When Walmart Came to Town

Even though Walmart did not come to Northwood, it did.  Every small town mom and pop retailer felt the long arm of Sam Walton no matter the distance to the nearest Walmart, and the local retail venue was changed forever.  Elsewhere in this blog you can view a slideshow of Main Street Memories, not including this picture forwarded by Richard Holstad, and you can affirm things just aren't the same anymore.

Just as much as a retailer suffered from the low low prices of Walmart, the local theater was a victim of market forces in the form of that modern device called the television.  Hardware and craft stores couldn't give enough advice to win the hearts and souls of the buyers, and often gave away the advice and the buyer bought at Walmart.  The theater owner never had much of a chance to sell his vision one-on-one because the dial was already tuned in at home.

Perhaps the first movie I ever watched on television was "The River of No Return" starring Robert Mitchum, Rory Calhoun, and Marilyn Monroe, now available on Netflix Streaming.  (MORE competition.)  But it was in the theater pictured above that I saw the Hitchcock thrillers "North by Northwest" and "Psycho," and Charlton Heston fighting the wall of water in "The Ten Commandments."  I mean, as a Norwegian Lutheran, how could you NOT go to that movie?

My grandparents treated me to "The Greatest Show on Earth" in the early 50s, featuring a perilous fall from the trapeze by Cornel Wilde after he removed the safety nets, and though he didn't die, he did bleed copiously from the mouth.  And you remember things like that.  Though Cirque du Soleil it ain't.  (You really need to look up "Show" on Wikipedia - it was a real soap opera.)

Back to the theater itself - at first glance I was shocked to see admission was $1.25 until I realized that was the night's apparent giveaway of $125, and I'm sure you had to be there to win.  And when I looked at the late 30s model car, the barbershop and Rex Cafe on either side, I realized this was probably before my time.  It is.  "Ghost Breakers" is a 1940 movie starring Bob Hope and the lovely Paulette Goddard, so it's probably before your time, too, but it is available online as a classic.  YouTube has a number of clips you might enjoy.  Click here for one featuring Democrats.

Today Northwood apparently has a top-notch theater due to local philanthropy, and I hear often about the movies and events scheduled there including the "All Class Reunion" held last September.  If you still live in Northwood you already knew that, but most of us don't live there anymore.

These photos are the "before" and "after" or more suitably "then" and "now" versions of the J. B. Thompson Building on the corner of Highways 105 and 65 that houses the theater.  Growing up, I heard the old-timers sitting on the steps on the East side telling their stories, many in Norwegian, every Saturday night when we came to town to sell our eggs and buy groceries.  That's another tradition gone by the wayside, replaced by Walmart and thankfully by the good will and funding of the folks who make a theater like this one available.

I'm not sure - do we call all this progress?  Or not?

Radio Entertainment - the Best

Several of us were recently tangled up in a long email chain regarding the old-time radios.  Among other memories we talked about some of our favorite old radio shows like Jack Benny, George Burns, Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger, Lawrence Welk, and even Amos and Andy.

Like painted blackface, Amos and Andy have gone on their cultural way, but they leave a memory.  What many folks do not know is that the creators who were the only actors, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, were white guys, pictured here, Amos on the left and Andy on the right.  When the television version came out, of course, that had to change, and blacks had an opportunity to appear in a television show even though it was a representation that today would not see the light of day.

Still, that was the good thing about radio - it was all in your imagination.  The sounds, the "vision", the story line, were all in your head, and you could be as engaged, frightened, or enraged as you chose to be.  When the bullets hit the floor you heard them, and you knew it was a tense moment.  Sometimes you could even "smell" the story - or was that the heat from the vacuum tubes warming up the dust accumulated there?  And you might have been watching, I mean listening, on a radio like the one pictured here, a classy old Zenith floor model, proudly sitting in the office of one Richard Holstad.

This radio was one of three that Richard owns - though none of them worked, until he found a supplier for all the vacuum tubes he needed to get them going again, and he expressed his great fortune and pleasure in the email chain:

Last evening I was able to get all three of these wonderful old radios working ….. as I worked on them and each one came to life again, the memories flooded back of listening, with my grandparents, my parents, my brother, my friends, as well as being entertained when I was alone by these warm-hearted wonders ….. and that old Zenith floor model was around many years before I was born bringing home reports of the war, the economy, the George and Gracie show, Bob Hope, Amos and Andy, Jack Bennie …….. somebody stop me here, Lee …. Tarzan, The Lone Ranger, Hop Along Cassidy, Ma and Pa Kettle, Spike Jones ……Lawrence Welk, Glenn Miller, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley ….. all these and more came out of the speaker of THAT old radio …… AND IT IS WORKING AGAIN!   To say that I am thrilled about this is an understatement.  


Just in case you have forgotten how these dandy old radios worked, just click this link for a YouTube demonstration.  You'll be reminded how you had to "tune" the radio, that moving your arm over the radio, or walking away from it, one or the other or BOTH would influence the signal quality and you'd often need to do it over again.  It's kind of like Tim Allen showing how if you stand just right, with your head tilted to one side and your right arm at an angle, you can pull in signals from outer space.  And you just had to be there to appreciate it, but if you were born after 1955, you probably never will.


PS: here's some irony - I just realized that in the time I have been posting this blog I have been listening to Radio Paradise on the internet, with their fabulous HD photos popping up in the monitor.  The good old days are gone.  Welcome the new good old days!

The Return of Monkey Bars

Good news from the New York Times.  Monkey Bars, or the Jungle Gym, apparently have value for youngsters as a playground piece of equipment.  A recent report in the Times says playgrounds may often be "too safe" without the type of equipment that allows children to understand risk as a component of safety.

My recollection is that a jungle gym was installed on the corner of the property of the primary building one summer, and it was a thrilling addition.  Climbing to the top and standing with hands in the air - but not for long - was like climbing Mt Everest the first time you did it.  And by the time you tripped over the concrete ballasts that anchored the gym but popped out of the ground because of the wear and tear of so many of us chasing around them, then knocked your head by accident on one of the bars, possibly drawing blood, you began to understand you're not invincible.

I liked the report I found in the Minneapolis Star-Trib by a writer who had taken a trip years ago to Arnolds Park at Okoboji and says: I fondly remember the fun house at Arnolds Park at Lake Okoboji in Iowa. If you didn't leave there bleeding, you weren't trying.  Bleeding is good for you.  It's one of those things you need to learn about.

We had some great swings, too, and the real daredevils like Chuck Helgeland could pump standing up, then get close to going out of control at the end of the swing path, sometimes falling because the feet would slip out and the rider would lose his grasp.  It was all heroics, showing off, I suppose, but if you could do what others could not do, that was kind of neat, wasn't it.  Like climbing the water tower in Northwood or Kensett.

I suppose the merry-go-round has been removed, too, and that ride seems like the most open-ended lesson you may ever see.   Hmmmm.  It's spinning, it's spinning fast, it gets real close to the ground over here, so I guess I'll keep my feet away from that side.  And I will climb on and get dizzy!

How many accidents happened on the playground during our grade school days we will never know, because "reporting" was not yet in the administrator's vocabulary.  But I don't recall any right off hand with a possible exception of Chuck Helgeland getting a broken arm.  Or finger.  And that may have come from playing touch football, according to the class history.

The only injury I ever suffered came not from the terrific equipment, but from mother nature's great ice slideway that formed from the melting snow that dripped off the roof and onto the slight hill that was our playground.  Everybody slid from the top to the bottom, and it was a neat cruise.  It was so neat, in fact, that one time I decided I should get down on my haunches with my knees bent, and slide that way.  And when I saw someone ahead of me I thought it would be kind of cool to actually slide under that person.

Here's where the risk/reward analysis failed me.  Whoever it was that I planned to slide under instead fell on me, so the back of my head hit the ice, and I literally saw stars.  I overestimated reward, and totally underestimated risk.  But it wasn't the playground equipment.  Should've stuck to the monkey bars!

A Centennial Correction

In a posting six weeks ago we reported the Northwood Centennial was in 1953, and later got questioned on that by Richard Holstad, who said it was the County Centennial in '53 and Northwood celebrated theirs in '58.

Since then Glenn Kittleson ('65) has confirmed Northwood was '58 by forwarding these photos of a Centennial coin about the size of a 50-cent piece he has hung on to for the last 50 years.  The questions that spring from it include: 

Was the coin a fund-raiser, a purchased token that was redeemable through a purchase locally, thereby driving some sales for the merchants?  

Is the 50-cent discount still available today?

What's with the hole in the coin?

Was it heavy?

How many more of these souvenirs might be hidden away in homes all around Northwood?

How many got tossed at the end of the centennial?

Why did Glenn keep his?

Food for thought on all of this, first, that it takes all kinds of marketing schemes to raise money for a local event like this, and a widespread commitment from numerous individuals, including business owners, entrepreneurs, and historians in this case.  (We're reminded of a possibly apocryphal story told by our current state representative that a bridge was built across the St Croix River into Minnesota in the early 1900's by local businessmen selling buttons for 25 or 50 cents each.  Even then it would require an enormous number of buttons sold, but the strategy may well have helped with the funding.)  So we salute those who came up with the concept, and even moreso the folks who carried out the scheme.

Secondly, how many silver dollars - or half-dollars - do you see in circulation anymore, whether the original silver dollar, Kennedy half-dollar, Susan B Anthony, or anything similar? They're rarely seen.

But the last, perhaps larger thought, is that we're pleased to hear from Richard that his recent communication with Glenn has been reinvigorated by this blog.  "The '62 Blog does bring old friends back together again," Richard says.

Another Kind of Drive-In

You probably remember the Barrel Drive-In along Highway 18 in Clear Lake. The DJ's from KRIB would sit in the booth atop the drive-in all summer and take requests, kind of like California's Wolf Man on a much lesser scale.

And at some point during the broadcast you'd hear "Kay-Arh-Aye-Beeeee!! - Fourteen - Ninety On Your Diiiiiiial!"

Does that radio station exist anymore? The current Barrel, shown above from a Facebook page, doesn't quite reflect the right memory, but it is the Barrel, and so be it.  Because they played our music.

Mike Lien was the foremost air guitar, lip-synching guy in the class, even having the Elvis snarly lip down pat. In 1956 when Tennessee Ernie Ford's popular "Sixteen Tons" came out, and was played, I'm sure, on KRIB, Mike ran with the words to create his own version.

The lyrics read "If you see me coming, better step aside. A lotta men didn't and a lotta men died . . . " Mike changed it to "If you see me coming, better step aside. Bottleman didn't and Bottleman died!" Bottleman, of course, being DuWayne Bottleman, one of our grade school classmates.  But you never heard it played that way at the Barrel.

Richard Holstad has video of the place, taken in one of his trips back home. It won't replace seeing the original, but if you should have a chance to view what he has, feel free to sing along, "Kay-Arh-Aye-Beeeee!!"

Three Movies for the Price of One

In a recent conversation I was told the Bel-Air Drive-In of St Ansgar, saluted in a posting by way of Marilyn Ulve last month, was closed. That it's now a winery. And both those statements are true, in a convoluted sort of way.

For any drive-in to be closed is sad, given the memories they have for all of us, but more on that later.

First off, let's do a little exploration with what is happening with that dandy old Bel-Air. Clearly this is not the only blog in the world, and I have learned that a fellow named Dave, who grew up in St Ansgar in the early 50's and 60's, has even more golden oldie stuff on his web site (yep, click that link) than we have here.

He's got the 50's music, he's got the Bel-Air history with a photo (above) of the entryway to the theater circa 1975, and he's even got a Beer Page to celebrate his apparent love of all things beer including a recent beer fest in Madison, WI. Being a Badger now, I enjoyed viewing his Beer Page photos. I picked out the Capitol Brewery (very good beer), mead (if you need something alcoholic this will do) from White Winter Winery in Iron River, WI, and numerous witty (if you've been drinking, especially) tee shirts.

Sorry, I got sidetracked - back to the Bel-Air. It was unique as a "fly-in drive-in", one of only a half-dozen in the country. Conveniently for us Northwood types, it's due east out of town on Highway 105 (the highway number, Janis, not the speed limit!). The screen blew down sometime in the 70's and apparently the landowners started showing movies again in 2008, after opening their winery in 2006. Winery? Yep - click the link. And be sure to find the Bel-Air page on the link to Dave's site because he includes some history in an inadvertent sort of way. And both links will get you to the summer schedule of movies.

I suppose you could call this combination of retail services (the "drive-in winery") an effort to diversify your product menu, thus increasing revenues. What it does show - as a revenue enhancer - on the summer schedule is that the St Ansgar Class of '71 will be enjoying their 40th class reunion there on August 6. Not exactly "if you build it they will come" but a nifty marketing concept anyway.

They're all disappearing. The drive-ins, that is, which is no news. If you Google drive-in theaters Iowa or Minnesota, you find out there are so few left, and the Bel-Air is not even listed as operational. Iowa had 70 drive-ins in the '50s; in 2000 the Hillcrest in Cedar Falls (been there, done that) went out, leaving only 3 - if you don't count the Bel-Air. In Minnesota there were 80 back in the day, now only six are on the list and one of them is on a "Death Watch." Most of them are in rural western Minnesota, though one of those six is about 5 miles from my door, in Lake Elmo. But I haven't seen a movie there for 25 years so I am not exactly helping their revenue stream.

Am I missing much by not going? Three for the price of one, I suppose. Scratchy speakers that sometimes got pulled off the post by mistake. Or maybe got stolen, by someone who has absolutely zero belief in sound quality, what you would call a "tin ear." Concession stands that overcharged for food that wasn't very good (so what's new about this?). Being able to sneak a few riders in by hiding them in the trunk, then parking secretively in a back row where no one will see them get out.

Going too fast over the mounds designed to give you a better view. The guy in front with his foot on the parking brake. The guy behind who forgot to turn off his lights. Buck night. Westerns. Roaming the grounds to find the couples you knew who were making out. Honking if the projection malfunctioned. In later years, taking the kids with the hope that they'd fall asleep after the first movie, which for marketing/attendance purposes was a cartoon or kiddie movie.

And there must be more that you could cite yourself. All the memories, they keep on comin.'

PS: Richard Holstad sent this after the above was posted, but it's never too late to take a short trip to the drive-in. Click the link.

A Summer of Memories

Last Friday, heavy rains in the Twin Cities area led to a washout at a train trestle in a suburb, and a train wreck was the result. An old friend of mine from Michigan, who is currently a railroad engineer, often copies me in on photos and videos of train wrecks as they occur around the country, and forwarded photographs of the Saturday train wreck to me not knowing that it had happened in Fridley, MN.

Because I knew him when he was living in Minnesota and knew he would appreciate finding out more, I sent him a link to local television coverage, and only then did Don realize a personal connection:

Wow, that was close to home. I grew up at 400 Rice Creek Blvd, Fridley MN from 1965 on. Before that we were a couple miles the other way on Talmadge Way. I did some of my finest "bridge diving" at that location.

When I was about 6 yrs old and my Dad worked for the City of Fridley and was on the volunteer fire dept, they got a call that a train had run down three kids from Talmadge Way on that trestle (involved in Saturday's train wreck) and only one survived by quitting running and hanging from a tie off the side as the train roared by. That was Bill Messer, 4 houses up the street. Kenneth and Dennis (the little blonde boy) Ellis, tried to outrun the train and were killed. They were four houses up and across the street from us. 1958 was a sad summer on Talmadge Way. The Elliss' boys Dad, Burt had survived the Bataan Death March not too many years before that and now this.

When Dad heard it was a little blonde haired boy from Talmadge Way that was killed, he was

frantic, as the whole scene fit my M.O. perfectly. I couldn't figure out why he was so glad to see me when he got home and why he cried so hard when he did.

Now I kinda get it.

Even though my friend Don is not connected in any way to the class of '62, the story is one that sounds like growing up in a small town in Northern Iowa, so it seemed suitable for this blog. Richard Holstad has spoken of one of his favorite movies, "Stand By Me" starring a young Kiefer Sutherland, and it, too, features a race across a bridge to avoid an oncoming train. More than that, it addresses the issue of coming of age, of being a youngster, a teen, a youth finding his way just like we all did in the '50s.

And the last line of Don's email certainly speaks to all we are doing here in this blog: "now we kinda get it."