Tastee-Freez

The truth is that I did not remember exactly how the name was spelled, but modern miracle, I researched it quickly on the Internet via www.Google.com and confirmed the spelling I had chosen. When I began my career at Pawhuska High School we had essentially three choices for lunch. It was bring it yourself, eat in the cafeteria in the brand new elementary school, or eat at the Huskie Grill just across the street on Lynn Avenue and 15th Street. During my 7th or 8th grade year, the new Tastee-Freez was opened just down the road a piece (three blocks) on Lynn and 12th Street. The Huskie Grill was fine and I had eaten many a hamburger there, topped off with a soft drink and Fritos or some chips, or a Snickers candy bar. But at ages twelve, thirteen and so, our need for variety was great and also, the Huskie Grill was just difficult to get into some times. Standing room only and elbow to elbow. The Tastee-Freez took some pressure off of the other eateries and was still close enough that we could get there, stand in line, order, get our food, eat and get back to school on time. And there was an abundance of social life while you were there because you were with a mix of classes, older and younger. Some were there on bicycles, some in cars, so we saw older class members, some that we looked up to, some that we feared, and we were seen as well by younger kids who felt the same about us; we just didn't know they did. The Tastee-Freez faced to the west, had a window where we could bark our orders and where they would call us when it was ready. When there was time, we could go inside and sit at the five or six stools that adjoined the small counter that was on the south side of the building. Sometimes on a longer ride on the motor scooters we might stop in there and have something, especially on cold winter nights. The ghost of the Tasteee-Freez is white now, but in the beginning, it was a rough brown, which looked fine on it. The fare was similar to the Dairy Queen with hamburgers, hot dogs, chili pies, soft ice cream and sundaes. Once the Dairy Queen added the additional room, it became larger than the Tastee-Freez and parking was more abundant downtown around the Dairy Queen, so the DQ had more business, but the Tastee-Freez was so convenient from school and it was welcomed when it opened. The last time that I really spent much time there was in the middle 1970's when Carl Core operated it and David Meriable and I would make a run there to provide lunch for us when he lived just off of 12th Street. When I pause long enough and look at the ghost left behind, I still see kids I knew, now senior citizens, and the laughter, the songs and the noise echo through time, and as Ronnie Havens says, prove that they existed.

The Red Bud

It is a Subway Restaurant now but once it was the Redbud, and I do not remember if it was the Redbud Cafe or restaurant. It is one of those things I am photographing that I can not, because it no longer exists. In a sense, I am photographing the ghost of the Redbud, but it is as close as I can achieve now. Mrs. Irene Looney was a widow and had an adopted son, Joe, and Looney Trucking Company. Their trucks were for oilfield supply and they were often parked on a vacant lot across from the Chevrolet garage. Perhaps Mrs. Looney did not want to stay in the trucking business because she felt it better for a woman to be in, well, the restaurant business. She sold Looney and built an original restaurant just west of the Clear Creek bridge on highway 60 towards Ponca City. It was the first restuarant that I recall being built from the ground up as a restaurant and it was pretty popular for some time. It was far from the high school, which was on north Lynn Avenue, the opposite end of Pawhuska, but one day, Ernie, some other boys and I mounted our Cushman Eagle motor scooters and raced to the Redbud for lunch, probably not the smartest idea any of us ever had, but we went and had a nice, leisurely lunch. It turned out that one thing in the new restaurant that did not work was the wall clock and our leisurely lunch had gone over. We made a desperate dash to the motor scooters and a more desperate dash across Pawhuska, through downtown, up Lynn Avenue and arrived in class about thirty-five minutes late, for which we were ridiculed, but not punished. I think our teacher was Jim Minor and the year must have been 1959. All of us were still be riding scooters together and once we turned sixteen, mostly during 1960, that changed, so that suggests 1959.

The restaurant was painted a reddish hue outside, and the front door did not have the wind shielding entrance that the Subway does. As you walked inside, there were booths going around the walls and tables in the middle. The cashier and counter were deep inside, where Mrs. Looney and sometimes Joe cheerily took our money. Liquor was not served although beer might have been, but I was about six years away from being able to buy a beer legally, so it didn't matter. For Pawhuska at the time, it was a pretty good restaurant, certainly in competition with the Manhattan Cafe downtown. Joe Looney and I were close friends at one time but by the time the restuarant opened, we had become more acquaintances than friends. That happens to us as we grow, age and change, and it's usually not bitter, just a process. Mrs. Looney bought Joe a 1959 red and white Ford hard top convertible, the car we called a "flip-top" as it had a true hard top that was lowered into the body of the car as opposed to a folding canvas top, which was the norm for convertibles. Joe had an accident a few years later during a liquor run from Ponca City and the car did a flip-top as it turned over and was destroyed. They boys in the car were lucky and had only minor injuries, but the car was gone.

My favorite meal at the Redbud was friend chicken with a chicken fried steak smothered in gravy next in line. There were few diet drinks then, so we drank Cocoa Cola, Pepsi Cola, 7-Up, and Dr. Pepper with the sugar that was in them. There was a telephone in the restuarant but no one had mobile telephones so a meal was fairly enjoyable, with people seated at the table actually talking to each other. Dining at the Redbud was comparable to dining at the Manhattan, downtown allthough the Manhattan still seemed a little more special, perhaps for the catttleman's flavor that permeated the Manhattan.

For a time, the Redbud had become a Lot-a-burger, from the franchise in Bartlesville, and now it's a Subway, but in those first days, it was the Redbud and an unmistakable dining place in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. We lost Joe Looney in the latter 1980's. Like the Redbud we knew, he is missed.

Unknown but not Forgotten

It is possible that I have some old black and white photograph of Union Grade School, but I do not know where it is now. I may find it, but again, I may not. There are many things that I wish I had photographed because they are gone now, and it is the case that they are not so much forgotten now but unknown. They are not unknown to my contemporaries, but unknown now to the young people of Pawhuska. I chose to begin photographing things that I can not, because they are gone, but I can photograph where they were, whether the place is now an empty field, as some are, or a nice residence, as this is. This is the corner of 7th Street and Rogers Avenue, just to the north of the block; at the opposite end is Revard Avenue, and this was where Union Grade School once stood. It was where I began my public education, starting in the first grade with Bobby Hughes, Donna Poulton, Sue Nan Noel, the Mitchell brothers, Roy and Ray, Sarah Bowen, Bobby Cole, Chuck Carnegie and others. From where I shot this photograph, we would be looking at the front of the old building and the east side, though I did not know east from west then. Our first grade class room was up one floor and all the way to the back of the building, on this same east side. Our teacher was Mrs. Sauter, an elderly, white-haired lady, slightly chubby, though I would have never told her that. We were generally six years of age, a great gap between our ages and experience, so, naturally a few of us said she was old, again, something I would have never said to her. I didn't know what old was but she didn't act old to me. She didn't get down and play on the ground with any of us, but she kept a certain pace, and I don't remember her being ill or taking time off. I don't know if teaching first grade was a reward or a punishment for we came to her with a wide array of backgrounds and some of us were barely housebroken. I think about how difficult winter must have been for her as we all needed some help in getting dressed with hats, gloves or mittens, and heavy coats, for our brief recess outside, only to have to help us in reverse when we came in. But I also remember how cold old Union could be and perhaps we remained in our heavy clothing on those bitter cold days. Our lockers were inside of the class room, on the walls that closed us in and the black board was on the west side of the room so that we faced west. The room was always filled with our seasonal art work, our best efforts at making suns, flowers, people, and animals, usually dogs, for all of us had seen dogs up close. Few of us had seen the lions, tigers and elephants that some drew and painted, and finger painting was the most fun of all. She would proudly exhibit our best work and have our parents, or just our mother in many cases, come in and see it. I know that gave some hope that we might actually make it through the entire school system and that our parents had not made a mistake. Mrs. Sauter, like Union, is unknown by many today, but not forgotten by us who knew her then.

Meet You at The Circle A Pardner

When I was a kid in Pawhuska, certainly in the earl 1950's, we had three movie theaters downtown, plus the Corral Drive-in Theater a few miles out of town on Highway 99 near the Osage County Fairgrounds. I rarely got to go to the drive-in then because we did not have a car. But the downtown theaters were in walking distance and bicycle range. Everyone my age, and I am now 65, remembers the Ki-He-Kah and State theaters, but there was a third theater along Main Street, just across the street from Clifton's Gift Shop, the Pullman Cafe and Shamrock Billiards, just to locate it. I do not know for how long it was open, but I must have been around eight years old when I remember going there a lot. It had certain draws for me at that age for it had wooden hitching posts outside at the entrance, a wooden floor next to the ticket booth and the western or cowboy theme was consistent throughout the theater. Once we were inside, old time lanterns were suspended overhead and I think I remember wagon wheels. The concession stand was against the west wall just after you went in. I saw a number of movies there, but unlike those I saw at the State and Ki-He-Kah, I remember none of the movies by title or actor. I remember that we went on Saturday and it was always a cowboy movie and always a double feature. I do not remember seeing cartoons and documentaries, news, and other things that I do recall from the other theaters. It is possible that the movie theater was opened only on Saturdays but I have few facts about it as I just have not found articles or literature that described this old friend. The name of the theater was The Circle A Theater, so it carried the western theme throughout. Years later, I had become friends with Eugene Malloy, whom I recall as older than I was but we were still pretty good friends at the time. One day, he showed me that there was a break in the wall in his father's business, which was Malloy's Dry Cleaning, and we went through it into the abandoned Circle A Theater. It was dark with a persistent musty smell about the building and there were only ghosts from our past then but it was fascinating, nevertheless. As my friend Ronnie Havens has said about a few things in Pawhuska, you go back to see them just to prove to yourself that they really existed. Ronnie said that about the Old Reservoir when we were inspecting it, and I understand what he means. There are so many things we do as children and they then disappear due to economic reasons usually, and we don't trust our memory. We are suddenly twenty-five or forty-five years old and we wonder: Did I really do that? Did that really exist? We have to prove it to ourselves, and part of what Eugene Malloy and I were doing that day and a few others, was proving to ourselves that it did exist. We had a great time talking about it although we did not know the word "reminisce"then. The last time I was able to go into this old building was in 1987 when our Pawhuska High School class of 1962 held its 25th reunion and on Friday evening, it was started at the Elks Club, then downtown and in the old movie theater. There were no traces remaining that I could identify as the Circle A theater. Still, it was nice to have been that close to it once again and it brought back memories, old and imperfect as they were. It was a warm and fuzzy feeling, once again, Pawhuska of the 1950's, our small and imperfect version of Camelot. It was a good time to be in Pawhuska.

Silent Sentinels

In an earlier post, I had mentioned the Silent Sentinels that guard the entrances to Williams Park, the wonderful and well maintained park in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. They are not monoliths for a monolith is a single stone, like the Washington Monument, yet there is a monolithic quality about them, something from ancient Mexico when the Aztecs and Mayans ruled in the Americas. Each sentinel is made up of many stones placed together, and each has a ramp leading up that could be climbed by a small boy, especially one outfitted in Keds, for the rubber sole gripped fast, allowing us to run up from the back side and climb to the top, a plateau from which we could stake our claim to the tower that had become a fortress for us to defend. It wasn’t so high that it was very dangerous; yet just scaling its heights was an adventure. Once atop it, we usually had a friend or two join us and we fought off all pretenders to keep the sanctity of the tower we had just captured. It was much more exciting if we had just come to the park from a movie at the State or Ki-He-Kah Theaters when there had been a fort in the movie. It could have been a western fort, with General George A. Custer, for we knew few generals by name then, or it could have been a castle fort if we had just seen Ivahoe or Robin Hood. Sometimes we were forced off by bigger, stronger boys but there were several of these Silent Sentinels and we usually just moved to a new one. Once in a while a genuine fight broke out because someone refused to yield their trophy, but that was rare for we were seldom in the park without adult supervision, and that usually meant moms for most of the men worked somewhere during the day. The best times were actually during the school year, in late spring or early autumn, when the weather was still cooler and so many of our friends were together in one collection. The arrival of summer sent many families on vacation or working the oil fields and pipelines; some kids went to summer camps. It was harder to find a group and a mother to take a bunch of us to the park, yet sometimes there might be a church function, although those tended to be over supervised. As I look at this old friend from my childhood, I still see mystery in it and perhaps that is why these great stones attracted us so much. Like the wrinkled face of an old man, the weathered rocks, their cement filled interstices, seem to write a story and make us want to read more, to know how all of those marks and scars came to be and what lies beneath them. The other thing I see when I look at them is kids I knew, though I can’t remember their names or faces, but I remember them, and it brings me joy to see these old rocks doing so well still.

Willams Park and The First Boy in Space

Old Wood Name Plate,
originally uploaded by redboots@sbcglobal.net.

The entry into Pawhuska's Williams Park is of classic beauty. Pillars of sandstone silently guard the entry way, standing like sentinels on each side of the road. They have been there for as long as I can remember, so at least sixty years for as small boys, my friends and I would climb them, easily done for there are step like structures that lead to the plateau at the top. It was especially rewarding if we had just come from a movie where we had seen a fort and a raging battle for our imaginations took hold and the movie became our real life as we fought, first to gain the high ground, and then to protect it from those dastardly pretenders trying to dislodge us. We had imaginary rifles, bows and arrows, grenades, and dynamite; whatever the movie had suggested. Inside of the park itself were lush green carpets of thick grass that allowed us to run free, play some kind of a ball game, and I suppose it offered some protection for those times we fell from a swing or off of one of the merry-go-rounds there. A graveled road ran around the perimeter of the park and just outside of the perimeter, especially on the north side, were slopes that let our adventures go further. The slope on the north side was steep, rocky and in the bottom was a small stream where we could watch tadpoles, frogs and small fish. We saw snakes there that challenged our manhood but I know now that they were harmless snakes, seeking only to feed themselves on small rodents and nuisances. Then, all snakes were poisonous and dangerous, to be feared, and we escaped, barely of course, with our lives.

We took Williams Park for granted but when I go there now, I simultaneously go to two places. I go the quiet place where nature is at its best and I can relax and breath in the freshness of the park. I also go back in time fifty to sixty years and see boys I knew, having fun, laughing, being the best of friends to each other and making silent vows to each other that they would always be there for each other.

I remember the big swing sets and how we boys tried to outdo each other as we went higher and higher and Bobby Hughes went so high that the tether of the swing set was almost parallel to the ground. Boys on the ground were shouting to him, "Jump! Jump! Jump" and laughing so hard that they almost fell down, and then Bobby moved forward, left the seat and the tether behind and went sailing out into space, the greatest leap to which I was ever witness. I can still see him suspended in air, for a moment, as he laughed and then the wide grin on his face slowly turned to fear. He seemed to sail forever as his arc went above the plane of the swing and then began to level out, and then to sink. He shrieked as the ground moved upward to meet his re-entry to earth and then there was the thud. No sounds came from him as we ran to him, for he had knocked all the air from his lungs. We thought he was dead at first, but he soon began to gather color, and then breath, and then he was on his feet, no harm done, and a smile began to spread on his lips, and for a moment he was our hero, the boy who had gone further, higher, and faster than any of the rest of us.

"Do it again!" said one of the boys.

Triangle Building, north side

Triangle Building, Pawhuska, Oklahoma

This building, more than any other, seemed to symbolize Pawhuska when I was growing up. I took this photograph in September, 2004, when I had fears that the building might be razed. As a boy and young man, I took the old building for granted, assumed that it would always be there, but recent times have been difficult for it. It is old and cranky, with the many problems that beset all structures created by the hand of man. One of its flaws is, and has always been, that there are no parking spaces near the building. When I was a kid, I would see someone park in front of the J.C. Penney store, exit their car and walk over to the Triangle Building to conduct business. My elderly Uncle Franklin Revard once had an office somewhere upstairs and I would stop to visit him, smell the law books that lined the shelves, the clinging odor of his powerful cigars, and step carefully around the brass spittoon resting beside his rich, oaken desk. I often had to reintroduce myself to him. I, along with many others, continue to hope that someone will step in to rescue the building. Time changes everything, including me, but my heart would suffer if the old building was no more.

Court house and its imposing stairway

Court house and its imposing stairway,
originally uploaded by redboots@sbcglobal.net.

From when I was a small boy, I was in awe of this building. It sits slightly less than half way up Grandview Avenue's hill, on the west side of the street and faces east; parking is not allowed along the street. I marvel that any adult would start at the bottom of the steps and walk up. I did it as a boy, have done it as an adult but I was breathless from my climb, and I was in good shape then, running more than six miles a day. The building itself is stately, with a sense of humor. Inside, on one of the walls above a stairway is a sign warning about "No spitting" and a subsequent fine of $.25. I was in the building a few times when a trial was in session. Ronnie Havens's father was an attorney and a few times we went to see him. We did not understand much of the trial proceedings, but we watched for at home, he was a quiet man, scholarly to me; in the court room he was speaking emphatically, emotionally, almost angrily and he was a very different man than the one we saw in their home.

Atop the building is the framework of a star and every Christmas it was lighted and could be seen from many places about town. The hill next to the stairs is covered with small boulders of native stone, sand stone, and ivy grows between the rocks. I used to climb the rocks rather than use the stairs as it was both challenging and fun. It was fun except for the times that I stirred angry swarms of bees or wasps and I could not escape their wrath for the uneven surface of the rocks, the tangle of vines, kept me prisoner and so I was stung on a few occasions.

On the south side of the building is an empty lot, but when I was a kid, it was where the old State Theater stood. I have no photographs of my own of the State Theater as I did not know that I would need them. My memory was good and I knew that the State Theater would live in my heart and mind as long as I lived. It still lives for many of us but the number is fewer. I wish I had known more about the future then but I thought Pawhuska would always be the same. Time marches on.