VALDOSTA — About a dozen years ago, a strange story came to light during the presentation of the musical “The Tuesday Afternoon Regulars” for Peach State Summer Theatre’s debut season.

The show’s creators, Joseph Robinette and Thomas Tierney, visited Valdosta for the show’s world premiere, and they discussed how “Regulars” was only one of their collaborations.

Their first musical coincidentally had a song mentioning Valdosta. Given that neither Robinette nor Tierney are from Valdosta and had never visited it until this past summer, it was an intriguing circumstance.

The first Robinette-Tierney collaboration came in the early 1970s and was called “Trumpet of the New Moon,” a musical based on the life and poetry of Vachel Lindsay. Reportedly, according to Robinette and Tierney, Lindsay found hospitality in most towns where he visited and recited poetry but not in Valdosta.

They used the incident for a song called “Is Anybody There?”

While Robinette and Tierney stayed here, finding nothing but hospitality, did the poet Vachel Lindsay find no welcome in Valdosta, with its former nickname of “the town where there are no strangers”?

Perhaps, the more important question first might be, who is Vachel Lindsay?

Lindsay was a poet who lived from 1879-1931.

His most famous poems include “Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight,” “The Congo” and “General William Booth Enters Into Heaven.”

He is described as one of the great American “jazz poets” of the early 20th century. Jazz poetry received this name “because of the syncopated or bluesy rhythms the verse borrowed from the music of the era, the tradition evolved with (Langston) Hughes into a practice of pitching verse in conjunction with musicians,” according to pbs.org.

“This style of poetry performance, refined throughout the century, culminated in the famous recordings of the Beat Generation” of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs, who came a few generations after Lindsay. And Lindsay was a hero to the Beats of the middle 20th century. Allen Ginsberg even wrote a poem for Vachel Lindsay, called “To Lindsay.”

Lindsay was born in Springfield, Ill., and as a son of Illinois, he was schooled in the devotion to Abraham Lincoln, Illinois’ most famous son, who had been assassinated only 15 years prior to Lindsay’s birth.

Lindsay, “like Lincoln, was fascinated by the common people, and much of his poetry reflected that fascination,” according to one of the thousands of Internet entries on Lindsay’s life and poetry.

As a young man, he tried his hand at being an artist but found the writing of poetry to be intoxicating. He was also a spiritual man who believed in racial harmony and the cause of the common man. Lindsay’s father, a Springfield doctor, financed his early writing career.

He gained prominence in 1913 when Poetry printed his “General William Booth Enters Into Heaven,” a poem about the founder of The Salvation Army. He published several books of poetry and memoir, finding more fame. He was asked to tour and read his poetry. Lindsay gave powerful performances and he was in high demand as a speaker.

By the 1920s, his career had peaked and declined.

Lindsay believed people loved the performances but actually paid little attention to his poetry. That same decade, nearing 50, he settled down, married and had two children. They moved into the family home in Springfield, Ill. His declining career led to personal depression as the nation fell into the Great Depression.

In 1931, Vachel Lindsay committed suicide by drinking Lysol.

Yet before fame and fortune, depression and death, Vachel Lindsay was a maverick, a self-imposed vagabond and gypsy, who drank deeply from the cup of life. 

He set out on a series of journeys throughout America. These journeys are often referred to as Lindsay’s “tramps.”

In 1906, he tramped on foot, by train, etc., from Florida to Kentucky. In 1908, New York to Ohio. In 1912, Illinois to New Mexico. He traveled by foot, train, etc., with no definite plan, though he did adhere to a set of rules. He traveled from place to place, finding his way as he went, usually reading a poem in trade for places to sleep and meals. 

He gave lectures and sold his poems as an impromptu way to finance his tramps.

“He took no money with him. Instead, at farmhouses and small villages along the way (he left the cities alone), he traded his poetry for food and shelter,” according to the Vachel Lindsay Association.

On his tramps, Lindsay kept a simple schedule and mission.

“I was to begin to ask for dinner about a quarter of 11 and for supper, lodging and breakfast about a quarter of five. I was to be neat, truthful, civil and on the square,” Lindsay wrote. “I was to preach the Gospel of Beauty … I always walked penniless. My baggage was practically nil.”

The Association does note that Lindsay’s baggage included “toothbrush, handkerchief, scrapbook with pictures of the Parthenon, Taj Mahal, Trinity Church in New York, pictures of his heroes (Lincoln, Tolstoy, Bryan, Buddha and Johnny Appleseed), copies of ‘Rhymes to be Traded for Bread’ and his leaflet ‘Gospel of Beauty.’”

The leaflet explained Lindsay’s youthful belief that poets and artisans should search for beauty through travel and then apply what they learn upon their return to their hometowns.

“By referring to his journeys as tramps, Vachel imparted a dynamic, romantic ring to the concept, the same way he often referred to his own reciting of his poems as ‘singing,’” writes Job Conger in an Internet essay. “The poet reveals in his own verse that he was no singer in the traditional sense of the term — ‘And so I saw what music was/Though still accursed with ears of lead.’ (‘How a Little Girl Sang,’ 1897)”

So, if Lindsay made a Valdosta visit, it is easiest to assume the incident happened during his 1906 tramp from Florida to Kentucky.

The trip started in Jacksonville, Fla., and Lindsay would have had to wind his way to the northwest to reach Kentucky. One could make the assumption this path could have taken him through Valdosta. It is easy to assume but not so easy to verify.

The Lowndes County Historical Society has in the past had no information concerning a Valdosta visit by the poet. Nor is he mentioned in issues of The Valdosta Daily Times of the era. This isn’t too surprising, since the visit would have occurred several years before Lindsay attained fame.

Possibly, Valdosta is mentioned in his writings, but finding volumes of Lindsay’s works is not easy. South Georgia Regional Library has volumes of his poetry available, such as “Selected Poems of Vachel Lindsay” and “Johnny Appleseed and Other Poems.” 

But Valdosta is not mentioned in these poems nor is the city mentioned in extensive collections of his poetry on the Internet.

Several biographies have been written about Lindsay, but many of these volumes were written decades ago, are out of print, and are not available locally. The only repeated Internet connections listed for Lindsay and South Georgia come from the item that both Vachel and Valdosta start with “Va” and are close together in web-site dictionaries and encyclopedias.

The playwrights have been unable to recall the resource for their Valdosta song.

As for Lindsay web-site coordinators, they were initially little help in finding the connection.

The Vachel Lindsay Home, Springfield, Ill., offered one Valdosta-Vachel link several years ago, but it is not as inhospitable as earlier reports indicate.

Edgar Lee Masters’ 1935 Lindsay biography confirms that Lindsay was in Valdosta in approximately March 1906, according to the home.

Leaving Jacksonville, Fla., he gave a show in Cranford, stayed with a preacher’s family, visited a church, before setting his sights on Macon, as the goal for his next major stop.

He purchased a train ticket which took him as far as Fargo, where it was the literal end of the line for one set of tracks as well as the end of the line for Lindsay’s money.

In Fargo, he talked his way into a caboose ride to Valdosta as he continued working his way toward Macon.

Lindsay had been told he might be able to convince a train official in Valdosta to give him another train ride to Macon.

In the caboose, Masters writes, Lindsay was so swept up by excitement for his adventure that he repeatedly exclaimed, “By Jove!” One railroad worker warned Lindsay to quit with the “By Joves!” or he’d have him tossed from the caboose. The railroad man explained he was religious and he didn’t appreciate Lindsay’s swearing.

Lindsay reached Valdosta, where he gave the railroad’s general superintendent a letter from the YMCA and explained his mission. The superintendent was unimpressed and refused to give Lindsay a free ride. Reading a poem wouldn’t get Lindsay a ticket either.

While at the Valdosta train stop, Lindsay befriended a drunk Texan and soon had the 10 cents to board the train.

The refusal by the train superintendent could have been the basis for the impression that Valdosta was inhospitable to Lindsay, but there is no hard evidence Valdosta was the only place that did not extend kindness to Lindsay. 

And there is no evidence that Lindsay even sought a place to stay in Valdosta.

So, maybe, Valdosta wasn’t so unfriendly to Vachel Lindsay after all. Perhaps, Valdosta was worthy of the slogan, “the town where there are no strangers,” in 1906.