bear upon the townspeople and the courts of Meade County.   After all, they reason, fully one-third of Muldraugh's residents are Army connected, and nearly everyone in the county owes something or other to the Army. Mu' draugh and Meade County officials deny the allegation,  of course.
This absurd coffeehouse fiasco and  its irrational hysteria call to mind some recents events in Kentucky: The shady,  pass-the-potatoe handling of the Black Six case, which originated in Louisville and is still to be tried--after nearly two years in the state courts and much to the chagrin of the defendants. . . the constant bungling by the now defunct Kentucky Un-Americac Activities Committee (KUAC), includisj their destruction of the Appalachian Volunteers. . . the heavy-handed manner in which the state's system of justice is trying to protect itself from Daniel T.  Taylor,  Louisville's civil rights lawyer, by attempting to expel him from the Kentucky Bar Association. . . the use of the draft as a weapon against persons who are politically unpopular, like Louisville's Joe Mulloy. . . the control of Eastern Kentucky courts by the industrial giants of the coal industry.
In the town of Muldraugh,  it's just a case of the people wanting what George Wallace talked about in his cam paign--control of one's own community
To Muldraugh's residents and many others across the country, that means having discriminatory power when it comes to passing out constitutional rights.
Octpberr}5, 1969