Growing up in Hazard during the 30s & 40s were good times. Always something to do. Riding bicycles in the good weather, snow sledding in the Winter snows. Most of us kids wore those old rubber galoshes and they kept your feet warm and dry in the snow. Sledding down Lyttle Boulevard was a good ride if you could make the turn at the bottom of the hill and glide across the bridge. I wish I had all the nickels I spent at that little grocery store on the corner on Pepsi Cola, Moon Pies, frozen Milky Ways, Dentyne gum, and Dixie Cups.I lived on Laurel Street for a while. Tommy Turk lived on the corner. On down on the right were Bill Zoellers and his sister Martha. Next to them, my great Aunt Zonie Whitley and her boy, Charles Jr. I lived in the next house and on down the line were Jack & Jaqueline Bevans, followed by Charles Davis and his little brother Bobby. Turning the corner and up the hill was Sherman & Bud Robbins, Paul & Burley Horn and the Steele brothers. At the end of the street were Lois Fay Lusk, who was in my class, and her older brother, Howard. I got into building model airplanes with the help of Howard Lusk. Lois later became a cheer leader at HHS. I best remember her carrying all those school books back and forth every day. I guessed she was big on "home work." I wasn't...Believe it or not, we had three sets of twins in our class that graduated in 1949. Margaret & Joe Pat Gorman, John & George Green and Ben & Bill Roll. The Roll twins and I were in the famous Boy Scout Troop 100 with our headquarters in the basement of the Baptist Church. We had some great times in Summer Camp at Camp Stinnett, near Hyden on the river and Camp Arrowhead near Pikeville. But my biggest pleasure was playing Sunday School League basketball in the HHS gym on the same court where all my heroes played: Garland Townes, Jack Steele, Sammy Burke, Bill Zoellers, Howard Lusk, Kern Price, Bobby McGuire and others. During a visit to Hazard in the 50s I played in a practice game with Burke and Sonny Gum, the latest newcomer. On the way back to Dayton I stopped in Lexington at the old Sigma Chi House on Limestone and talked to Don Grey and bill Marcum. I wonder where they are, today...
Sonny, love your comments. I got my Dixie Cups from the Dixie Ice Cream Co. on the upper end of East Main in Big Bottom, remember them?
ReplyDeleteIf I am not mistaken Don Gray has passed away. If you are talking about Don that had the red-haired sister. Don was in my class at HHS.
Thanks for helping me recall some folks I once knew. Charley Davis was a life guard at the Bobby Davis Pool and those of us girls a few years younger than he were most eager to learn to swim.
ReplyDeleteThe pool never seemed small to me, but I think maybe it was-- for a community pool. We were very fortunate to have it.
Our family was honored to have Bobby visit our home in Americus, GA. He carried the 1996 Olympic torch through Americus.
Even though I'm a lot younger than Sonny, he is talking about my neighborhood. I remember that country store at the bottom or the hill beside the bridge very well. I went in there many, many times during childhood. I would either get soft drinks, ice cream or candy for myself (you could "charge it") or my mother would make me walk down and back up that hill several times per week to get a 1/2 gallon of milk or a loaf of bread. Ahh... those were the days, but that store and even the bridge (that connected to Broadway) are now gone.
ReplyDeleteI, too, have memories of that store. It was owned at one time by Mrs. Phillips, and then later it was run by two sisters, Mickey Shepherd and her sister, I can't bring her name to mind right now. One of them later married a McAllister and I think Scotty was her son.
ReplyDeleteThis one I am speaking of was at the bottom of Lyttle Blvd. where you went one way to Laurel and then the other to Rockaway, I think. I remember another grocery store at the other end of the bridge that fronted on Broadway.
I believe the phrase was "Give me an RC Cola and sing Mable? on the Hill"
ReplyDeleteWesley