The Star-Crossed Life and Times of Michael “Max” Nofziger:  Part 3

                    In early 1974, Max Nofziger was ready to move to Austin, Texas and to make it his new permanent home.  He had worked in Ohio since the previous July at two different factories simultaneously and had saved up a few hundred dollars.  It may be hard to believe, but a few hundred dollars was a decent stash of cash in 1974, potentially enough to support a resourceful person for a few months, especially when that person’s material needs were easily satisfied.  Since Max had no aspirations to accumulate possessions, he was set to go.

           On his way to Austin, he stopped for a long visit with friends in Denver.  Shelley, Max’s girlfriend at the time, joined him in the mountains, and they soon procured a U-Drive-It car for the trip to Texas.  For those unfamiliar with the U-Drive-It concept:  Automobile owners sometimes need cars moved across country.  In the 70s, a young person with a good driving record could occasionally find cheap transportation by driving someone else’s vehicle.  Companies like U-Drive-It brokered these deals.  Max was given a Cadillac to transport from Denver to Houston and was expected to pay for the fuel.

           In those days, big honking Cadillac’s were unparalleled gas guzzlers. The trip to Houston quickly depleted Max’s cash.  When he and Shelley stopped off in Austin to find an apartment and unload their belongings, they filled the gas tank one last time and were left with only $100 cash.  They found a great apartment at Oltorf and South First Street, but the rent was $120 per month.  Not to worry.  An amiable UT student whose name Max can’t recall helped out the couple by fronting them $20.  Max and Shelley became the first-ever tenants in their upstairs unit at the spanking new complex.  To their good fortune, they had an excellent view of Gillis Park and a two-burner hot plate that they pawned for $5 in “walking-around money.”  They had a home and some cash . . . they were Austinites at last.

            Now that Max had arrived at his new South Austin homeland, it was time to settle in and find a J-O-B.  Although Max was a college graduate with some impressive job skills, he had yet to find his true vocation. He worked for a few days in a furniture factory and another couple of days on MoPac highway construction.

Flower Power

           Max’s girlfriend Shelley immediately found work with the ubiquitous purveyors of floral bouquets known as the Flower People.  She was meeting lots of intriguing people and thoroughly enjoying her new employment situation.  One day when Max was between jobs, he rode his bike out to help Shelley sell flowers on Burnet Road.  Oh boy.  Destiny, yet again?

           Being in his twenties back when modern-day feminism was fairly new, Max possessed his share of the common male machismo.  He felt ridiculous waving flowers before the eyes of passers-by and urging them to pull over to purchase a bouquet. Having been raised on an Ohio farm, Max was somewhat shy, and he wondered if his masculine ego was up to the task.  But he gave blossom-peddling a good Mid-Westerner try, and, once he got into it, he started having fun.  People actually stopped and bought flowers.  Far out!

           Next thing Max knew, he was hawking flowers every day at the corner of Oltorf and South Congress.  He’d found his calling for the next eight years and soon regularly outsold his fellow flower vendors.  Apparently, he had a real knack for the gig.  Who woulda thunk it?

           Max’s detractors (Yes, he has them — go figure) have gone so far lately as to ridicule his days as a flower vendor, implying that Max had no choice but to sell flowers because it was the only job he could get.

           “Typical conformists, lacking in imagination,” is Max’s opinion.  Addressing the criticism straight on, he contends that flower-vending was his profession of choice — a dream job, really.  He calls attention to the context of the times.  It was the 1970s.  Young Americans everywhere were rejecting traditional career paths and opting for jobs that they actually liked — a progressive and increasingly popular trend that paved the way for career counselors today who advise folks to find jobs they enjoy.  It’s excellent for one’s health, they say, mentally, physically, even spiritually.

Right Livelihood

           Max chose flower-vending for numerous reasons.  Perhaps first and foremost, he was born and bred a country boy.  Selling flowers kept him outdoors all day.  What could have been better than that?  His vocation harmed no one.  In fact, Max considered selling flowers a public service.  He was spreading symbols of beauty and cheer on the streets amidst the concrete and steel.  His work hours were ideal, leaving him ample time to pump his earnings back into the local economy by frequenting the Armadillo, Soap Creek Saloon, Liberty Lunch, and other music venues.  He took long summer vacations and continued his travels around America.  He discovered Enchanted Rock and Big Bend and other Texas natural attractions.  He could swim at Barton Springs in the evenings.  Max Nofziger was living the good life.  He was a happy man.

           In the 1970s, Austin was widely known as the most affordable city in the United States.  Alas, that distinction is long lost.  But during Max’s flower-vending days, his average salary was $100 to $120 per week.  Because he had no desire to stockpile material goods, his Flower People wages gave him plenty on which to live and do as he pleased.  “Simple needs, few wants,” was Max’s maxim.  He had life and liberty; he could pursue his happiness.  How All-American could he have been?  Evidently, Max’s naysayers have missed much of the point of working in the first place — to do good in the world and to give one the means to follow one’s dreams.  Career status is illusory at best, and, to Max, not worth the trouble.

           Besides the other benefits of flower-vending, the most long-lasting pay-off has been the fabulous people Max got to know.  Though he couldn’t help it, Max was born a Yankee.  He received his education on what it meant to be an Austinite on the street corner of Oltorf and South Congress Avenue.  His customers taught him about the local issues of the day.  His Political Science degree gave him a solid background with which to carry on high-minded discourse.  As Max puts it, “I had thousands of teachers in the ways of Austin, especially South Austin.  I was building a political base without trying to and without realizing it.”  Not to mention that becoming a good salesman required the development of social skills that can be useful to a politician. Best of all, his “aw, shucks” bashfulness steadily faded away.

           For Max’s first ten years in Austin, he had no car, no motorized wheels of any sort.  He claims he didn’t need a car.  He was young and healthy; he rode his bicycle all over town.  If he was in a hurry, he hitchhiked.  He says he never had to wait more than a minute for a ride.  Such was the friendly vibe in Austin back then that those who gave him rides would often deliver him to his destination, even when it was off the beaten path, and even when it was far out of the driver’s way.

Don’t Mess with Texas: No Nukes

           During the second half of the 1970s, there was a lot going on in local and national politics.  The first Earth Day had been in 1970, and the environmental movement had gained much ground thereafter.  In Austin, environmental concerns translated into the formation of the Save Barton Creek Association and the Zilker Park Posse, a less mainstream group out to protect Barton Springs.  Barton Creek Mall was constructed with considerable opposition and a decades-long boycott that a handful of die-hards still honor now in 2003. 

           But the sociopolitical issue that most consumed Max was local opposition to the Nuke.  The South Texas Nuclear Project (STNP) was under construction, and the City of Austin was a partner in the project.  Its ongoing cost overruns were staggering.  “No Nukes” was the cry of the times for American and European activists, in resistance to both nuclear power and nuclear arms. 

           By 1979, Max’s concern for Austin’s environment, especially Barton Creek, as well as his urge to protect and empower the local music industry plus his opposition to the Nuke, prompted him to run for City-wide elected office.  His education on Southern-living, Austin-style, was taking hold.  His South Austin support base was established and growing.  It seemed to Max that a kind of harmonic convergence was taking place.  His farm-boy upbringing, his Political Science and teaching degrees, and his Austin experiences had all delivered him to this point.

           Time had come for Max Nofziger to run for the Austin City Council . . .  

          Next week, log on to read about Max’s valiant efforts to get elected to a City leadership position.

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