..KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK WITH THIS ENJOYABLE WEBSITE. THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES
BOB:
No doubt about it...Gentilly was a great place to go to movies, eat, drink
and be merry...then go to Doc's Drug Store to get the necessary ingredients
to feel good the next day!
BOB:
Ah, the freedom that wheels brought to all us teens. A dollar of gas meant
an entire evening of just cruising around town with friends and doing all
the fun things that poverty brought with it!
It's encouraging to know that some of the great REAL RADIO pioneers are still at it.
I ran into Buzz Bennett during my Los Angeles years, so where is he now? I also established contact with Dan Diamond recently and he gave me an update on his activities since he left N.O. Sure wish we had some of that old talent butting heads and having a blast in New Orleans again. Hey, I was still in high school when Bill Stanley and Bill Elliott "locked themselves into the WNOE studios, and played "Shtiggy Boom" by "The Nuggets" for 24 hours non-stop to herald a new radio format called "Rock & Roll". Wow, radio is such a drag these days; a real groaner. No wonder Casey Kasem is retiring along with everyone else I know. So keep driving, Bob, you're one of the few left jogging our nostalgias. Warmest regards, and an earnest salute to one of radio's all time super talents, "Bob Walker".
BOB:
Well, thanks <blush> but this pioneer is no longer at it. I retired
from radio after 38 years in April 2003 and do not miss it in the slightest.
Corporate radio sucks now and I choose not to be a part of their lies, incompetance
and destruction of the business I loved and devoted my life to. I'm waiting
for that wonderful day when the music alternatives for listeners, including
IPods, internet radio, CDs in cars and satellite radio, make the corporations
go bankrupt and all their owners, officers and management officials starve
to death in the gutter, and their bodies are rolled over and flattened by
cars and trucks, and then eaten by pigs. Does that give you a clue how I
feel about today's radio?
Buzz, Ted Green, and Johnny "The White Eagle" Stevens are missing in action. I'll post something on them if I track them down
with--I still can't get used to the lack of K&Bs on every corner.
But, I want to add a few things I didn't see on your great site:
Al Kagan's TV show "Night People" (later "Kagan's Corner") which featured many of the N.O. characters you list. Think it was on WGNO--the first UHF TV station in N.O. like ch. 26 in late 60s? There was also a guy who played spoons. Kagan was a gem. I went to school with his son, Chickie.
We grew up watching Johnnie's Follies, a kiddie show with locals sitting in bleachers. He wore a boater and striped coat, did a goofy dance, lived on State Street. Poor guy, we used to ring his doorbell and run.
And thanks for the Frostop pic. I learned to play pinball there, heard the Beach Boys for the first time on their jukebox, was locked in the bathroom by a badboy in the neighborhood, stuffed toilet paper into a training bra (which escaped out of the top of my shirt!) on a tweenie "date" there, and loved the Butter Burgers more than Jim's Fried Chicken. I also had my first summer job there while underage with mono, trained by Wanda, a toothless waitress who always reminded me not to forget the "stirrier" when serving the coffee. Gotta love it!
Kudos. Your site makes me long for home.
BOB:
Those Frostop burgers are still in my fondest memories. And the side order
of fries with ketchup made the day complete!
-- Morgus the Magnificent, the "House of Shock" and, of course, Chopsley. Remember when WWL-TV had Morgus do its weather reports for a while? No fancy meteorological stuff for him. He'd wring out a rag in a bucket and announce, "Hmmm, humidity 68 percent."
-- In grade school, the "big treat" of going shopping with Mom and eating lunch upstairs at the Walgreen's cafeteria on Canal, looking down at the people passing below.
-- Before the advent of malls, shopping meant hitting D.H. Holmes and Maison Blanche on Canal Street.
-- "Jingle, jangle, jingle, here comes Mr. Bingle, with another message from Kris Kringle" commercials pitching toys for M-B. We thought Mr. Bingle was Santa Claus' No. 1 helper.
-- Proms were big enough for Irma Thomas to be the featured entertainer, but the Contours usually got the sock-hop gigs.
-- Slow-dancing to "Big Blue Diamond" and "Danny Boy" (James `Sugar Boy' Crawford version).
-- Playing tackle football on the neutral grounds on Napoleon Avenue, before they planted trees. Nobody ran end sweeps, lest they get bumped into traffic.
-- Those super-good milk shakes at Hopper's.
-- Sunday morning bakery runs to McKenzie's.
-- Friday night football games at City Park Stadium. The city's best rivalries in those days were De La Salle-Jesuit in basketball and baseball (was there ever a better prep coach than DLS' Johnny Altobello?) and Jesuit-Holy Cross in football.
-- Tookie Gilbert hitting home runs for the Pelicans into that ridiculously short porch in right field at City Park Stadium, which was never designed for baseball.
-- The New Orleans Buccaneers playing on the elevated court at Loyola Field House.
-- Peter, Paul and Mary concerts at same Loyola Field House.
-- Corner groceries in every neighborhood, the 7-11's of their day.
-- Great amateur boxing at St. Mary's Italian Gym in the Quarter, where Willie Pastrano and Ralph Dupas learned the sport from Whitey Esneault.
-- Boy scout gatherings at Camp Salmen in Slidell, before the land became too valuable for kids to earn merit badges.
-- Cabbage ball played by boys and girls on cement fields because Catholic School Athletic League teams didn't have enough room or grassy areas for real baseball or softball.
-- Radio stations (we didn't know they were "oldies" then) playing such local favorites as Benny Spellman, Ernie K. Doe, Irma, the Dixie Cups and the Neville brothers. It wasn't until I moved away that I learned these artists didn't get air play nationally.
-- The swimming pool at Audubon Park, a great place to cool off during those muggy summer days. Too bad the lockers were so easily broken into.
-- Seven-cent NOPSI bus rides and St. Charles streetcar rides, with unlimited transfers.
-- Creole cream cheese for breakfast.
-- Eating crabs at Fitzgerald's in Bucktown.
-- Pontchartrain Beach, our downsized Disneyland.
-- The familiar purple signs of Katz & Besthoff.
-- Schwegmann's.
-- Louisiana Gridweek, which augmented the coverage of the Saints we got from the Times-Picayune in the early years of the franchise.
-- Pro boxing cards at Municipal Auditorium promoted by Leapin' Louie Messina.
-- My family's old, decrepit "camp" on Lake Borne, washed away by Hurricane Betsy.
-- LSU beating Tulane 62-0 in football three times in, like, six years.
-- Pete Maravich scoring 63 points in a road game against Tulane, but LSU losing as Johnny Arthurs scored 41 for the Green Wave.
-- Root-beer floats and Lottaburgers at Frostop.
-- Dances at Sacred Heart, always a good way to keep your little black book updated.
-- Madras shirts and the "fruit loops" your dates would want to cut off the back of them like a gunslinger would notch his gun.
-- Wearing coats and ties with white socks. Definitely a fashion faux pas these days.
-- Dancing on TV with the Brown twins, Bonnie and Connie, on the Jack the Cat show when I was, I think, 12. Well ... the twins did most of the dancing. My cousin and I kind of hid out in the back.
-- "Spin the Bottle" and "Post Office." Lenfant's and The Rockery came later.
-- King cake parties.
-- Going to Pontchartrain Beach for the free concerts to hear acts like Del Shannon and Tony (pre-Dawn) Orlando.
-- Going through eight years at St. Stephen's and four years at De La Salle and being taught mostly by nuns (in full habits) and Christian Brothers.
-- Kissing Archbishop Rummel's ring when I was confirmed.
-- Bowling at Mid-City and O'Shaugnessy's Lanes.
-- Playing wiffle-ball home run derby.
I hope you remember some of these things, too, Bob. And thank you for allowing me to drift back to the "Happy Days" of my youth. Richie Cunningham, Potsie, Ralph Malph and the Fonz had nothing on us.
BOB:
Sounds like you and I grew up in the same skin. Remember on Morgus' 5-minute
weather show at 5:55 pm weekdays on WWL-TV around 1960, he would look at
his inner wrist to check the Morgus "weather vein"? I sat in on
many of those shows and it saw how it took Sid an hour or so to put on the
Morgus getup and makeup for a 5 minute show!
"McDonogh unto thee we rear, a monument to thy career.
He gave his wealth to educate, the stupid fools of 28." ect. ect. ect.
Reading on further, I saw a note on page twenty-one from David Nebel. I believe I went to LSU with David in the late fifties. Also, for a summer I worked with a Hewitt Gomez in Baton Rouge, who in the late sixties went to the Metarie Country Club as manager. Small world!!
BOB:
David Nebel is a prince and a well-respected WTIX alumnus. He did go to
LSU.
Was the "stupid fools of 28" ad libbed? :-)