TLC #16: June 12, 2001
GREETINGS AGAIN FROM OL' LEX!! So much is happening, and there
are so many good letters to relay, I find myself with a full plate of news for
you to devour.
First, hot off the press, today was the day Parker
Construction (out of Blue Springs) signed the contract with the city to build
the movie theatre in "the hole" on Franklin. They are the same people
who propose the upscale apartments for dear old LHS. (The real one.) I'll keep
you apprised of both.
Last night the new owners of Cox's Corner building, the
Bob Langdons, stopped by and told us they are putting in an antique & gift
shop, and it will be run by Becky Hooser (who formerly ran the Victorian Peddler
restaurant & antiques - it is now owned by her daughter and son-in-law Mark
Clark).
Since this is all pretty much from the horse's mouth, I do
not hesitate to send it on to you.
Today my Stringer (sometimes referred to as Husband)
received a call from a guy from the Associated Press. He came out to talk to Ken
about Lexington for a story, feature I assume, for AP. So it could very well run
in your own newspapers. I'll try to keep you informed of anything new on that.
And, no, we don't know what the thrust of it will be. NOT Missouri's Little City
of Sin, as those of us at MU heard it referred to.
And
now, speaking of sin, we stepped on some toes when we spoke of Main between 9th
and 10th! It is now the very heart of the city, by the way. And here are very
interesting commentaries:
From Jim
O'Malley
I read in TLC #15
The Second that some of the LHS alums were rather uncomfortable about
walking on Block 42 during their school days, especially the south side.
The pool hall was also a mysterious and dark place to others, and looking down
North 10th St. was a no-no. Well, let me educate those of you who were sheltered
from the more notorious parts of dear 'ol Lexington. My uncle Jimmy
"Piggy" Phipps was the owner of the pool hall and I spent some
wonderful afternoons and evenings there playing pool. No liquor or beer
was served there and, except for a card game that was played upstairs, the place
was as innocent as the Lexington Public Library. Playing pool cost 10
cents a cue (a game) and sodas were 10 cents. I used to marvel at
the skills displayed by local billiard players. Billiards is not
pool. It's played with only 3 balls and you must be able to visualize
shots that seem impossible to make. I could never play it. It's a
game that's been played for centuries by European Royalty, American Presidents,
professional people, laborers, farmers, and anyone who has the abstract
perceptual skills and hand-eye coordination it
takes to master the
game. Local experts were Nick Girardi, Piggy Phipps, Dana
"Turk" Terrell (another uncle of mine), Gussie and Jimmie Lorantos,
and a real child prodigy who started playing billiards in elementary school,
Norman "Toad" Siglock. Another note about Piggy Phipps: At
the end of prohibition (circa 1933-34) Piggy opened "The Lexington
Nightclub" in the corner building at 9th and Main now occupied by "The
Victorian Peddler." He hired a Kansas City dance band to play for its
opening. Guess who the bandleader was? It was Count Basie! Want some
more info on Block 42? Just let me know. Best wishes to
everyone.
Jim: You bet
we do!
OLD FOGEY 'S RECOLLECTIONS............Harry
Dunford
I beg to
report that the "Pool Hall" was not a place to be shunned. It was
rather a place of honest intellectual discourse, the discussion of poetry and,
of course, the imbibing of tea and crumpets. And, if you buy that then we
still have a bridge for sale near the end of Cliff Drive. Actually, the Pool
Hall was located just east of Entines where the Mexican restaurant,"
Margueritaville" is now located. Walking by the location today it
seemed to me that the front facade has not changed much from the 30's and 40's
except that there is a more modern front door. I do not recall the Pool Hall as
being either a rowdy or dangerous place. And what is a River City without a Pool
Hall?
I am now on a building kick because of this
reference to the Pool Hall. Today, having lunch at The
Victorian Peddler I remarked to Morris Cox,
"Wonder how many people visiting this fine restaurant would know the name
"Eddie Liebo?" Of course Morris knew who I was
referring to but probably not many today
would recall that this was the site of Eddie's Furniture Store prior to WWII.
Later, of course, Leroy Schriefer had his floor covering business in the same
building. There are so many buildings now with their restored tin ceilings which
are really something, but I believe the Peddler was one of the first to so
renovate.
One more thing in regards to buildings. The
Mainstreet Theater was so much a part of Lexington for so long that it is still
sorely missed. I have seen it referred to in the local paper and elsewhere as
Main Street Theater. We old timers know that Mainstreet was all one word. The
theater was built in 1924, I was born in 1925. I recall but barely when there
were silent films and a piano player down front provided the
music.
According to Christy Butler, Laurel and Hardy
made a personal appearance at the Mainstreet. Her dad, Johnny Magnuson was the
projectionist for the theater and he went to Kansas City to pick them up and
drive them to Lexington. It was cold weather and they stopped at the Peckerwood
Club and were on a pretty good toot by the time they got to the theater. This
probably was in the very early 30's.
Among many memories of the Mainstreet was the
Movie "King Kong" in 1933. The movie was greatly hyped with huge
pictures of Kong in the lobby and everyone went to see it. At the age 8 it was
an overwhelming experience. Remember that in those days the movies were still so
new that the special effects seemed so very realistic...especially to a small
town kid.
One other recollection of the Mainstreet
Theater was in 1939 with the advent of "Gone With The Wind." A
mesmerized audience on a Saturday afternoon was stunned with the words,
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
The Mainstreet played a big role in many a
courtship including mine and my wife, the former Betty Lee Maxwell. We went to
the show two or three times a week. Of course, at that time there were a lot of
good movies to be enjoyed, unlike today.
Pardon my lengthy discourse. I learned to type
in the Navy and have seldom passed up a chance to write something since,
particularly when I know it is to be published. Editor Susan, you may use your
blue pencil at will.
Not
on your life.
-
Ed.
Janice
Jiovenale Tubiolo
It feels
like drowning in memories!! Everybody's recollections
trigger
more of them and it's such a sweet mental
trip back as I think, "Yes! I forgot that until now!". I know
that the Pool Hall was owned by 'Piggy' Phipps, because we lived a few houses
from the Phipps' when I was young, down the infamous 'north side' of Main Street
on 12th. The Pool Hall was up the street from Malo's Bar, mid-block between 9th
and 10th on Main. I also fondly remember "Dutch" Michon's Market
where we bought groceries for years, Anton's Shoe Shop and later on Al's Market
(Stompoly) on 20th street - and did anyone else besides me ever buy a used bike
at Morrison's Bike Shop? Took me a month to pay it off at a dollar down and 50
cents a week.
Ahhhh, Saturday nights on Main Street! That REALLY
goes back. I recall my Grandad parking the car up on Main street between Wards
and Mattingly's and we would all walk up after dinner so they could sit, crowd
watch and visit with people when they tired of shopping. And Barb Tabb's
right, the street was always packed with townspeople and
farm families from all over the county. Quite a social event and magical
for a small child. Another fun event was the night ball games at the
Goosepond. Can't remember when they stopped, but there were several adult
teams in town. Keep sharing those
memories, gang; I love going back
home in my mind for these mental visits with all of you (hope it isn't simply a
sign of aging...)and it sounds like those earlier times are being stirred up for
all of us!
Susan, our recent 50's reunion was a huge success, but I
suspect the TLC will help draw even more of us to future class reunions.
What a gift you have given to all of us in tapping into a marvelous 'stream of
consciousness' that's become a river! After all these years in Southern
California, I realize I'm still just a misplaced Missourian. Many, many
thanks.
And
immediate response to our plea for
"adopters"!
Janet Cross Bertz
I would be
delighted to get the words of our faithful scribe and
contributing reporters
to my buddy Susie Bell.
Norma
Gadt:
I'll be
glad to send hard copies to Suzanne. Just let me know if I got the
bid. Also, I'll be gone for a couple of weeks, but will read your answer
when we return.
And
what would a TLC be without a story about Odessa?
From A.
W. Sandring:
A lot of people have been
writing about Lexington's "Odessa Ice Cream Parlor." The first
guy doesn't have a chance. Even though I worked there many years ago I
will share some of my experiences. I hope you find them interesting,
unique, and maybe somewhat educational... so here goes.
When I started working
there as a "car hop" it was under the management of Mrs. Bowers.
As quoted in one of your previous TLC articles Mrs. Bowers had two sons who
worked there during the same time period. I was tall for my age so this
was my first job and I was only nine years old. How about that for child labor
laws? My remuneration was a whopping 5 cents per hour plus a
free
10-cent box of hand packed ice cream to take home after we finished
working in the evening. The shape of the box may best be described
as
an inverted rectangular truncated pyramid. Even though the box was small
we all managed to hand pack enough ice cream into the box to equal about a pint
of today's ice cream by not folding down the four lid flaps so we could round
the ice cream up above the open flaps. Remember the good old original
"Lemon" ice cream that people drove for miles to get because no one
else made lemon? No one ever thought about cholesterol content in those days.
One experience I will never forget. Being young, trying hard on my first
job, I experienced (to me) my first major problem. One evening I walked
out to wait on a car full of people and the driver said they wanted 6 chocolate
sodas Well, if you remember how we made sodas, this
was a large
order, which required a lot of time and work. -- I will refrain here from
describing in detail the professional way to make a
really great soda. --
So... I took the sodas out on one of the aluminum
trays, hooked it over the
driver's window and moved the supporting brace until it touched the car to hold
up this heavy load. At that time
the driver told me "We ordered
chocolate Malts, NOT chocolate Sodas" *#@%^#&* -- Well, to this day I
still swear that the man's original order was for chocolate SODAS.
So,
being a new employee I took all 6 sodas back inside and asked
for
guidance. Was I going to have to work several days at 5 cents per
hour to pay for the six sodas or what. One of the Bowers boys told me
no,
it's no problem. I said, but the ice cream will melt, and the fizz
will
also evaporate leaving them worthless. He took all 6 sodas and stored them
in the freezer in the empty spaces between the round cans of ice cream.
Now, he said, all we have to do to fill our next orders for chocolate sodas is
to lift them out of the freezer, put them under the real fine pressurized stream
of carbonated water, shoot the stream near the side of the glass and it will
fizz up again to make a perfect soda. Now that I have told you how to do it, all
of you are saying. I knew that But would you have known this at nine
years of age on your first job?
What's next? Well, you know when
the place got hopping with inside
customers, plus a lot of cars to hop, the
dirty dishes kept piling up How did we solve the problem? When
running out of clean dishes we only had one solution: wash the dirty dishes, as
in those days we didn't use paper or plastic throw away cups or
containers. Want to take any guess as to how this was done? They
were all washed by hand, how else? But how were they washed? Well, I don't
know if you are ready for the answer to this even in the year of 2001, but here
it comes. For the first question, would you wash dishes so
they looked
sparkling clean using hot water or cold water? Of course you remember that
any milk product like ice cream will leave
dishes cloudy if you wash them in
hot water, right? So, we washed them under the faucet in just a running
stream of cold water with our fingers, without soap This also helped
speed up the task as washing and rinsing was all done in just one
operation Sometimes we would use a sponge, but still just running
cold water. They sure did sparkle though. Now when you remember back
to the "good old days at Odessa" didn't those malts, sodas, and
sundaes taste great?
For another experience, never to be forgotten, about
three or four of us (car hops) were sitting outside on top of about a 30-inch
high concrete retaining wall next to the building waiting for more cars
to
arrive. We all had our white towels tied around our waist, and one
member was smoking a cigarette. Suddenly he said to me "want to see a
cigarette burn twice?" Without any answer from me he took a big puff
so the end of the cigarette burned red and then immediately jammed the cigarette
into my arm just below the elbow. This really hurt. And to this day I
still have a white scar for proof after more than 50 years have
passed.
To make my next move up in the world I used my carhop experience
to get a job at Ford & Rush drug store as a soda jerk. I read in one
of the earlier issues of "TLC" about how good their hot fudge sundaes
were. That's not only correct, but the best part was at that age no one had to
worry about how many calories were contained. Now comes a question for
someone to answer. You also remember that "Walker's" drug store
had a soda fountain, and so did "Crenshaw's" drug store. In
about every town you went to during that time
period almost all drugstores
had soda fountains Why? Have you ever seen a soda fountain in
any of the new drugstores being built today, like in a Walgreen or Osco?
It's now your turn to write and tell me.
Better not continue with any
more experiences from the good old days. Now we'll find out how you are
taking this, and what your reactions are. Hope you enjoyed some of this
news from yesteryear.
George "Skip"
Brown:
Hi
Susan! Thanks for including me on "the list". And thanks
for doing this task. While I haven't been back to Lexington in years (the
last time was our 25th reunion in 1981), I still have great memories of LHS and
the classes of '55, '56 and '57. I saw Bill Tempel occasionally when I
visited my folks in Lee's Summit and Bill and Jerry Mischon and I talk on the
phone once in a great while and exchange Christmas cards. Lou Yates
Damborg and I have chatted when I got to the University of Washington on
business and she's told me about the annual meetings of the group of ladies from
our class. But other than that, I've lost contact with a lot of the LHS
gang. So reading TLC has been great fun.
A couple of
personal notes. I retired in September 1999 after 33 years on the faculty
of the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, the last 10 years as Dean
and Director of the Forest Research Laboratory. It was a great career in a
great state. Joan and I have two daughters. Chris works for Sen. Gordon
Smith in his Portland office and Annie works for the British Commission on
Health Improvement in London. Both have had very interesting careers
following college. I'm enjoying "retirement", which has been an
interesting mix of professional, volunteer and recreation/travel
activities.
One of these years, I
hope Joan and I can attend one of the reunions, though they seem to come in the
middle of deer and elk seasons! Until then, I'll enjoy reading TLC.
Thanks again for including me in the list.
Jack
Gueguen:
In many ways life is
the same across generations, which enables us to "connect" with the
young people and gives society the continuity it must have in order to
endure. As I reflect back on what it was like growing up in Lexington, it
occurs to me that one of the great discontinuities would show up by simply
asking the question, "What did you do Sunday mornings?" and compare it
with what happens today. If enough people were interested, you might do a
"special issue" on that theme. Here's how I would start it
off:
Every Sunday our family
followed a regular pattern which never varied and which we always did
together. There were 7 of us in our small house and one small bathroom so
the day began taking turns "getting ready for church." We had to
look our best. ("The bath" had been on Saturday night.)
There were two Masses at the Catholic Church, 8 and 10 (7 and 9 in summer on
account of the heat). We always went to "second Mass."
Helen Beretta played the organ; some members of our family sang in the choir,
but whenever we could we always "sat together." After church we
would visit closer friends for a while on the sidewalk and then drive back home
(yes, we drove the 4 short blocks, got there with a minute or two to spare, and
mom expected a parking spot right in front!).
After a simple
breakfast, we had to keep our "good clothes" on for that was the time
to "go visiting"--first over to Franklin across from the Odessa, where
our cousins, Mary Jo and Ann Farrow, lived with Aunt Florence and Grandma
Mallot. The routine was well-established and allowed no deviation:
We lined up to "kiss Grandma" and be told how tall we were
getting. She always sat in the front window. Then we were expected
to sit quietly (with the grave portraits of ancestors looking down on us) while
the adults made conversation. If our Kansas City cousins were also
visiting, we could go out on the porch. We especially liked to walk along
the wall where the front yard met the sidewalk, but with concerned voices always
reminding us to be careful lest we fall. (We never did.) Next stop
was my dad's folks. They lived in a big frame house at 23rd and
Monroe. Usually other members of that large family would also be
visiting. There was a much bigger yard to play in, and if Grandma's big
yellow cherries were in season, we'd bring a bowl of them home. But always
there were a couple of loaves of that inimitable home-made "French
bread" which made such wonderful toast.
Once we got home there
was a race to "undress" and get into the Star's comic section
("the funny paper") while mom started dinner. That was always
the best and fanciest meal of the week and included dessert (not common on week
days). Our favorites were rich chocolate cake and lemon meringue
pie. Once the dishes were washed (in the kitchen sink), dried, and put
away, we were free to take off for the matinee at the "picture
show"--the Mainstreet.
All of this happened
with amiability and joy, although sometimes one of us would be cranky and
"start a fight," upon which we would be reminded that we had
"just been to church!"
Is all of that gone
forever, I wonder? Or does a vestige of it still survive in some little
town somewhere in the world?
Ed:
Yes...in Lexington.
And from his
sister, Mary Pat Gueguen Miller
Susan, I don't know how
you are getting everyone's responses printed, but maybe if I press
"reply", hummmmm. Anyway, am sending all your missives to sister
Sharon in PA., as they are not on-line yet. Then you'll have the whole
d----- family!!!! Concerning the Jarman Brothers, Gary and Gene, and
Snappy Service. When I was about fourteen and got my first job at Snappy
with Mrs. Holman and Gary, I think, I was VERY shy and didn't talk very loud, or
very much. I didn't really like "waiting on people"; too much
contact,
if you know what I mean. I was a real "Beth" out of
"Little Women."
(Wouldn't believe it now, would you?)
Anyway, I was to take the customer's order on my little pad and HOLLER the order
out to the kitchen. There was NO WAY I could do that, so I would quietly
walk the order to the kitchen, put the pad under the cook's nose and
leave. Don't remember who was cooking then. But I did not fit in
well with the "slingin' hash" kind of people. I've never
forgotten how mortified I was in that capacity. We must have grown up a
bit
by the time we went to "Dave's Dragon Den" later on in the
50's, but
Loretta and I did quite well there for several years and had lots
of different "slingin hash" kind of work. Finally learned how to
talk to people. (and have been talking to people ever since, yada, yada,
yada. I hear you!)
To Barbara
Lee: our middle son, John, also went to TCU from '84 to '88; he lived in
the Milton Daniel Freshman year with all the athletes. He wasn't one, but
LOVED rubbing shoulders, BIG shoulders, with them. He loved the
school. We called it "the school with lots of gold on fingers,
wrists, necks, and toes." I'm sure you know Bill Tempel's son,
Frosty, was there too. I think he was in John's class. Love hearing
all the news. Will do more later.
P.S. Janet Cross,
of course we remember that you lived up the street from us, and right next door
to Mike Wilhoit. (Did you know he died several years ago??) If I was
lucky enough and early enough, I got outside in the morning just in time to walk
to school with John. He was WAAAAY too smart for the likes of me, but I
enjoyed his dry humor. Next time I'll tell you about our date to
Junior-Senior Prom in
just in time to walk to
school with John. He was WAAAAY too smart for the likes of me, but I
enjoyed his dry humor. Next time I'll tell you about our date to
Junior-Senior Prom in '57, (the very night of the Ruskin Heights tornado), when
he asked me THE DAY BEFORE just because his sweetie, "Pam", was
younger and couldn't go and I think he felt sorry for me. Oh well, we had
a good time and watched the sun come up!! John, where are you and are you
on-line??? Let's hear your side of the story.
Okay, the gauntlet is down, and we're
ready for more. Send your memories and challenges on in, and we'll see that they
get to the proper places! Until next time, I remain
Your faithful scribe,
Susan
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