Nostalgia Central
Fiddlin' Kenneth Pitts, 1930 Yearbook
In this 1952 D. McRae PTA directory listing the faculty, notice the six-digit phone numbers and the long-ago exchanges:
In this 1956 D. McRae PTA directory listing the faculty, notice that the phone numbers are now seven digits:
And this 1961 D. McRae PTA directory shows the school faculty:
Here are pages from the 1961 William James student directory:
And here are pages from the 1962 William James PTA directory listing the faculty:
Finally, here are pages from the 1966 Poly High student directory:
Oh, there were truth and goodness in that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges, and Peyton Place was porn.
For Ike was in the White House, and Hoss was on TV,
And God was in his heaven
In the Land of Sandra Dee.
We learned to gut a muffler,
We washed our hair at dawn,
We spread our crinolines to dry in circles on the lawn.
And they could hear us coming all the way to Tennessee,
All starched and sprayed and rumbling
In the Land of Sandra Dee.
We longed for love and romance and waited for the prince.
And Eddie Fisher married Liz, and no one's seen him since.
We danced to "Little Darlin',"
And sang to "Stagger Lee"
And cried for Buddy Holly
In the Land of Sandra Dee.
Only girls wore earrings then, and three was one too many.
And only boys wore flat-top cuts, except for Jean McKinney.
And only in our wildest dreams did we expect to see
A boy named "George" with lipstick
In the Land of Sandra Dee.
We fell for Frankie Avalon, Annette was, oh, so nice
And when they made a movie,
They never made it twice.
We didn't have a Star Trek Five, or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty
In the Land of Sandra Dee.
Miss Kitty had a heart of gold, and Chester had a limp.
And Reagan was a Democrat whose co-star was a chimp.
We had a Mr. Wizard, but not a Mr. T, and Oprah couldn't talk yet
In the Land of Sandra Dee.
We had our share of heroes, we never thought they'd go,
At least not Bobby Darin, or Marilyn Monroe.
For youth was still eternal, and life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever
In the Land of Sandra Dee.
We'd never seen the rock band that was grateful to be dead,
And airplanes weren't named "Jefferson," and zeppelins weren't "Led."
And Beatles lived in gardens then, and monkeys in a tree,
Madonna was a virgin
In the Land of Sandra Dee.
We'd never heard of microwaves or telephones in cars.
And babies might be bottle-fed, but they weren't grown in jars.
And pumping iron got wrinkles out,
And "gay" meant fancy-free, and dorms were never co-ed
In the Land of Sandra Dee.
We hadn't seen enough of jets to talk about the lag.
And microchips were what was left at the bottom of the bag.
And hardware was a box of nails, and bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction
In the Land of Sandra Dee.
Buicks came with portholes, and the side show came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough to cover both your cheeks.
And Coke came just in bottles, and skirts came to the knee,
And Castro came to power
In the Land of Sandra Dee.
We had no Crest with Fluoride, we had no Hill Street Blues,
We all wore superstructure bras designed by Howard Hughes.
We had no patterned pantyhose or Lipton herbal tea,
or prime-time ads for condoms
In the Land of Sandra Dee.
There were no golden arches, no Perriers to chill.
And fish were not called "Wanda," and cats were not called "Bill."
And middle-aged was thirty-five, and old was forty-three,
and ancient was our parents
In the Land of Sandra Dee.
But all things have a season, or so we've heard them say,
And now instead of Maybeline, we swear by Retin-A.
And they send us invitations to join AARP,
We've come a long way, baby,
From the Land of Sandra Dee.
So now we face a brave new world in slightly larger jeans,
And wonder why they're using smaller print in magazines.
And we tell our children's children of the way it used to be,
Long ago and far away
In the Land of Sandra Dee.
Hey, Kids, Where Were You on September 10, 1959?
Paul Camfield's It's Summertime in Slam Bangland Web site is devoted to his late father.
Remember Mickey and Amanda? The Los Angeles Local Programming of Yesteryear Web site has a page devoted to the life and times of Mickey and Amanda and their creator, Richard Clayton, who went from KFJZ in the late 1950s to Los Angeles children's TV in the early 1960s.
Rick Phillips's Web site tells how a Poly woman gave birth to the most important possum and mudturtle of our childhood.
Greg Knight's Patio Culture Web site has some Slam Bang Theater Web pages.
Fort Worth artist Kerry Gammill's Web page is devoted to the "dark side" of Bill Camfield:
Gorgon.
Read a biography of Bill Camfield at IMDb.
And last but soitainly not least, Chowderhead, there's the official Three Stooges Web site.
"Hey, Bud. Whatcha lookin' at?"
I'll never forget the first time we met;
We tried so hard to impress.
We drove fancy cars, smoked big cigars,
And wore our most elegant dress.
It was quite an affair; the whole class was there.
It was held at a fancy hotel.
We wined, and we dined, and we acted refined,
And everyone thought it was swell.
The men all conversed about who had been first
To achieve great fortune and fame.
Meanwhile, their spouses described their fine houses
And how beautiful their children became.
The homecoming queen, who once had been lean,
Now weighed in at one-ninety-six.
The jocks who were there had all lost their hair,
And the cheerleaders could no longer do kicks.
No one had heard about the class nerd
Who'd guided a craft to the moon;
Or poor little Jane, who'd always been plain;
She married a shipping tycoon.
The boy we'd decreed "most apt to succeed"
Was serving ten years in the pen,
While the one voted "least" now was a priest;
Just shows you can be wrong now and then.
They awarded a prize to one of the guys
Who seemed to have aged the least.
Another was given to the grad who had driven
The farthest to attend the feast.
They took a class picture, a curious mixture
Of beehives, crew cuts, and wide ties.
Tall, short, or skinny, the style was the mini;
You never saw so many thighs.
At our next get-together, no one cared whether
They impressed their classmates or not.
The mood was informal, a whole lot more normal;
By this time we'd all gone to pot.
It was held out-of-doors, at the lake shores;
We ate hamburgers, coleslaw, and beans.
Then most of us lay around in the shade,
In our comfortable T-shirts and jeans.
By the fortieth year, it was abundantly clear,
We were definitely over the hill.
Those who weren't dead had to crawl out of bed,
And be home in time for their pill.
And now I can't wait as they've set the date;
Our sixtieth is coming, I'm told.
It should be a ball, they've rented a hall
At the Shady Rest Home for the old.
Repairs have been made on my old hearing aid;
My pacemaker's been turned up to high.
My wheelchair is oiled, and my teeth have been boiled;
And I've bought a new wig and glass eye.
I'm feeling quite hearty; I'm ready to party,
I'll dance until dawn's early light.
It'll be lots of fun; and I hope at least one
Other person can make it that night.
The building is now owned by Wino's Crew motorcycle club (www.winoscrew.com/), which uses the building as a clubhouse. A club member, Scooter, recently gave Marcia Melton Caple and Mike Nichols a tour of the building and told some of its history. The Italian Inn, he said, opened in the early 1950s in a house that was moved from Arlington and cantilevered in place on that sharp embankment on the south side of Lancaster. As you recall, if you parked on Lancaster in front of the Inn, you walked downstairs to enter; if you parked behind the restaurant, you walked up to enter. Scooter said that the restaurant was still operating into the mid-1990s and was closed for only a few years before Wino's Crew bought it.
The club made some changes, of course, but members have retained some of the wooden booths with their generations of "________ + _________" graffiti. And its former life as a restaurant is not forgotten by those who ate there: Daygo, another Wino's Crew member, said, "Many people who carved in the booths have stopped by to see them and the writings on the wall."
Jane Finley Eggenberger of our class says the sister Italian Inn, on the West Side, is still going strong, serving up pasta and song.
And this update of the old Italian Inn is served with dessert: Wino's Crew generously donated a pair of original swinging doors from a booth! Look for them to be displayed at the next class gathering. Please keep your pocketknife or Marks-a-Lot holstered.
The old Italian Inn, Wino's Crew member Scooter, and years of graffiti
In 1917 two brothers, James C. and Will H. Vernor, started the Texas Motor Car Association in Dallas with two hundred dollars in capital. They built an automobile factory south of Fort Worth on the bare prairie that would someday be the 3600 block of McCart. The company had big plans to produce a luxury car and an oilfield truck. The city of Fort Worth planned to extend a streetcar line south along the old Cleburne Road for the convenience of factory workers.
But the company's life was brief. By 1922 the company had ceased production, hurt by a factory fire, the post-World War I flu epidemic, drought, and competition from cars such as the Ford Model T.
Only about two thousand Texan cars and one thousand Texan trucks were built. The car sold for one thousand dollars, had a thirty-five-horsepower engine, thirty-three-inch tires, a wooden dashboard, and a rumble seat.
Decades later the Texan auto factory was bought by Martin Sprocket and Gear company. Martin has on display one of the few surviving Texan cars. And entrance pillars and towers of the building still bear the original stones with the letter "T" for "Texas"--reminders of Fort Worth's brief time as a "Dixie Detroit."
http://web.archive.org/web/20021216184302/www.yesterdayland.com/popopedia/shows/fashion/fa1618.php
www.badfads.com/pages/fashion/taps.html
Here are just the facts, ma'am: The school safety patrol program was begun by the American Automobile Association in 1920 and continues today in many schools in America and even beyond. It is the largest safety program in the world, with 500,000 boys and girls participating in 50,000 schools. Some patrol boys and girls have gone on to become U.S. presidents, governors, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, astronauts, and Olympic gold medalists.
Safety aside, most boys were in it for the prestige and perks, which were several. For example, patrol boys got to get out of class early and go outside to perform their solemn duties, although at least one remembers mostly just strolling around and swapping dirty jokes with fellow patrol boy Jon Jenkins. And they got to wear the uniform--that manly white canvas "Sam Browne" belt to which they pinned that shiny tin badge of authority. Girls loved it. Or so patrol boys told themselves.
Editor and Publisher of the Marshall News Messenger
MARSHALL, Texas--I had a brief career in law enforcement, which few people know about, but the absolute power of it all went to my head and I had to give up my badge.
In the big cities before school busing was normal, everybody got to school in one of two ways: Your mother brought you or you walked. It was that simple. My mother never drove so I walked to school from the first grade to the 10th.
With all those walkers crossing busy streets, there was a great need for guards at crosswalks--unpaid guards, of course. So the cops on the beat in elementary school were the top male students in grades 5 and 6.
I dreamed of being a Patrol Boy--the leader of the group was called the Head Patrol Boy--since I could remember. My parents hung a picture of my brother wearing his white Patrol Boy sash and silver badge in the front room and I wanted to be just like him.
But everyone wanted to Patrol Boy. If you were a kid you looked up to every Patrol Boy you knew. Girls swooned over Patrol Boys and teachers loved them.
And there was another thing: If you were a patrol boy and it rained, you got to wear one of those heavy, yellow rubber raincoats with the neatest buttons.
And the best part about being a Patrol Boy? You got to get out of class five minutes early.
There was only one problem. You had to be chosen by teachers to be Patrol Boy and you had to have good grades. I was not a great student which meant my grades were always on the edge and my citizenship marks, uh, well, they left a little bit to be desired, too. (That little box that indicated I didn't think before I acted was always checked.)
But from the day I entered fifth grade I began asking the principal, Mrs. Ashburn, if I could be a Patrol Boy.
Get your grades up, she told me.
I wasn't daunted. After all, a new cadre of Patrol Boys was chosen every six weeks. I had plenty of time.
The next six weeks I tried again.
Learn to behave yourself, she told me.
The next six weeks I tried again.
Get your grades up and learn to behave yourself, she said. I clearly wasn't making progress.
So my entire fifth grade year, Patrol Boy-hood eluded me.
I had a new sense of urgency when sixth grade came along. Unfortunately, that new urgency was not accompanied by better grades or a better citizenship report.
So I went to Mrs. Ashburn at the beginning of the third six weeks and begged her to put me on patrol. I promised I would be the best Patrol Boy ever.
And the answer was still no.
But perhaps something happened over that third six weeks (it was not an improvment in grades) that softened Mrs. Ashburn's heart, because when the fourth six weeks began, I didn't even have the chance to ask. She came to me.
I was on the force at last.
Without any exaggeration, that was one of the happiest days of my public school career. I got fitted with my sash and badge, though I was mildly disappointed to hear we didn't get to keep the badge. No, I wasn't Head Patrol Boy, but it was enough just to serve.
And wouldn't you just know it, but the very first week of my tour of duty, it came a spring rain. I got to wear the raincoat. As a perk, the raincoats were located deep in the bowels of the boiler room, where no one was allowed to go.
No one but a Patrol Boy, of course.
Seeing one of those raincoats and wearing one are two different experiences. Slickers look, well, slick just from looking at them. But put one on and you have a totally different experience. They are clammy and heavy.
Clammy, yes, cold, no. Ten minutes of standing in that warm spring rain and I discovered I was as wet as if I had been wearing no raincoat at all. Twenty minutes of wearing it and I became obsessed with getting it off. So obsessed, in fact, that I wasn't doing such a good job at hustling children across the street. My first week on the job and already a reprimand.
It rained every day for the next two weeks and I came to loathe that yellow raincoat. Even today, the sight of a yellow raincoat makes me itch and sweat.
When the monsoons ended, though, my troubles as a Patrol Boy had only just begun.
I worked Hampshire Boulevard in Fort Worth, a street that is moderately busy. It was a Patrol Boy's job to wait until the coast was clear, then walk halfway with the little students to make sure they got across.
But sometimes you could wait forever. I had the idea that it was my responsibility to get these kids to class on time.
So I began to stop traffic. I'd walk to the middle of the street, hold my arms up and, when traffic stopped, let the little kids cross.
It worked wonderfully. No kids ever got hurt on my watch.
But I suppose some drivers got to work late. It got to where I enjoyed stopping traffic and would do it for even one student.
It wasn't long before I got a call into Mrs. Ashburn's office. The police had called.
The Real Police.
I was causing a traffic hazard on Hampshire Boulevard. I was a nuisance and I had to be stopped.
She held out her hand and I handed over my badge, but it wasn't a total loss. At least I never had to wear than dang raincoat again.
When I was 11 years old and in the sixth grade, I was one of four patrol boys at Burnettown Elementary School in Burnettown, S.C. It was our job to escort the first-graders from the school to two points about a half-mile from the school--one to the east and one to the west. After we'd patrolled 'em for the half-mile, the first-graders were on their own.
The best part of being a patrol boy was getting out of school about an hour early. Sure, we were supposed to come back to class after patrol duty, but we learned pretty fast that if we walked the first-graders slowly, and if we took our time getting back to school, we could effectively kill the hour between first-grade dismissal and our dismissal.
We patrol boys got to wear canvas belts across our chests, with big silver badges pinned to 'em. On rainy days, we got to wear yellow raincoats with matching hoods.
Last night, I told 10-year-old daughter Jess about my patrol boy days. She was astonished.
"How did they pick you?" she asked.
"Our mean old sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Rogers, just pointed at four of us and said, 'Y'all are the patrol boys.' That's the way things happened in those days."
"Were there any patrol girls?" Jess asked.
"No. Never. Girls weren't smart or careful or responsible enough to be patrol boys." (OK, OK. I was kidding. But I wanted to see what she'd say.) "How old did you say you were?" Jess snapped back.
"Eleven."
Jess laughed uncontrollably for five solid minutes. "Girls weren't careful enough to walk first-graders home? And boys were?" She laughed for another two minutes.
"What's so funny?"
"I'm thinking of every 11-year-old boy I know," she said. "They're wild. They're not careful. They tear things up."
"I don't know what to tell you," I shrugged. "I had the long patrol route. I actually had to walk the first-graders across the highway. Sometimes I had to walk out into the road and stop traffic using nothing but my hand. No whistle, no stop sign, no orange gloves."
Jess just kept laughing and shaking her head. "Eleven-year-old boys. Careful. Hahahahahaha."
I must admit, she has a point. These days, what school administrator would put boys just shy of bomb-building age in charge of a bunch of first-graders? Away from the schoolhouse, with no adult supervision? For that matter, what first-graders walk home anymore? Perverts could snatch 'em up. (I promise you, if a pervert had jumped out of the bushes and tried to snatch a kid out of our patrol line, co-patrol-boy Danny Dennis and I would've kicked that pervert's ass.)
All this put me to thinking: What's changed about 11-year-old boys and first graders and society in general that makes the patrol boy idea seem not just outdated, but downright scary?
Well, I don't know what's changed, but I do know this: When I was 11, you could count on a class of 30 (that's right, 30) sixth-graders to have at least four miniature honest-to-god men. Stand-up guys who could be trusted to protect their little schoolmates, rather than picking on 'em or plotting their death. We even had miniature citizens who'd run out and fetch the flag down off the pole the instant it started to rain--without being told to do it.
By the time we were 16, some of the boys were volunteer firemen. We'd be sitting in algebra class, the alarm at the firehouse would start whooping, and a couple of boys would just jump up and run out the door on their way to fight fire.
All I can figure out is, we must have expected more out of boys in years past. It could be a Southern thing. Just after the Civil War, the genuine men were mostly dead or mangled. The boys were the men. It could be an agrarian thing. When a boy was old enough to load a wagon, he had to load a wagon.
These days, though, what do we expect of the boys? I could be wrong, but I think we expect just about the same thing from them that we expect from the girls. And I suspect the kids will set their goals pretty close to the adults' expectations.
I know it won't happen, but let's just pretend a teacher had to pick a patrol squad today. Of course, she wouldn't choose just boys. And would she dare limit her choices to the alert, upstanding, responsible types? Nope. Most likely, the patrol children would be chosen by lottery, lawsuit, or both. If we'd done that back in Burnettown, Leon Lewis, the class criminal, could've ended up a patrol boy. Inside of a week, he would've had the first-graders stealing cigarettes for him, and he would've been beating 'em up and taking their lunch money.
So Jess is probably right to laugh at the thought of 11-year-old boys as protectors. I say that's a dang shame. Ten years from now, we'll need those little guys to guard the perimeter between the good and the not-so-good. In fact, I suspect we'll need all the protector-types we can get, girls included. If we want that, we'd better start expecting it of the kids, and we'd better encourage 'em to get a little protector practice in, starting now. We old patrol types aren't going to be around forever.
Bill Camfield (Icky Twerp) Web Page
Part of Roger Tandy's land was called Tandy Ranch. He channeled water from a spring on his ranch into bottom land of clay to create a small lake--Tandy Lake. Tandy built his home north of the lake near the intersection of Lancaster and Ayers; Arch Hall built his home south of Tandy Lake at about where the 3500 block of Avenue E now is; W. D. Hall built a home on what is now Avenue I. During the 1880s there was even a town named Tandy Lake, and the lake became a popular place to hunt, fish, and picnic.
(That area today also has a Tandy School, Tandy Hills Park, and Tandy Avenue. And Meadowbrook's Lewis, Ben, and Giles Streets are named for Tandys.)
One Internet Web site locates the lake this way: "TANDY LAKE: Located near Normandy Place Park on the R. J. Tandy survey. Tandy Hills Park site hunting, fishing and dancing in the 1880's. 1919 map at S17/18. Mapsco 78G?"
Normandy Place Park (dark shaded on map) is very near the intersection of Ayers and Lancaster and the Stripling-Cox store.
Joyce Alison Calhoun, a great-granddaughter of Roger Tandy, attended TWC and taught business and English at Poly High in the 1950s. Her mother, a daughter of Roger's son G. E. Tandy, was a clerk at William James Junior High. Mrs. Calhoun said recently that the lake was gone by the late 1920s when she was a child in the nearby Tandy house that she refers to as "the big house," although she remembers seeing a photo of Tandy family members swimming in the lake.
Lewis Tandy Jr., brother of Bert Tandy, was born in 1917. He does not recall seeing the lake and thinks it may have been gone by 1920. The Tandy Lake Garage at 3505 East Lancaster was operated by Floyd Thomas, who was the Tandy family mechanic for many years. Lewis Tandy Jr. said that when the interurban station at the lake was demolished after the line closed, Floyd Thomas saved the "Tandy Lake" sign and gave it to Lewis Tandy Sr., father of Lewis and Bert.
The Tandy and Hall families had a lot (the company that would become the Tandy corporation was co-founded in 1918 by Roger's grandnephew David, father of Charles Tandy), and they gave a lot. W. D. Hall was a Confederate soldier in the Civil War. While held in a Union prison camp, he passed the time by teaching himself Latin and other subjects. After his release he taught others--at the Poly area's first school on Sycamore Creek.
G. E. Tandy--son of Roger--and Arch Hall began Poly's first streetcar system in 1892. Mules pulled cars between Poly and downtown Fort Worth. G. E. Tandy also donated land for the interurban train that ran between Fort Worth and Dallas (another interurban line ran between Fort Worth and Cleburne. The narrow steel footbridge over the creek in Sycamore Park originally was part of that line).
In 1890 the Southern Methodist Conference built a college near Fort Worth on land donated by the Hall families and G. E. Tandy. The college was called Polytechnic College, so the town that grew up around it was called Polytechnic. In 1914 Polytechnic College was renamed Texas Wesleyan College.
TWC is located just a few blocks from the site of Tandy Lake.
(Also near the site of Tandy Lake, on Avenue C east of TWC, is Polytechnic Cemetery. A portion of this cemetery was used by Masons to bury women and children who had lived at the nearby Masonic Home. Duncan McRae, for whom D. McRae Elementary School is named, is bured there. So is a grandchild of Roger Tandy. So is Paul Hollis, who invented Poly Pop, the world's first powdered soft drink. Poly Pop was manufactured in Hollis's house just a few blocks from Poly High and was popular in the 1920s and 1930s before Hollis was run out of business by Kool-Aid.)
But just to further muddy the waters, Danny Washmon says his father recalled a lake located closer to where Panther Hall--north of TWC--would later be. That lake was used by a railroad (presumably Texas & Pacific) to supply water for steam engines, as were Katy Lake and Echo Lake in south Fort Worth.
So, were there two lakes located close to each other? A map of the area from 1927 (and even older maps) shows no lakes. But it also shows no housing or other development in the area where the two lakes would have been. (The dark shading on the map is apparently not an indication of water, woods, etc.)
There's more. During the New Deal's Federal Writers' Project of 1936-1940, writers interviewed and recorded the oral histories of many Americans. Below is an excerpt from the transcription of the oral history of Tom Garrett, a cowboy born on the Tandy Ranch in 1885 (note the passage in italics):
"Tom Garrett, 52, negro was born on the Tandy Ranch, which was located on the S.E. outskirts of Fort Worth and extended to where Handley, Tex. now stands. Tom was taught to ride at an early age, and was employed as a regular cowboy at the age of 10. His father, Frank Garrett had won recognition as a top cowhand, thus Tom received the best training possible, working with his father. When he was 25, he quit the Tandy Ranch to work with his father, who went to dealing in stock. His father died in 1916, and Tom went to the Triangle C Ranch, in Crosby and Lubbock counties, where he was employed until he quit, at age 33. He then came to Fort Worth to pursue various other occupations, where he now resides at 1307 Lucile St. His story:
"Does I know anything 'bout de old time cowboys? I'll say I does! Why, I was bo'n on a ranch just a few miles f'om whar weuns am standin' right now. I was bo'n on de Tandy Ranch, right up de crick f'om whar de big white house at Tandy Lake now am. 'Twas on November de 10th, 1885, when de ranch am so big it runs f'om somewhar in whar Poly am now, to de tudder side of whar Handley am now. In de days I'm talkin' 'bout, 'twarnt no houses a-tall, just cow critters, grass an' mesquite bushes. De headquarters house am a double log house wid a hall runnin' betweens, an' a big rock chimney on both sides.
"Co'se now, bein' a nigger kid, 'twarnt none of my business 'bout how many critters de Tandys am runnin', nor how many section 'twas in de ranch. 'Bout de most of what I can tell 'bout, am de wo'kin' and what de cow punchers done. I can't tell you 'bout when I fust rode a hoss but I'll say 'twas befo' I was three yeahs, old, 'cause I can rec'lect pullin' a hoss over to a mesquite bush so's I could crawl on when I was so small I couldn't carry anything very heavy. By the time I was six, I was ridin' ever' yearling I could catch wid a rope. I was crazy to ride. I wanted to be ridin' 'round all de time. De main most reason 'hind de ridin' idea was dat I wanted to be lak my dad. His name was Frank Garrett, an' lotsa oldtimers will rec'lect him as bein' de best in de business in dat day and time."
Note that Garrett mentioned a "crick" near the lake. Possibly that creek flowed from the spring that was the source of Tandy Lake's water.
The East Side has had other lakes tucked here and there that have come and gone through the years. Robert Smith, class of 1951, reminds us that there once was a lake at Glenwood Park, which is on Riverside Drive south of Vickery and north of Rosedale. And a 1955 U.S. Geological Survey map of Fort Worth shows an Eliot Lake just north of Berry and west of Riverside Drive. Both lakes were near railroads and possibly were used to supply water for locomotives. And, of course, some of us caught catfish in Fosdic Lake, which still exists in Oakland Park east of Oakland Boulevard and south of the Turnpike.
And then there was Erie Lake, behind the Handley power plant south of Spur 303 (map is 1905, postcard is 1908), which was used to supply water for the original power plant that generated electricity for the interurban line between Fort Worth and Dallas. Don Peacock recalls swimming at Erie Lake. He says the water was very warm after being used to cool the generating equipment. Lou Hudson, class of 1958, remembers when his Boy Scout troop helped build a temporary road around the area when the dam was built for Arlington Lake. A historical marker at the plant reads:
"The Northern Texas Traction Company built the original plant at this location to generate electrical power for the Fort Worth-Dallas Interurban. Lake Erie provided water for plant operations. The area developed as a park and became popular for local outings and social events. A two-story auditorium extended over the edge of the lake. When interurban traffic declined the park was closed. The power plant was expanded to meet increased electrical demands. In 1956 Lake Arlington became the new source of water for the Handley Plant, and Lake Erie was drained. (1980)"
At this point our casual research into the "missing lake" took an unexpected personal turn. After the death of his mother in 2000, Mike Nichols had come across an abstract for the family property at 3230 Burton--a few miles south of the center of Tandy world headquarters. The abstract was dated 1930 and yellowed and brittle, containing more than one hundred pages of plats, affidavits, deeds, liens, court cases, and other dense legal documents relating to the chain of ownership of that humble city lot. Reading that Tandy Lake had been located in a "Tandy survey" rang a bell. Nichols reexamined the abstract for 3230 Burton and discovered the following history:
1840: The abstract states that secretary of war for the Republic of Texas, Branch Tanner Archer (born in Virginia in 1790, came to Texas in 1831), issued to the heirs of one Robert R. Ramey an "augmentation and bounty land warrant" for 1,920 acres of land in what would become Tarrant County. This land was granted in recognition of Ramey's service while fighting--and dying--in the Texas Revolution.
Research shows that Robert R. Ramey (also sometimes spelled "Rainey" and "Raimey") joined Colonel James Fannin in Tennessee and went to Texas, where he died with Fannin at the Battle of Goliad shortly after the Battle of the Alamo in 1836.
The abstract includes a 1908 affidavit from Duncan McRae, an heir of Ramey, stating that according to the story told in his family, Ramey did die with Fannin at Goliad.
This is corroborated by sources such as Harbert Davenport's "The Men of Goliad: An Essay on the Texas Revolution, Goliad Campaign & Massacre" of 1939, which states:
"Although Robert R. Rainey signed the Convention Memorial at Refugio about Feb. 5th, he was paid as a member of Duval's Company only from Feb. 15, 1836 to March 27, 1836; from which it may be inferred that he came to Refugio as a member of Lawrence's Company [or possibly with Wigginton's] and did not decide to enroll as a "permanent volunteer" until after Fannin's march to Goliad. His pay was drawn by J. C. Burney as administrator. [CMSR No. 46, State Library.] The sources all agree that he was a victim of the general massacre of March 27, 1836."
The same source further states that Ramey's heirs were given a "bounty and donation" land grant in Tarrant County.
1851: The abstract shows that that bounty and donation land, in three 640-acre sections, was surveyed for Ramey's heirs by M. T. Johnson.
1857: Ramey's heirs gave a fourth 640-acre section of land known as the R. R. Ramey survey (outlined in yellow on map) to Johnson in payment for his surveying the wilderness that would become Poly. The 1908 affidavit by Duncan McRae stated that M. T. Johnson had been given the Ramey survey by Ramey's heirs in return for surveying the sections. In an affidavit filed in 1911, A. S. Hall (see below) made the same statement.
1874: Johnson's heirs sold the land of the R. R. Ramey survey, in sixteen forty-acre tracts, to, among others, W. D. Hall, G. E. Tandy, and A. H. Tandy--of the original pioneer Hall and Tandy families--for as little as $1.30 an acre. (Lewis Tandy Jr. still owns a house built for G. E. Tandy in the 3400 block of Meadowbrook Drive.)
Tracts 4, 5, 6, and 7 (light shaded on map)--which we will detail later--of the Ramey survey were bought by K. M. Van Zandt and A. H. Tandy.
(K. M. [Khleber Miller] Van Zandt--lawyer, soldier, merchant, banker, and civic leader--was born in Tennessee in 1836. The family moved in 1839 to Texas. He arrived in Fort Worth in 1865 and found "a sad and gloomy picture," as the town had a population of only 250 people and lacked "even a saloon." In 1875 he organized the Tarrant County Construction Company, which built the Texas & Pacific roadbed from Dallas to Fort Worth. In 1874, with John Peter Smith, James Jones Jarvis, and Thomas A. Tidball, Van Zandt organized Tidball, Van Zandt and Company, forerunner of the Fort Worth National Bank. He also co-founded the Democrat, Fort Worth's first newspaper.)
G. E. Tandy and A. H. Tandy were brothers--sons of Roger. W. D. Hall and Arch Hall were brothers. Was the A. S. Hall who filed an affidavit in 1911 the Arch Hall who came to Tarrant County in 1852 with brother-in-law Roger Tandy and settled south of Tandy Lake, per the Bratton history? Probably. A. S. Hall's 1911 affidavit states that he came to Tarrant County in 1853 and lived "near Fort Worth" about one mile from the R. R. Ramey survey.
1876: K. M. Van Zandt sold his two tracts of the old Ramey survey to A. H. Tandy, giving A. H. Tandy ownership of tracts 4, 5, 6, and 7.
1909: A. H. Tandy sold his four tracts of the old Ramey survey to American Realty Company.
1910: American Realty Company sold the tracts to Polytechnic Heights Investment Company.
1914: Polytechnic Heights Investment Company named the tracts the "Englewood Heights" subdivision and, after streets were built, dedicated the streets for public use.
The boundaries of Englewood Heights subdivision were Hanger Street to Tarrant Road and Vaughn Boulevard to Little Street.
1921: Polytechnic Heights Investment Company sold lot 8, block 9 of Englewood Heights subdivision--the legal description of 3230 Burton--to Mrs. Etta Newby.
1922: Mrs. Etta Newby sold the lot to Ida Williams.
1927: A detailed 1927 map shows a house on the lot at 3230 Burton--surely the current Nichols house. Another 1927 map shows that the Fort Worth city limits ran along Burton and Miller Streets! Also notice a street named Ramey. And notice that Burchill Road was called Bowman Springs Road, which today exists only in Arlington.
1930: Ida Williams sold the lot to R. M. Chitty.
1948: R. M. Chitty sold the lot to Willie Mashburn.
1950: Willie Mashburn sold the lot to A. E. Busby.
1951: A. E. Busby sold the lot to S. D. Nichols.
2003: The heirs of S. D. Nichols will have to part with the lot and now-empty house, thus ending fifty-two years of family ownership and adding another link to a chain of ownership dating back 160 years in history to the Texas Revolution--history shared by Randy Renois, Dianne Duke, Marcia Melton, Monte Martin, Charles and Joe May, Candy and Kerry Taylor, Sherry Newman, Jack and Fuzzy Hotchkiss, John Nevins, Jerry Zeigler, Dennis Parrish, Billy Foster, Jerry Jackson, Keith and Ken Petty, Cindy and Raymond Dunaway, Debbie Hill, David Geeslin, Butch Hawkins, Barbara Cleveland, Ronald Gould, and all the other kids who grew up in that neighborhood.
And so, in looking for a lost lake, we found more--a lot more--tying together the Tandys, Duncan McRae, Robert R. Ramey of Goliad, and all the people who would someday live in places called Poly and Englewood Heights, just south of a lake called Tandy that no one remembers.
Somewhere up there our old history teacher Joe Clark is smiling and saying, "I told you chuckleheads--history is damned interesting. And it's right under your feet!"
What a publicity gimmick it would be.
Developer Ed Casebier and his partners want to dig up an old steam engine that has been buried in an Arlington creek bed for more than 100 years, refurbish it, and put it in the lobby of a new hotel they plan in Fort Worth.
That would surely create some buzz.
Problem is, nobody knows exactly where the locomotive is. The subject has been the topic of considerable debate in Arlington for decades, and some people question whether the engine might have been hauled away long ago by scrap hunters. And even if Casebier and his group find it, who knows what kind of shape it's in.
But Casebier said that won't stop him and his partners from looking for Texas & Pacific Engine No. 642, which fell into Village Creek during a flood in 1885.
Casebier, Tom Blanton and Halden Conner announced plans earlier this week to turn the historic Texas & Pacific Terminal building in downtown Fort Worth into a luxury hotel, with the vintage steam engine serving as the centerpiece. The T&P Terminal will be the Fort Worth terminus for Trinity Railway Express, a commuter train linking Fort Worth and Dallas, and an old train engine in the lobby would be the crowning touch.
"We already had plans on restoring a T&P engine and putting it on our property for display before we knew that thing was there," Casebier said. "It's an old engine that will be lost otherwise."
But Mark Davis, a spokesman for the Nebraska-based Union Pacific Railroad, which owns the old T&P line, said he believes the locomotive might stay lost.
This won't be the first time somebody has gone looking for it, and salvage efforts have been less successful than attempts to raise the Titanic. At least somebody found the Titanic.
"Our experience with this is that the folklore may be stronger than reality," Davis said. "Every five years or so, somebody wants to go down and look for it, but nobody has ever found the locomotive."
And if somebody does find it, they'd have to get permission from Union Pacific to go digging around their tracks.
There's also the problem that the locomotive might have sunk near a train trestle. That trestle doesn't exist anymore, but it was replaced decades ago by a new one.
"Our concern is with the safety of the right of way," Davis said. "If somebody finds the locomotive and wants to dig it up near the bridge, they definitely would have to coordinate with us on how to prevent the disruption of the soil around the piers that support the bridge."
This much about the locomotive's history is known. A train fell off a trestle that had been weakened by floodwaters. The engine and two cars plunged into 12 feet of water. One person was killed. The mail and baggage cars were recovered, but the engine was left in the mud.
Subsequent efforts to pull the train out failed and the engine eventually sank.
What's unclear is where the train sank and whether it's still there today. Popular belief pins the location somewhere near what is now the junction of Division Street and Dottie Lynn Parkway on the city's west side.
But Jeffery Hanson, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Arlington, believes the train might have sunk farther south of Division Street, closer to Pioneer Parkway.
"I was told that it was over at Pioneer Parkway, just before you get to Green Oaks," said Hanson, who has poked around, trying to find the engine. "There is a trestle that goes across. What I couldn't understand is how a train that size could have fallen in there. There would be some sort of mound."
Hanson thinks somebody dug up the train sometime in the last century and "took it away," possibly for sale as scrap metal.
But 95-year-old Bill Bardin is positive it's still there. He said his grandfather was one of the workers who tried to recover the train from the creek. He said any effort to remove the engine later would have been too hard to hide.
"The old Interurban run was running along there," Bardin said. "If there had been any recovery, people riding that Interurban would have seen it."
To get it out, according to Hanson, would require the use of something like a proton magnetometer. He described the device as being like a metal detector. It reads the Earth's magnetic fields and locates items by the disruptions they cause in the fields.
"The only other way is to guess and start digging in a very systematic way," he said. "That's a crapshoot."
Casebier is prepared to spend $1 million to find the engine, recover it, restore it and put it in the hotel lobby. He's even sparked some interest from two documentary filmmakers who want to chronicle the recovery efforts.
"Hopefully it won't go too far past $1 million," Casebier said. "We're choking on $1 million to do it."
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ACTON--Old No. 97 is looking old.
The once-powerful little steam engine has blown gaskets and is missing controls. Finding a spot not rusted is virtually impossible.
But Brad Yarborough, great-grandson of the man who built Old No. 97 80 years ago, has a dream that it will run again.
Yarborough, 25, said the locomotive was built by his great-grandfather, Robert Lee Hughes. He built it his back yard in Polytechnic Heights in southeast Fort Worth.
"He built it from car parts, bicycle parts and stuff he had lying around the house," Yarborough said.
In its heyday--1923 to 1948--the miniature train delighted children and grown-ups at Casino Beach, a once-popular recreation spot on Lake Worth just off Jacksboro Highway. Vivian Hughes, 77, Yarborough's grandmother, said she believes that her late husband moved her father-in-law's train to Sylvania Park, in east Fort Worth, in the early 1950s.
"Later it was on University Drive, not far from Forest Park," she said.
Nancy Hughes Yarborough, 47, Yarborough's mother, said she remembered riding it as a child. "We spent our weekends at Casino Beach, and what we did was ride the train," she said. She said the little train could pull 10 or 12 cars with up to 200 people at a time.
Brad Yarborough said the train was lost to his family more than 40 years ago. He believes that it was in the late 1950s, or maybe 1960, when his great-grandfather had a stroke, and the little train was sold to pay medical bills.
Vivian Hughes said it was sold to a Mr. Case. One way or another, it then passed to a woman in Hico, who operated it in Hico City Park.
"She used it for many years in Hico until it was damaged in a fire," Brad Yarborough said. The tender and eight or 10 cars were destroyed. The engine, being mostly iron and steel, survived but was inoperable.
Yarborough said the story goes that the woman in Hico sent it to a man in Pine Bluff, Ark., for restoration.
"He had it for many many years, never working on it," Brad Yarborough said.
In time, the Hico woman died, and the Arkansas man wanted to sell everything he had and retire.
Yarborough said many in his extended family were waiting for the little locomotive to surface.
"We had known where it was. We had tried to get it back in the family for years, but the lady in Hico would never sell it," Brad Yarborough said.
When Old No. 97 ended up on an auction flier last summer in Pine Bluff, the call went out. "I have family in Arkansas. My mom's cousin called her mother, who called my grandmother, who called me and said, 'This is our train,'" Yarborough said.
Several family members pitched in and came up with $1,500 to buy it.
Now the family hopes to find the money to restore the little train and someone with the expertise to do it, Brad Yarborough said.
His hope is to put it back into service at a public park in the area.
For now, it sits in the back yard at his home in Acton, about 30 miles southwest of Fort Worth.
Nancy Yarborough has high hopes that the little locomotive will run again.
"My dad didn't have it for his grandkids, but maybe we can have it for ours," Nancy Yarborough said.
The name, "Old No. 97," by the way, was borrowed from The Wreck of the Old 97, a song recorded in 1924 by Vernon Dalhart, a native of Jefferson. It was country music's first million-seller.
The Swordsmen minus Frank and Logan
Back in high school, three Poly boys--Jerry Stewart, Neil Wilcox, and Frank Rodieck--and one Eastern Hills boy--Logan Swords--formed a band called the Swordsmen. Recent archeological excavation of a cardboard box in the back of a closet in an unused bedroom in a home in rural Limestone County has unearthed a copy of the 45-RPM record that the band cut. Contacted recently, Logan Swords, who has operated his Swords Music Co. on East Lancaster since he was in college, recalled that each member of the band chipped in about fifty dollars to cut the record at the old Delta recording studio on Curry Street near Farrington Field. Jerry wrote one side--"Our Love"--and Logan wrote the other side--"The Sound of Drums."
Asked which side is the "A side," Logan said, "Well, if you ask me, 'The Sound of Drums.' If you ask Jerry, 'Our Love.'"
The Swordsmen, like the Beatles, later broke up. But Logan has given his permission for "Our Love" and "The Sound of Drums" to be offered here. (The songs are in reduced mp3 audio quality to load faster to your computer's media player.)
Texas has plenty of old movie theaters worth saving.
The half-wrecked 7th Street Theatre in west Fort Worth was never among them.
Until April, the 7th Street was a dinky old neighborhood movie house with a great location and a handsome neon sign. Now it is a tumbledown shell in the way of potential development around a stately traffic plaza.
The owners want it torn down. Period. In a comedy of errors, City Hall gave them the OK and then took it away. A city commission told them to stop until Oct. 14, further wasting everybody's time.
It's the worst opus to hit the big screen since Ishtar--and it's leaving other movie house owners dazed and confused.
"My theater is larger," said Harold Griffith. He's selling the 66-year-old New Isis Theater in the historic Stockyards. "It's older. It's much more historic.
"If they're so interested in saving an old theater, I wish they'd talk to me."
For three years now, historic preservationists locally and nationally have called the 7th Street the "last single-screen theater" in town.
That is wrong.
At least two complete movie houses and three other theater facades are available to be "saved" in Fort Worth. They simply aren't on prime property.
Yet another, the 80-year-old Rose Marine Theater, was restored as a performing arts center last year with public money.
True, the 7th Street was the city's last traditional one-screen theater to stay in business. But that doesn't make it any more historically essential than the vacant New Isis, closed in 1988, or the South Side's Berry Theater, closed at least that long.
Two movie houses in southeast Fort Worth, the Grand on Fabons Street and the Poly on Vaughn Boulevard--built by the 7th Street's owner, the late Boyd Milligan--also stand intact as churches. Not far from the New Isis, the facade and neon sign of the old Azle Theater still mark Azle Avenue.
On the West Side, the two good movie houses have been "saved." The beautiful Ridglea, where a Julia Roberts movie premiered in 1988, is a music club. The Bowie--the theater of my youth--is a bank.
Look, I'm a sucker for old stuff. But I'm not a big enough sucker to turn down an elegant Cultural District "gateway plaza" of some kind--roundabout, crossroad, whatever--in favor of an old second-run theater.
Griffith's family ran movie houses across West Texas in towns such as Pecos and Hereford for most of the 20th century. He bought the New Isis in 1970, about the same time he moved here to help expand his family's Griff's Burger Bar restaurant chain.
When the Stockyards still smelled of manure and hog pens, he eked out a profit showing westerns and karate movies.
"We catered to the children and families on the north side, and to the working men in the Stockyards," he remembered. "There were a lot of real characters down there along Exchange Avenue, nice people. Then the characters started drifting away, and so did the movie business."
For 40 years, Fort Worth's favorite movie theaters were downtown. The classic Seventh Street "show row" began shutting down when multiscreen mall theaters opened.
The 2,284-seat Worth closed in 1971, followed by the Palace in 1974 and the Hollywood in 1976. The Hollywood space remains partially intact next door to the Star-Telegram inside an apartment tower.
Downtown went without a theater--not counting the 1970s porn shops--until the AMC Sundance opened in 1991.
Between 1976 and 1988, the closest theater for inner-city children and families was the 967-seat New Isis. The theater was a sparkling addition to the North Side when the Tidball family opened it March 27, 1936, featuring a Popeye cartoon and a movie starring South Side girl Ginger Rogers. The theater replaced a 1914 Isis Theater built in the days of silent movies.
Compare that to the sparse history of the 1946-vintage 7th Street Theatre, described even in a 1988 historic survey as a "simple, stucco box."
A similar neighborhood theater, the Rosedale, was demolished recently with no protest.
"I just don't see how the 7th Street can be that big of a deal," Griffith said. "The Bowie is nice. So is the Ridglea. Not the 7th Street."
It's only a big deal because it's at Seventh Street and University Drive and because a few petty people in town want to bully the owners into changing their plans for the plaza.
The 7th Street is not the "last" theater in town.
If you think it is, then you need to see the rest of town.
How many cultural icons of the '50s and '60s can you identify?
Crave more? Here's a second set
Recently, we here at Nostalgia Central have been remembering the good old days, as we often do when we have forgotten to take our brain medicine. We remember:
The Hollywood, Palace, and Worth theaters downtown; the Poly, Varsity, and Gateway theaters in Poly; Sutter's, Clover, and Griddle restaurants; Mansfield, Twin, Riverside, and Cowtown drive-in theaters; Leonard's, Everybody's, Monnig's, and Stripling's stores downtown; Atlantic Mills, Clark's, and Spartan's discount stores; these phone exchanges: JEfferson, GLenview, TErminal, AXminster, WAlnut, MArket, EDison, PErshing, and LOckwood; Houlihan's, Buddies, A. L. Davis, and Collup's grocery stores; the Sycamore Park miniature golf course and the driving range in Cobb Park; public swimming pools on Beach and East Berry; bowling alleys on East Berry and East Lancaster; bicycle shops on Vaughn, Bishop, and Nashville; LaGrave Field on North Main, Del Murray Little League field on Maddox, and the Pony League field next to the nine-hole Sycamore golf course; Poly Elementary and the original D. McRae Elementary; Kragen, Kissinger, and Riley's auto parts stores; the goldfish pond in the original Burnett Park downtown; Pete the python and Fireman Bill; the Cellar and Panther Hall; the Fort Worth Press and the Poly Herald; Poly Drug and Cloud's Pharmacy on Vaughn, Moreland Drug on East Seminary; Mr. Quick and Griff's fast food restaurants.
And we remember when Arlington Lake was still under construction in 1957 when heavy rains filled the lake bed in just twelve days, leaving some heavy equipment submerged to this day; when Katy Lake was drained and Seminary South (now Town Center) mall was built on the site. Did you know that Katy Lake's lesser-known twin, Echo Lake, is alive and wet just across the South Freeway? Both lakes were built to provide water for steam locomotives.
We remember prayer in school, taps on shoes, baseball card chewing gum, crew cuts, moon and wire-rim hubcaps, desks with ink wells, Uncle Joe orange soft drinks, four-track audio tape cartridges, Fun in the Sun Country Club; Icky Twerp, Mickey and Amanda, Captain Swabby, Gorgon, and the apes Arkadelphia, Ajax, Linoleum, and Delphinium on KFJZ-TV; telephone party lines, the TV test pattern with the Indian chief, Cold War duck-and-cover drills, butch wax, English Leather, book covers, steering wheel knobs, Mark Stevens, Randy Robbins, Rod Roddy, Charles Hobby, Ken Dow and Granny Emma, and Jimmy Rabbit on the radio, TV weathermen Harold Taft, Warren Culberson, and Dale Milford, Ron Chapman as host of the local TV dance show Somethin' Else, spit wads, paisley and madras, bookmobiles, Super 8 movie cameras, white Levis, penny loafers, fishnet hose, C. A. Thompson (principal of Poly High from the beginning of recorded history through our freshman year), house calls, lightning bugs, horny toads, and "asp" caterpillars; polio shots, Ward's Plaza at Berry and Riverside, the amusement park rides at Forest Park, hardware stores like Burge's on Rosedale and Poly Hardware on Vaughn that sold all the BBs and fishing tackle you'd ever need, used cars that you could buy for $100 and that would run much of the time, vacation Bible school, the smell of a Mott's variety store, Leonard's Toyland at Christmas, the smell of Baird's bakery on the West Freeway, pet turtles, milk in glass jugs, three-speed English racers, Lambretta and Vespa scooters, Chevy Super Sports, GTOs, Ford Mustangs for $2,400, Wide Oval tires, Ovaltine, playing league basketball at the "Rec" across from the high school, the Pied Piper jingling of the ice cream man's truck, home delivery by companies such as Boswell Dairy and Manor Bakery, and, last but not least, those urban legends about psychopaths with hooks for hands who attacked couples parked in local Lovers Lanes--legends that were intended to scare teens into celibacy. Well, they didn't, so there!
We bet that you can add to this list. Just jot down your memories of the old days--the old people, places, and things--at our guestbook.
The perfect age is somewhere between being old enough to know better and being young enough not to care. How many of the following do you remember?
Are you feeling old today? No? Well, we can fix that. Each year the staff at Beloit College in Wisconsin puts together a list to give the faculty a sense of the mind-set of the year's incoming freshmen. Here is this year's list:
The people who are starting college this fall were born in 1983.
They have no meaningful recollection of the Reagan era and probably did not know he had ever been shot.
They were prepubescent when the Persian Gulf War was waged. Black Monday 1987 is as significant to them as the Great Depression.
There has been only one pope.
They were eleven when the Soviet Union broke apart and do not remember the Cold War.
They have never feared a nuclear war.
They are too young to remember the space shuttle blowing up.
Tiananmen Square means nothing to them.
Bottle caps have always been screw-off and plastic.
Atari predates them, as do vinyl albums.
The expression "You sound like a broken record" means nothing to them.
They have never owned a record player.
They have likely never played Pac-Man and have never heard of Pong.
They may have never heard of an eight-track. The compact disc was introduced when they were one year old.
As far as they know, stamps have always cost about thirty-three cents.
They have always had an answering machine.
Most have never seen a TV set with only thirteen channels, nor have they seen a black and white TV.
They have always had cable.
They have always had VCRs, but they have no idea what Beta was.
They cannot fathom not having a remote control, to say nothing of a remote connected by wire to the TV or VCR.
They don't know what a cloth diaper is.
Feeling old yet? There's more:
They were born the year that the Walkman was introduced by Sony.
Roller skating has always meant inline for them.
Jay Leno has always been the host of the Tonight Show.
They have no idea when or why Jordache jeans were cool.
Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave.
They have never seen Larry Byrd play.
They have never taken a swim in the ocean and thought about Jaws.
To them, the Vietnam War is history as ancient as WWI, WWII, and the Civil War.
They have no idea that Americans were ever held hostage in Iran.
They can't imagine what hard contact lenses are.
They don't know who Mork was or where he was from.
They never heard "I'd walk a mile for a Camel."
They do not care who shot J. R. and have no idea who J. R. was.
The Titanic was found? They thought we always knew.
Michael Jackson has always been white.
Kansas, Chicago, Boston, America, and Alabama are places, not rock bands.
McDonald's never came in Styrofoam containers.
There has always been MTV.
They don't have a clue how to use a typewriter.
Do you feel old yet? We thought so.
(Thanks to Kathy Tull for forwarding this)
1. Name the Beatles.
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________
2. Finish the line: "Lions and Tigers and Bears, ______ _____!"
3. "Hey kids, what time is it?" _____ ______ _____ _____.
4. What do M&M's do? ___ ___ ___ ___, ____ ____ ____ ____
5. What helps build strong bodies 12 ways? ______ _______.
6. Long before he was Mohammed Ali, we knew him as _______ ______.
7. You'll wonder where the yellow went, ____ ____ ____ ____ _____ _____ _____."
8. Post-baby boomers know Bob Denver as the Skipper's "little buddy." But we know that Bob Denver is actually Dobie's closest friend, ______ G. _______.
9. M-I-C: See ya real soon; K-E-Y: _____? ____ _____ _____ _____!
10. "Brylcream: ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ _____."
11. Bob Dylan advised us never to trust anyone _____ _____.
12. From the early days of our music, real rock 'n' roll, finish this line: "I wonder, wonder, wonder . . . wonder who; ____ ______ _____ _____ _____ ____?"
13. And while we're remembering rock 'n' roll, try this one: "War . . . uh-huh, huh . . . yeah; what is it good for? ____ _____."
14. Meanwhile, back home in Metropolis, Superman fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and _____ ____ _____.
15. He came out of the University of Alabama and became one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL. He later went on to appear in a television commercial wearing women's stockings. He is Broadway _____ _______.
16. "I'm Popeye the sailor man; I'm Popeye the sailor man. I'm strong to the finish, ____ _____ ____ ___ ____ ______. I'm Popeye the sailor man."
17. Your children probably recall that Peter Pan was recently played by Robin Williams, but we will always remember when Peter was played by ______ _______.
18. In a movie from the late sixties, Paul Newman played Luke, a ne'er-do-well who was sent to a prison camp for cutting off the heads of parking meters with a pipe cutter. When he was captured after an unsuccessful attempt to escape, the camp commander (played by Strother Martin) used this experience as a lesson for the other prisoners and explained, "What we have here, ____ ____ ____ ____ ____."
19. In 1962, a dejected politician chastised the press after losing a race for governor while announcing his retirement from politics. "Just think, you won't have ____ ____ to kick around anymore."
20. "Every morning, at the mine, you could see him arrive; he stood six foot six, weighed 245. Kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip. And everybody knew you didn't give no lip, _____ _____ , _____ _____ _____."
21. "I found my thrill _____ _____ _____."
22. ________ ________ said, "Good night, Mrs. Calabash, _____ _____ _____."
23. "Good night, David." "_____ ______,______."
24. "Liar, liar, ____ ____ _____."
25. "When it's least expected, you're elected. You're the star today. _______! _____ ______ ______ ______."
26. It was Pogo, the comic strip character, who said, "We have met the enemy, and ____ ___ ____."
(Thanks to Kathy Tull for forwarding this)
1. "Kookie, Kookie, lend me your ________________."
2. The "battle cry" of the hippies in the sixties was "Turn on; tune in; _____________."
3. After the Lone Ranger saved the day and rode off into the sunset, the grateful citizens would ask, "Who was that masked man?" Invariably, someone would answer, "I don't know, but he left this behind." What did he leave behind? _________
4. Folk songs were played side by side with rock and roll. One of the most memorable folk songs included these lyrics: "When the rooster crows at the break of dawn, look out your window and I'll be gone. You're the reason I'm traveling on, ______________________."
5. A group of protesters arrested at the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968 achieved cult status and was known as the ________________.
6. When the Beatles first came to the United States in early 1964, we all watched them on the "___________________Show."
7. Some of us who protested the Vietnam War did so by burning our ____________.
8. We all learned to read using the same books. We read about the thrilling lives and adventures of Dick and Jane. What was the name of Dick and Jane's dog? ______
9. The cute little car with the engine in the back and the trunk (what there was of it) in the front was called the VW. What other names did it go by? ________and ______
10. A Broadway musical and movie gave us the gang names the _____________and the ___________.
11. In the seventies, we called the dropout nonconformists "hippies." But in the early sixties, they were known as ________________.
12. William Bendix played Chester A. Riley, who always seemed to get the short end of the stick in the television program, "The Life of Riley." At the end of each show, poor Chester would turn to the camera and exclaim, "What a ________."
13. "Get your kicks ________________."
14. "The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed ________."
15. The real James Bond, Sean Connery, mixed his martinis a special way: _________.
16. "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, ________________."
17. That "adult" book by Henry Miller--the one that contained all the "dirty" dialogue--was titled "_________."
18. Today, the math geniuses in school might walk around with a calculator strapped to their belt. But back in the sixties, members of the math club used a _________.
19. In 1971, singer Don Maclean sang a song about "the day the music died." This was a reference and tribute to _______________.
20. A well-known television commercial featured a driver who was miraculously lifted through thin air and into the front seat of a convertible. The matching slogan was "Let Hertz ________________."
21. After the Twist, the Mashed Potatoes, and the Watusi, we "danced" under a stick that was lowered as low as we could go in a dance called the ________________.
22. "N-E-S-T-L-E-S; Nestles makes the very best _____________________."
23. In the late sixties, the "full figure" style of Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe gave way to the "trim" look, as first exemplified by British model ________________.
24. Satchmo was America's "ambassador of goodwill." Our parents shared this great jazz trumpet player with us. His name was ________________.
25. On Jackie Gleason's variety show in the sixties, one of the most popular segments was "Joe, the Bartender." Joe's regular visitor at the bar was that slightly off-center but lovable character: ____________________ (the character's name, not the actor's)
26. We can remember the first satellite placed into orbit. The Russians did it; it was called ________________.
27. What takes a licking and keeps on ticking? ____________
28. One of the big fads of the late fifties and sixties was a large plastic ring that we twirled around our waist; it was called the ________________.
29. The "Age of Aquarius" was brought into the mainstream in the Broadway musical "________________."
30. This is a two-parter: Red Skelton's hobo character (not the hayseed; the hobo) was _______. Red ended his television show by saying, "Good night, and __________."
1. "Kookie, Kookie, lend me your comb." If you said "ears," you're in the wrong millennium, pal; you've spent way too much time in Latin class.
2. The "battle cry" of the hippies in the sixties was "Turn on; tune in; drop out." Many people who proclaimed that thirty years ago today are Wall Street bond traders and corporate lawyers.
3. The Lone Ranger left behind a silver bullet. Several of you said he left behind his mask. Oh, no; even off the screen, Clayton Moore would not be seen as the Lone Ranger without his mask!
4. "When the rooster crows at the break of dawn, look out your window and I'll be gone. You're the reason I'm traveling on; don't think twice, it's all right."
5. The group of protesters arrested at the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968 was known as the Chicago Seven. As Paul Harvey says, "They would like me to mention their names."
6. When the Beatles first came to the United States in early 1964, we all watched them on the "Ed Sullivan Show."
7. Some of us who protested the Vietnam War did so by burning our draft cards. If you said "bras," you've got the right spirit, but nobody ever burned a bra while I was watching. The "bra burning" days came as a byproduct of women's liberation movement, which had nothing directly to do with the Vietnam War.
8. Dick and Jane's dog was Spot. "See Spot run." Whatever happened to them? Rumor has it they have been replaced in some school systems by "Heather Has Two Mommies."
9. It was the VW Beetle, or more affectionately, the Bug.
10. A Broadway musical and movie gave us the gang names the Sharks and the Jets: "West Side Story."
11. In the early sixties, the dropout nonconformists were known as beatniks. Maynard G. Krebs was the classic beatnik, except that he had no rhythm, man; a beard, but no beat.
12. At the end of "The Life of Riley," Chester would turn to the camera and exclaim, "What a revolting development this is."
13. "Get your kicks on Route 66."
14. "The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent."
15. The real James Bond, Sean Connery, mixed his martinis a special way: shaken, not stirred.
16. "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight."
17. That "adult" book by Henry Miller was titled Tropic of Cancer. Today it would hardly rate a PG-13 rating.
18. Back in the sixties, members of the math club used a slide rule.
19. "The day the music died" was a reference and tribute to Buddy Holly.
20. The matching slogan was "Let Hertz put you in the driver's seat."
21. After the Twist, the Mashed Potatoes, and the Watusi, we "danced" under a stick in a dance called the Limbo.
22. "N-E-S-T-L-E-S; Nestles makes the very best . . . chooo-c'late." In the television commercial, the word "chocolate" was sung by a puppet--a dog. (Remember his mouth flopping open and shut?)
23. In the late sixties, the "full figure" style gave way to the "trim" look, as first exemplified by British model Twiggy.
24. Our parents shared this great jazz trumpet player with us. His name was Louis Armstrong.
25. Joe's regular visitor at the bar was Crazy Googenheim.
26. The Russians put the first satellite into orbit; it was called Sputnik.
27. What takes a licking and keeps on ticking? A Timex watch.
28. The large plastic ring that we twirled around our waist was called the Hula-Hoop.
29. The "Age of Aquarius" was brought into the mainstream in the Broadway musical "Hair."
30. Red Skelton's hobo character was Freddie the Freeloader. (Clem Kadiddlehopper was the "hayseed.") Red ended his television show by saying, "Good night, and may God bless."
Maybe we didn't think so at the time, but thirty-three years ago life was a bargain. The following prices are from ads in a 1967 Star-Telegram:
Oh, what we could do with a time machine and a shopping cart. The following prices are from ads in a 1967 Star-Telegram:
Remember? It Happened in 1967
