E-MAIL MEMORIES, PAGE 26




CHARLIE YOUNG:
Radio personalities of New Orleans without me?? I actually met you once. We were at a Columbia Records party. I worked for WWOM on AM and on FM when they were first rock station on FM in New Orleans. Then my illustrious carrer took me to KGLA. Then I grew up. Hope you're doing ok!

BOB:
"Young" Charlie Young...a great DJ on a gem of a smaller-power AM station (KGLA - 1560) in the early 70's. I used to listen to you and Joe Wolfe on my way home to get ideas for my show the next day!


JUDY THOMPSON:
Dear Bob,
Stumbled on your site - and what a great stumble. I worked at WNOE Aug. 1962 thru Dec. 1964. WBOK prior to that. Lots of great memories go with those days. Nickel beers in frosted mugs at Two Jays on Gov. Nichols and Decatur across from the market and coffee shop at the foot of the port. And great red beans and rice a few doors from there. My husband (Al Thompson) was a bartender at the Old Absinthe House. The real one, with all the paraphenalia on the ceiling and the autograph books going back to the 16 or 1700's.

I lived just two blocks from WNOE so I spent most of my time in the Quarter. Hung out at the Bourbon House where Freddie and Robert took care of us all. Papa Joe's on Bourbon and Preservation Hall just getting started. The Seven Seas for late night ping pong. The Playboy Club had just opened and we all went to the press party. I was so envious of all the bunnies and all the money they made!!! Can't believe it..... I was traffic manager at WNOE and also at WBOK for two years prior to NOE. Great memories.

BOB:
If it's any consolation, I doubt if any of the former Bunnies can still do the Bunny Dip without a tube of Ben Gay close by. And you just know that, today, whatever charms those Bunnies had back then that pointed the way east and west now point to the deep south!


SYLVIA KIRCHHOFF:
Bob, what a walk down Memory Lane! Your website is just great!

Music's always been important in my family. My dad was a drummer back in the 20's with Pete Spicuzza, Irving (Prestopnik) Fajiola, and Louis Prima. He had the first crystal set in the city.

I can remember listening to DAWNBUSTER'S with him when I was little and lying in bed at night with the covers pulled over my head, listening to "LIGHT'S OUT"! When I was 12 or so, I walked around with my portable radio tuned to the mighty 690 WTIX-and we LOOOOOOOOOOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUU!

My mother, who was a singer and dancer, was on WSMB and WWL during the 30's. She played Queen Griselda on the Buster Brown show that was written, I believe, and emceed by Beverly Brown. She did a lot of commercials with Henry Dupre, too. One day she had a show to do after school and chose a dress that buttoned down the back that morning. That afternoon she was late for the show and rushed in at the last minute to do her lines with no time for a rehearsal. King Vidor happened to be in the studio. To make matters worse, "Uncle Henry" stood behind her and kept unbuttoning and rebuttoning her dress, while she held her script in one hand, and swatted at him with the other. Vidor's comment was,"How remarkable. I've never heard such a terrific cold reading from anyone and under those circumstances, too."

I was blown away to hear my mother's best friend, Rosemay Carrere Thomas, telling Mr. Bingle his life story on your site. Oscar and Roe were a mutual admiration society. Besides Mr. Bingle, Roe did commercials for H.G. Hill Stores (later bought by Winn Dixie) and she did local theatre, too. One play I remember was John Loves Mary at Le Petit. She remarried around 1960, moved to Virginia and did a public service show on the Richmond PBS affiliate. After her husband died, she relocated to Atlanta with her son.

Roe put me in a commercial with her when I was a two year old ham. It debuted in the local movie houses. Then my mom sent me to the vocal school she had attended (Paul Jacob's) and I made my radio debut in 1949, at age 4, on WNOE with none other than Beverly Brown. (What goes around, comes around-lol).

Thanx again for the great website. Keep the music alive!

BOB:
Enjoy your retirement and be happy that you too were "back there" when New Orleans radio and TV were fun. Do you realize that most TV stations don't have a floor director or cameramen anymore? It's all robotic now. How sad.


BOB IN TEXAS:
Hi Bob,
We moved down to New Orleans from New Jersey in connection with the outbreak of WWII where my father who was a maritime officer would be sailing out of the New Orleans Port of Embarkation. We first lived in an apartment on Baronne Street and then moved to a house on Green Street not too far from the streetcar barn. My two brothers and I used to watch the streetcars go in and out of it. I attended Mater Delorosa School and then Jesuit High School (home of the Blue Jays) for a year before moving to Pensacola, Florida. I have been back and located our house and checked everything else out in the neighborhood. Great memories.

BOB:
The streetcar barn on Willow Street, a block off Carrollton and extending the block from Willow to Jeannette St., is still there and still looks (and smells) the same. Its sister bus barn on Magazine Street at Arabella has been deactivated and converted into a food store.

SUSAN CARLIN PAYCER:
BOB, LOVE YOUR SITE AND PLAN ON VIEWING ALL OF IT. I MOVED FROM NOLA 1967, SO I DIDN'T GET TO KNOW YOU BUT I DO REMEMBER TIX VERY MUCH. I LIVED IN THE UPTOWN AREA ON LAUREL NEAR MAGAZINE IN THE 5200 BLOCK. MOVED TO JEFFERSON AT 14. HERE ARE A FEW OF MY MEMORIES:

HIDING IN THE TRUNK AT THE JEFFERSON DRIVE-IN, SLUMBER PARTIES AND "ROLLING" HOUSES, L'ENFANTS AND YE OLDE COLLEGE INN,GREAT CHICKEN FRIED STEAK SANDWICHES, SWIMMING AT AUDUBON PARK, DANCES AT LIONS CLUB, DRIVING DOWN BOURBON ST. LOOKING IN THE DOORS, SMELLING PICKLES WALKING BY THE OLD ZATARAIN'S (UPTOWN NEAR WHERE I LIVED), UPTOWN MOVIES FRIDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY AFTERNOON, LOVING STREET CAR RIDES AND STILL DO, FERRY RIDES ACROSS THE RIVER, DISLIKING RIDING OVER HUEY P. LONG BRIDGE AND GETTING SEASICK GOING OVER CAUSEWAY, SKIPPING SCHOOL, WATCHING SPOOK SHOWS ON T V WITH YOUR FRIENDS (CAN'T REMEMBER THE NAME OF THE SHOW OR WHO WAS THE CHARACTER, BUT HE WAS GREAT. THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FOND MEMORIES.

BOB:
I think you were watching the "House of Shock" and its resident characters - Morgus the Magnificent, Chopsley and Eric the talking skull. Those are some fine uptown memories there. I guess we all hid in the trunk at least once to get into the double feature at the Jeff Drive-In free. Can you still smell that Pic mosquito repellant as the coil burned on the dashboard? I bet you can still sing "Let's go to the lobby and get ourselves a snack!!"


RONALD WRIGHT, Hammond, LA
Bob: Found your site when I keyed in "Ted Andrews, the Old Redhead". He and the old Scotchman, Gordon MacLendon, were in a league of their own when it came to re-creating ball games from tapes. Think Gordon was on (owned?) the Liberty Network. Remember that the Pelican pre-game show was sponsored by A. K. Roy, "Where you can get a lot for a little." Also remember that when a Pelican player hit a home run he got a pair of slacks from Nowaks and a case of the Wright Root Beer. Another Pelican sponsor was Longino and Collins; they later put out the King Cotton hot dog, I believe.

I think it was in the spring of 1954 when WNOE changed ( from Mutual Broadcasting System? ) to their rock and roll format. Time has a way of playing tricks on a person's memory, and I have always wanted to read an account of how they did it. I remember WNOE drawing national attention by playing an outrageous song called "Shtiggy Boom" over and over for something like five, six, or seven days in row. I remember my daddy showing me a writeup about it in a Time magazine of the day. AMG lists Joe Houston & his Group as the artist of "Shtiggy Boom." Do you know of any website I can go to and read about how and when WNOE did this?

My favorite New Orleans radio performer in the late 40's was someone on WTPS by the name of Ray Rogers. He had a couple of 15 minutes shows on daily. His theme song was, honest, The Utah Trail. He put out a record by the name of Mississippi Blues. He also made a personal appearance in Ponchatoula at the Ideal Theatre, I believe in 1949. I have always wondered what happened to Ray Rogers.

Finally, my mother got us off to school in the morning by WDSU radio. Deep-voiced Gay Batson gave the 7:30 news and the sponsor was Shell X100 motor oil. Don't remember the name of the radio personality, but he used an Old Spice commercial excessively, presumably to help awaken us. Over and over we would hear: "Yo Ho, Yo Ho!" From time to time he would play his favorite song: Six Buzzard Feathers and a Mockingbird's Tail.

If you or anyone else knows anything about WNOE and Shtiggy Boom I would appreciate it if you could either share it with me or direct me to it. Many thanks.

BOB:
I bet the Ol' Redhead and the Ol' Scotchman had more than one encounter with Ol' Spice and Ol' Crow. I used to enjoy reading Ted Andrews' and Jill Jackson's Hollywood columns in the "Rider's Digest" on the streetcar and bus.



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