NOW HEAR THIS: Mr. Harry D. announces that he
has entered the publishing business with the formation of his Blog. For the
uninformed, this is a personal web-site which you can access and can read my
notes, opinions, rants or whatever and to which you can send e-mails for
publication on the site. Susan Worthington has a newsletter which goes to about
350 people and is titled The Lexington Connection. It is a fine piece of work
and she often has photos of Lexington, both ancient and new. You can access
that, I believe, by typing in Lexington Connection in Google. If not, I can get
you the address if interested. She has been after me to enter into publishing
which I have now done. My first brief article is now posted on my blog. The URL
is www.blogger.com User Name is:
Lexitown, Password: rm3capa18.
This is an amusing read. I've been after Harry and
also Slick Heathman to record their Lexington memories. They know all the good
stories. I am, of course, too young. But I do not want those items lost to the
ages. Harry had another memory he shared:
One more item about the original Odessa Ice Cream Shop and
its location. The house immediately to the west was large, at least 3 stories
and had a large front porch. However, it had been taken over by Dr. Fredendall
and another doctor and was used as a medical clinic. After Drs. Ward and Cope
returned from service they had offices in this building. Also, Jinx Holman had a
barber shop in the building before he went in with Boyd Myers in the downtown
location where Charolette Stier's business is now located.
The short wall in front of the building, to the east of
the Odessa Shop was typical of the walls which were built at various locations
from 13th street to 16th street and many of these are still in existence
today.There were no such walls on the north side of
Franklin. The photo distinctly shows the small wall as well as the shadow of the
Medical Clinic building and I believe proves that the photo was of the original
Odessa Shop on the south side of Franklin east of the Mattingly
offices. I rest my case.
And I plead guilty of mis-identifying the Odessa #1
as Odessa #2. Harry is completely correct. Mea culpa.
Jim O'Malley knows some good stories too. He
contributed a memory of Glen Whitney for this
issue.
I was really saddened to hear of the death of Glen
Whitney. I admired him so much and remember fondly my taking
Chemistry from him during my junior year (1947-48) at LHS. He
was an excellent teacher and prepared me well for College Chemistry, which I
took later at CMSU. Let me tell you a funny story about how Mr.
Whitney saved LHS from being burned down by Jim O'Malley.
We were doing an experiment during one of our lab sessions
with red phosphorous. We were supposed to take several spoonfuls of
red phosphorous from the small container it was in and put it in a test
tube. I noticed that my lab spoon had some sulphur residue from an
earlier experiment on it, so I asked Mr. W. what I should do. He
suggested that I light a Bunsen burner and melt the stuff from the
spoon. I did that all right, but I didn't cool the spoon enough
after heating it and as I put the spoon in the container and made contact with
the red phosphorus, the whole thing
ignited....and I mean
IGNITED!!!! The smoke ROLLED out of that can! Keeping my cool
I remembered that Mr. W. had taught us that if you cut off the oxygen supply to
a fire it would go out, so I took the container of red phosphorus and turned it
upside down on the table and the crisis was over....I
thought.
Mr. W. came rushing over and asked, "Jimmie, what
happened?" I proudly explained what I had done and then, to show him that
the fire was indeed out I picked the container up and as soon as the oxygen hit
the phosphorus it ignited again. WHAT A MESS!!! He
sent the class out of the lab and told me later that he spent the rest of the
morning trying to put out that fire and cleaning up the mess.
The last time I saw Mr. Whitney was at a reunion of the
class of '50 several years ago. We had a big laugh about the
incident and, believe me, that was something that neither of us could ever
forget. He was a wonderful man and I'm so thankful I had the honor of knowing
him as a friend.
Also, just a comment or two about the beautiful concert
grand piano featured on the TLC website. You mentioned that many of the
students at LHS played recitals on it in the old Lexington Library. I knew
it well. From 1947 to '49 I took voice lessons from Mrs. Worth
(Fay) Bates of Lexington. She was a Lexington institution and had
served for many years as the organist at the First Presbyterian
Church. She also taught voice students from WMA and the local
community. After studying with her for awhile she asked if I would like to
sing for the Lexington Women's Club at the Lexington Library. I
accepted the invitation and Mrs. Bates accompanied me on that fine
instrument. I'm so happy it's been reconditioned and is back in
service in good old Lexington.
Speaking of the Library, wasn't it great to have known
Miss Elizabeth Young, the librarian. She was so good to us and always helpful
with her suggestions for interesting books. Her dad was Mr. Young, a
partner in Crenshaw and Young, the drugstore across from the courthouse on Main
that was the precursor to Ford and Rush, and later Rush Pharmacy. A
very sweet woman!
TLC #71: Jan. 10, 2005