Pat and I went to Owensboro tonight to pick up our youngest Granddaughter who happens to be spending the night at our house. We decided to eat out and asked her where she wanted to go. "Ritzy's" she immediatly said. For those who haven't been to a Ritzy's, they have these "old time burgers" that start out as a meatball about 3" in diameter and then they are placed on a grill and "smushed" into a pattie that is about 8" in diameter and about a quarter-inch thick. They are wonderful and when served with their miniature crispy french fries are absolutely "heaven." Then top that off with what they call a "chocolate-chocolate" shake and it reminds you of eating in one of those drug store diners during the fifties...the ones who made milk shakes in a metal can and you poured it into a "Coca-Cola" glass. Unbeatable!
I've mentioned it before in previous blogs, but I used to work at Corner Drug in downtown Central City (it was previously Miller Drug Store) and one of the duties of that job involved working at the soda fountain (a term lost in history). The old fountain was made of stainless steel and had a formica counter. The brand name was "Bastian Blessing." My Dad also worked at one of these at Donovan Drug Store and Robinson's Drug Store nearly 50 years previous.
I suppose being a "soda jerk" was the closest thing to being a bartender in those days as we would get a lot of the same characters there every day. Most of the day, it was operated by Barbara "Lefty" Vincent during the morning/through lunch hours and she was assisted by Mary Lou Hardwick Skeeba when it got busy. I would get to work about 3 p.m. and it was my responsibility from then to 7 p.m. when we closed. Downtown Central City had a similiar atmosphere to Bedford Falls, the fictional town in It's a Wonderful Life, especially in the winter. There weren't any huge department stores in those days (at least not around here) and everyone pretty much knew everybody else. I got to spend a lot of time, even as a fourteen year old kid, listening to the dreams and problems of the regular clientele.
The counter didn't have a grill and the only hot food you could get there was soup or chile which came in cans and was heated on a contraption similiar to a Mr. Coffee. We also had a selection of what we called "Nabs" (short for Nabisco, who originally made them), which were packages of four cheese or ritz type crackers with cheese filling or peanut butter. Of course we had Ice Cream (the hard stuff, not soft-serve) in four or five flavors, available in either dish or cone, banana splits, sundaes (including hot fudge), Cherry Smashes (cherry syrup mixed in carbonated water), Cherry Cokes, fountain drinks and those marvelous milk shakes and malts concocted in metal cans. We had Alka Seltzer (in tear open packages) and Bromo-Seltzer which was a dry powder served in an otherwise empty glass with a side of carbonated (called Seltzer) water.
This product must have had some "addictive" properties because we had more than one regular customer who would come in every evening and order up one of these. They would take the two glasses, pour the carbonated water into the Bromo Seltzer and it would foam completely out of the glass. They would then "down" this mixture in a single gulp, "plop" the glasses back on the counter, pay (they were a quarter) and leave. The counter was generally a mess where they were sitting and had to be wiped with a wet rag before the "foam" dried on it;
I had one gentleman who was a mechanic at Lester Motors stop by every evening after work (and Sundays before evening church) and he would have a cup of soup and a Cherry Smash. I have no idea how long he had been doing this before I began working there but I'll bet it was difficult for him after we moved across the street because the new drug store didn't have the soda fountain. To my knowledge, no one else around sold Cherry Smashes. I guess he had to learn to eat "regular" meals. Anyway, it must have been healthy as he lived well into his nineties.
The Soda fountain was the "gathering place" for many of the local merchants, clerks, accountants, lawyers and pretty much anyone who hung out downtown. They would eat their "real meals" at either Winnie's or the D & W Cafe (Jerry's and The Peerless were the choice of the railroaders and those who hung out at the pool rooms) and they would have coffee and a package of Nebs in the mid morning or mid afternoons. Guys like Charles Bennett Greenwood (Barnes Mercantile), Carl Pendley (Western Auto), Joe Whitmer (Broadway Jewelry), Fred and George Wallace (Wallace Hardware), Buddy Becker (Buddy's Hardware), Dave Cohen (Cohen's), Jonas Rubenstein (Charles' Store), Clayton Reed (Ben Franklin's), John Hinson (Newberry's),
E. G. Pegues (J. C. Penney's) and a host of others. We also had a regular cast of town "characters" reguarly stop in such as Donald Frazier, "Candy" Hampton, Rabbit Franklin, "Jimmy" (never knew his last name but he worked at the State Theater), Mr. Wells (the guy who got dressed up in a blue suit and came to town to "people watch" every day, rain or shine), Cash Miller (street preacher), James Howerton (whose sole purpose in life was to count cars at the corner of First & Broad streets every day) and several others. It was a simpler life in simpler times.
One of my duties when we closed was to be sure the front doors (there were two of them side by side) were locked because we exited via a side door. One morning Orville (Brand, the owner) came to work and found the front doors unlocked...I had somehow forgot to lock them the night before. Miraculously nothing inside was bothered. Imagine that today.
I worked at Corner Drug seven days a week, four hours Sunday through Friday, ten hours on Saturdays and never missed a day for sickness (or any other reason) during the five years I worked there (I started in the 8th grade at thirteen years old). We were the only store in downtown that stayed open until 7 pm every night (8 pm on Fridays when ALL the downtown stores stayed open late) and until 5 pm on Sundays. The Apple House and Corner Drug were the only retail stores in town that were even open on Sunday, along with one or two of the "cut-rate" gas stations (stations that sold gas and cigarettes and nothing else). We had no shopping centers in those days and Owensboro only had one and it was closed on Sundays. The Dairy Maid and maybe a couple of the restaurants opened on Sundays but for the most part, people were expected to go to church and spend the rest of the day at home. The largest store we had in town was the
A & P Supermarket and later Stewart's IGA.
It's hard to imagine life today without Drive-In Windows, ATM machines, huge Box Stores, gigantic impersonal building supply stores, and the like but those were sure good days when you went downtown to purchase groceries, nails, tools, bicycles, clothes, shoes, cash a check, get an ice-cream cone or hamburger, buy a car (or get it fixed), get your oil changed and a lube job (or your windshield washed), purchase a goldfish or pet turtle or pea-shooter...whatever. Each store was a specialty place with experts in the products and services they sold (as well as our neighbors).
I suppose in twenty years we'll just purchase everything online and probably won't even need the big box stores any longer. Who would have thought a generation would be remembering when Wal-Mart actually "stocked" items on shelves that you purchased in person, would be referred to as the "good old days."
If that happens, maybe somebody will see a need to install a "soda fountain." You can't buy a Cherry Smash online!
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