One of the earlier Blogs mentioned some of the "Characters" we had around town in the fifties and sixties. This particular subject brought several e-mails, mostly mentioning some I left out. I suppose this list could be endless because it just seemed there were a lot of "varied and sundry" personalities back then. Of course it could be that we've become "characters" ourselves and what appeared strange behavior back then isn't really so "abnormal" today.
One person that several said I overlooked was "Randy the Candy Man." Randy was without a doubt one of the most unusual people to grace our city. He moved to California several years ago and I'm sure he "fit right in" out there.
Randy owned a three wheel Cushman motor scooter. He rode it anywhere and everywhere larger four wheeled vehicles would travel including the dangerous and infamous Highway 431. My parents would let me ride my bicycle pretty much anywhere I wanted to as long as I stayed off of 431 and Highway 62. River Road, Old South Carrollton Road, Eighth Street, Reservoir Avenue and anywhere in between were OK....just stay off of 431 and/or 62. Apparently Randy's Mom didn't pass this rule on to him as he rode his scooter anywhere and everywhere he wished.
Life was pretty simple back then. We had no Wal-Marts. The closest thing we had to a mega-store was Stewart's IGA. What we did have downtown was two variety (called "five and dime") stores. Both were franchises. They were J. J. Newberry's and Ben Franklin's. Both had "Candy Counters" just inside the front door. This was a "u-shaped" grouping of glass display counters that had (what seemed) endless varieties of candies and peanuts. The peanuts were heated and you could smell their aroma throughout the store.
Both of these stores had to get rid of their candy bars (Snickers, 3 Musketeers, Payday, etc.) after having them in stock for a certain period of time. Randy knew when these days were and magically he would appear on his scooter in the alley behind the stores to relieve them of this excess inventory. He would load it on his scooter and head out for the neighborhoods. He had to compete with an ice cream shop on wheels called "The Jolly Roger." The "Jolly Roger" was a professionally outfitted Dairy Bar type vehicle complete with a sound system made up of bells playing "Sailing Sailing over the Ocean Blue" which could be heard for blocks. It had it's own on-board power source (generator), and a machine that could make soft-serve ice cream cones, chocolate malts and shakes and the like in a minute. This had to be pretty tough competition for Randy but he still did OK.
Randy would ride around town on his scooter armed with an old "metal" drinking glass with the bottom cut out of it which he used for a megaphone. The funny thing was that he even talked through it when he was directly in front of you as if he felt the need to magnify his voice.
He'd sell his candy bars for a nickel. Most of them were a dime in the local neighborhood groceries and other stores and even at the city swimming pool. I can remember many times when we'd be swimming up at the pool and Randy would pull up in his scooter outside the chain link fence that surrounded it and peddle his wares through the fence. His favorite spot was under the large oak tree in the front corner on Joe Miller's side. He'd drive it right up the alley that ran from Park Street to Whitmer Street. When he left the pool area, he'd ride up to the top of the hill and sell some candy to family picnickers and on down to the lower part of the park where kids would be playing baseball or stickball.
Randy had a natural talent for poetry. I remember as a boy he came down Park Street one morning in the summer and several of us had been playing in our yard. I believe we were playing Cowboys and Indians because for some reason I was wearing a "six shooter." Randy pulled over into our gravel driveway and opened up his candy box and speaking through his home-made megaphone he said "My name's Randy and I've got Candy!" He followed this with "Hey...I'm a poet and didn't know it! Got a Rhyme Everytime!" I remember pulling out one of my cap pistols and saying, "Hey Mister...your Candy or your Life!" His response was "Good Bye Friend....This Looks Like the End," followed by "I'm in a Pickle...Give me a Nickel!" This probably only went on for a few minutes but it seemed like hours and we truly enjoyed Randy's visits. I saw in the paper where Randy died a couple of years ago in California. He lived to a ripe old age and I'm glad.
Someone mentioned another character around town, Donald Frazier. I really didn't know Don very well. I do remember that after school I worked at Corner Drug and when I came in around 3 p.m. I relieved Mary Lou Hardwick (Skeeba), as she got off at 3:30. Don frequented the soda fountain. He had a "crush" on Mary Lou but it was a "one way street," as he didn't appeal to her. He would look at her with the same intensity a hungry dog would look at a steak. He would come in the drugstore several times a day and drink a "nickel Cherry-Smash," which was a concoction of carbonated water with Cherry Syrup added. He also would get a package of "Nebs" (six crackers, Ritz or Cheese with peanut butter filling). These were also a nickel. It's hard to believe that a person could actually survive with three meals a day on thirty cents.
(Try that today).
I may have already mentioned him but I enjoyed the company of James Howerton. James liked to stand on one of the corners at First and Broad Streets and count the cars that went by every day. He not only enjoyed doing this, he also liked to average them by how many went by in a given hour. He would write these figures down on whatever paper he could find (usually a discarded A & P cash register receipt), complete with averages and even what the weather was that particular period. It included the temperature and this was before the bank installed the ultra-modern Time and Temperature sign that was the "talk of the town!" My mother used to laugh at how his averages would be sixteen and two-thirds cars passed Jame's vantage point during a given hour. She always said that if that car had driven "ever so-slightly faster," it would have been seventeen cars instead of sixteen and two-thirds. James had a regular list of subscribers around town that he gave these "vehicle counts" to daily and I was honored to be on the list (along with Philip Stone and Judge Iler and others).
What about Lena Mae? She's still the only person I've known who named her two sons "Fred and Freddy." Remember Ethel Reno? Miss Ethel used to wander the back streets and alleys raiding garbage cans. She was always accompanied by ten or twelve dogs. She was a nice lady and bothered no one. I understood that when she passed away she had some money, although I don't know this for sure and it certainly isn't any of my business. I do know that if she did, she didn't need it. She was a survivor who lived life on her terms. She was perfectly happy relieving other people of items they no longer needed or wanted. She had everything she wanted herself.
Remember Candy Hampton? Candy liked to walk the streets around downtown. He usually wore a crumpled up baseball cap, old converse sneakers, baggy britches and a plaid wool shirt usually unbuttoned in the front with a tee-shirt underneath. Candy had a bad speech impediment....so bad that most people couldn't understand him. He talked like Eddie Murphy when he played the character of "Buckwheat" on Saturday Night Live years ago. Candy liked to smoke Pall Malls and he came into the drugstore most evenings to get a pack (they were twenty cents a pack). He couldn't say "Pall Mall" where anyone could understand him and even though I knew what he wanted, we went through this ritual every day. The cigarettes were positioned on a rack behind the cash register that exposed them at an angle. There were probably about twenty or twenty-five different brands on the rack. I would always start in the upper left hand corner pointing at the Winstons, then move from left to right along each row while asking Candy, "This one?" "Uh-uh" would be his reply. "This one?" "Uh-uh" while shaking his head from side to side. The Pall Malls were always directly in the center of the center row on the rack. When I got to them, I'd purposefully "skip" over them and on to the Lucky Strikes. He started jumping up and down and saying "Go Baaa, Go Baaa!" Finally I'd go back but would "skip" back over the Pall Malls again. "Go Baaa, Go Baaa!" he'd say, this time pointing to the right. Finally I'd give in and give him his Pall Malls. This ritual went on for at least a year on a daily basis. I don't know if Candy liked the attention and was willing to put up with such treatment every day or if he simply forgot it happened only 24 hours earlier.
Just a few more characters in our town, in our lives. It's what makes hometowns just that....hometowns! I wouldn't trade the experience of knowing these people personally for anything.
P. S. Thanks for the emails....an anonomyous e-mailer (at least they're anonymous to you) reminded me of Mr. Wells. He used to sit on the steps of First Methodist Church every day. He always dressed up in a blue suit complete with tie and a fedora, shoes shined to a "tee" and walked downtown and sit on the steps most of the day. Next day he'd do it all over again. When I became an adult a gentleman that used to work at one of the Duncan mines told me that Mr. Wells worked there with him....that he was the man in charge of the mules that went down into the mines and pulled the carts loaded with coal to the surface. They also pulled the shuttles that the miners rode out of the mines.
Several of you also e-mailed or called and said I forgot Sam Gish. Sam was the "Otis" of our town, frequenting our jail to have a place to sleep. And Lord, I don't know how I could overlook "Peg" Sallee but somehow I did. If any of you think of a character I've overlooked that you felt was "famous," at least locally, let me know about them and I'll try to mention them in a future blog.
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