Sister of late Allman Brothers bassist seeks to protect graves

<p>Every week, Candace Oakley heads to the two famous graves at Rose Hill Cemetery to clean up cigarette butts, liquor bottles and crayon marks left by fans who visit the plot as a rock-n-roll shrine.</p><p>Her brother, the late Allman Brothers Band bassist Berry Oakley, lies buried here alongside his bandmate, the legendary guitarist Duane Allman.</p><p>For more than 30 years, fans have come to their grave site to pay respects _ as well as to party, use drugs and even have sex. Candace Oakley, fed up with the mess, is making another attempt to keep them at a distance.</p><p>Oakley has asked the Macon City Council to allow her to build a brick platform to let visitors view the graves from outside a fence she plans to build around them. A committee will take up her proposal in two weeks.</p><p>"There's a lot of good people that do no harm, and then you've got the others," Oakley said Wednesday. "They'll go over and want to share a drink with Duane or Berry, and they'll pour the drink on the Georgia marble, which stains it."</p><p>She said she routinely finds crayon marks on the grave stones left by someone rubbing their markings onto a sheet of paper. The original angel statues on the graves were stolen long ago, and several years back vandals tried to break into the vaults, she said.</p><p>Allman and Oakley died in motorcycle crashes in 1971 and 1972. The Rose Hill Cemetery Foundation estimates thousands of tourists visit their graves each year.</p><p>Because the cemetery is owned by the city, Oakley's past efforts to restrict visitors from littering and vandalizing the graves have been thwarted.</p><p>In 1998, then-Mayor Jim Marshall had city workers tear down an 8-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire that Oakley had installed around the graves.</p><p>Now Oakley says she plans build a wrought-iron fence with a locked gate around the two graves. She said she won't need the city's permission because the fence will blend in with the cemetery's historic character.</p><p>Oakley said a platform is needed because the ground drops a sheer four feet at the foot of the graves, fortified by a brick retaining wall. To give visitors an eye-level view, she wants to build steps and a brick extension that widens the wall into a platform where people can stand.</p><p>Family members and other private donors will fund the project, Oakley said. But one city councilman said he's concerned about liability.</p><p>"I'm going to be the one being sued about this," said Macon councilman Charles Jones. "And I don't think there's nothing wrong with dotting your i's and crossing your t's."</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x2dec938)</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2007/10/89411