E-MAIL MEMORIES, PAGE 23



MIKE ROGERS IN METAIRIE:
Hi Bob. Just discovered your website (excellent job) and have enjoyed it very much. I hope you never get tired of hearing this, but I've grown up listening to you and Tix'... and it's a special comfort knowing that some of the good things never change. I even had an Official WTIX "Tenna-Topper" (orange styrofoam ball) on my car..lol That was a promotion the station did to let everyone who saw you know you were listening to "The Mighty 690". (1963-1964?)

Do you remember Hopper's Drive In's? I believe Burger King bought out the two locations I knew of in the Metairie/Kenner area. There was one close to Vets & Transcontinental (where Burger King is now) and one on Airline Hwy. in Kenner. They had a great multicolored neon sign that revolved as a trademark. It was similar to todays Sonic Drive In as far as the type of food that was offered. A great place to take your date if you were short on cash.... and who wasn't at 17.

I tried searching the net for Hopper's, but there was only one mention of the Drive In, and it was a written article. It would be great if someone out there had a photo of the place they could send to you for your webpage.

BOB:
My favorite Hopper's was the one on Jefferson Highway, on the right just before Ochsner Hospital coming from the Sands. There were Hopper's in Baton Rouge too when I started there at LSU in 1965, a welcome sight! If someone has a picture of Hopper's and will send it to me I will post it on these pages.

I had a TIX Tenna Topper too before I went to work for them...that promotion was more like '66-'67 (the brainchild of Program Director Buzz Bennett) and I proudly displayed it atop the antenna on my gold Mustang!


SEAN WHITE:
I used to listen to WTIX from Hattiesburg, MS, and my graduating class (1977) had a senior trip to New Orleans where we spent the greater part of the day at Pontchartrain Beach. I can remember riding the Zephyr (which later got transported to Hattiesburg as a ride at Kamper Park Zoo), the sky ride, the ferris wheel and the log flume. I can also remember the commercials WTIX used to run for Pontchartrain Beach (the jingle "at the Beach, at the Beach, at Pontchartrain Beach, you can ride, you can ride almost every ride"). I also remember listening to you as a DJ on WTIX. I especially remember when you guys got into the Mardi Gras spirit every year playing lots of great Mardi Gras tunes.

Living now in Hollywood, FL I miss New Orleans and also miss the good days of radio with WTIX.

BOB:
"At the Beach, at the Beach, at Pontchartrain Beach
You'll have fun, you'll have fun, every day of the week
You'll love the thrilling rides
Laugh till you split your sides
At...Pontchartrain Beach."

Check out my recorded music shows in my New Orleans Jukebox Gold section at http://www.walkerpub.com and click on the Pontchartrain Beach show for a walk back in time from one end of the midway to the other...and hear the jingle too!


JOE TOM EASLEY:
Some time ago I wrote you asking about Dick Martin who had the enormously popular midnight jazz show on WWL in the fifties, Moonglow With Martin. You didn't have any idea what had happened to him, and no contributors to your site seemed to know of his whereabouts. Nosing around the internet, I learned that Dick Martin had moved to WRKF in Baton Rouge, the public radio station. I contacted them and received a response from Eric Deweese, the station manager. I am sure he won't mind if I share his response with your readers:

"Dick died about 6 years ago (1997 ?). He had stopped his Moonglow show on WRKF a few years before his death because of poor health. He has a daughter in Dallas and a sister in Springfield, Illinois. Unfortunately, I've lost track of them.

Many people would call Dick telling him how they got engaged listening to him, listened to him on their wedding night, and were now celebrating a 40th anniversary. One man said, as a child, he put a big, 1950's table model radio under his pillow in order to listen to Moonglow. His parents were good Baptists who didn't hold with that kind of music.

Glad to know he is remembered.

eric deweese/manager/wrkf/baton rouge"

I am sorry that Dick Martin is no longer with us, but he brought a lot of pleasure to many people, and he was the primary jazz teacher to a 15 year-old Mexican border boy who remembers him fondly.

BOB:
We should all be so lucky as to leave behind such nice memories so many years later.


HAROLD HELD:
Remember at Mater Dolorosa the two Christian Brothers that taught the boys in 7 & 8 grade? Tough dudes, Brother Victor and Brother Prosperi. Wonder whatever happened to them since you lived on Maple Street and went to the Mecca Theater. Do you remember a cute little girl named Judy V, whose dad owned the grocery across the street from the show? Also when I went to Mater Dolorosa we won the CSAL Basketball CHampionship two years in a row. This must have been around 1951 and 1952. Thanks.

BOB:
Victor was one mean son of a bitch, from what I heard. I thought of using the term "psychotic" but we'll let it slide. If he's still alive I hope they have him safely locked in a room somewhere.

I never knew Prosperi. When I got in those grades we had Brother Martin and Brother Gabriel. We loved Gabriel...quite a few mothers had a crush on him too. Martin was psychotic too (see and apply "Victor" comments above). Yes, I remember and I admired Judy Vinturella from a distance and she never even knew it! And there were no MDS basketball championships in my memory...all I remember is that the basketball gym was always locked up, and they kept telling us it was "condemned." The days were always interesting in the land of Father Joseph !


JON:
Hey, excellent website! In the early 70's, there was a club on Rampart at Gov. Nicholls called the D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F. (Do I Look Like I Give a F***)? Played folk, blues, country, every nite was live mike. A great place!

BOB:
I missed that one but it sounds like a fun place!


BRIAN SHUMAN:
Bob, my worldview as a kid growing up in Gentilly was bounded by the Industrial Canal, the Lake, Paris Avenue, and Canal Street. Life outside of these borders was a mysterious void, with no basis for existence. All of this changed on July 10, 1963 with my employment by Williams Super Markets. At that time, Williams had two retail outlets, one at State & Freret St. , and another larger store on St. Charles & Jackson Avenue, where my aunt worked in the business office. This job opportunity was due, in part, to her sense that my mother had her hands full with three kids at home during the summer. The St. Charles St. store was build originally in 1895, when it was opened as one of the original Katz & Besthoff drug stores. My job was to bag groceries and to take deliveries. The Garden District neighborhood was surrounded by large apartment buildings - The Wohl, The Carol, The Mayflower, The Georgian, and The Andrew Jackson, all of which provided Williams with a substantial customer base. During the first few weeks taking deliveries, my awareness of diverse personal living circumstances was fashioned. On one trip to a run down apartment house on Jackson Avenue, the stench of urine was overpowering as one entered the front door. In the next ten minutes, another delivery could take me to the penthouse at the Pontchartrain Hotel, to be greeted by the kitchen help and views of sterling silver dinnerware. One evening, during those first few weeks, we had a last minute rush of customers during the final hour before closing on Saturday. It had been a long day on my feet, and the lines of customers added to my feelings of exhaustion. Thoughts of all the different living conditions to which they would return triggered my realization that I would shortly be headed back to Gentilly for dinner. It was one of the first times I really appreciated my own home and family.

Day to day operations at Williams were overseen by Mr. H. & Mr. B. Direction offered by Mr. H. usually included descriptions of his vast previous retail grocery experience. Mr. B. was a crusty, Popeye-like gentleman who also had been around the block more than once; his management style was more direct - "do it because I said so". Having two bosses is never a good thing, and this situation was a constant challenge, as were the customers. Our indoctrination motto was : "The customer is always right," but the most frequent question posed by them was : "Son..., is the Cream Cheese fresh ?" On one occasion, this timeless question was extended to another level, as in, "Son..., is the 7-Up fresh ?" Mr. H. revealed his inner feelings one day, when he responded to the news that one of our "favorite" customers from The Wohl was traveling by air to visit her sister in New York. "Well I don't want to wish her no bad luck", he exclaimed, "but I hope that goddamed plane falls in the ocean ! " On another occasion, I was sent to retrieve an item from the walk-in cooler at the rear of the store, and, to my horror, noticed that several watermelon had fallen from an inside upper shelf to the floor. When I saw the smashed melon, my first thought was to avoid guilt by association and pretend that I didn't see anything. Then, on my way out, I ran straight into Mr. B. ; now, I had to relate the details of the mess inside. He listened with a stern expression on his face, and finally spoke: "That was Frank, son of a bitch, with them damn biscuits !" (L. Frank & Co. was our dairy wholesaler, who had made a delivery earlier that day.) The real watermelon smasher never came forward.

Not far from the walk-in cooler was a steep, narrow spiral staircase which connected the first floor with the warehouse and business office on the second floor. Efficient inventory movement to and from the warehouse was accomplished with a freight elevator installed at the very rear of the building. My older cousin, who hired on as a stock boy that fall, familiarized me with its operation. Essentially, it was a relay controlled conveyor belt, mounted vertically within the elevator shaft connecting the ground floor with the upstairs warehouse. Freight was moved up or down by a set of support structures mounted perpendicular to the plane of the belt. It was definitely a two man operation, since any item not removed from the topmost support was subject to a 25 ft. drop to the floor when its direction of motion was reversed at the top of the shaft. Now, this presented a challenge to my cousin, who always welcomed opportunities to "enrich" his work experience. One day, he proudly demonstrated his efficiency with a case of tomatoes, placed on the bottom elevator support shelf. In one continuous motion, he hit the "START" relay, dashed up the spiral staircase, three stairs at a time, sprinted halfway down the hallway on the second floor to the warehouse entrance, and finally ran all the way back to the opposite end of the warehouse, where he hit the "STOP" relay on the elevator just in time to prevent the tomatoes from crashing to the ground! Someday, I will ask if he ever gave in to the temptation to jump on-board the elevator himself, for a ride upstairs!

Saturdays were not only busy, but very long days for us, and our lunch breaks were a welcome relief from the workday hustle. When my cousin was willing to drive, we sampled a new cuisine, eventually referred to as "fast food", at either McDonalds or the new Burger King, both of which were across the river in Gretna. But my most vivid memories are those of our walks from Williams along St. Charles towards Canal St., past The Wohl, The Pontchartrain, Smiths Record Store, and the Chrysler-Mercedes dealership to eventually enter the Please U restaurant. My favorite order was red beans & rice, smoked sausage, French bread, and lemon meringue pie for dessert. Although they have not matched the expansion of McDonalds or Burger King over the years, knowing that Please U and Williams are still open for business today on St. Charles St. builds my sense of stability, especially after so much time has passed.

BOB:
Conversely, I worked a total of three days at the National Supermarket at Claiborne and Carrollton while in high school and I ran away screaming.



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