I just received my first text message the other day.
I'm not part of that world.
I didn't know what it was.
I'd heard of them, but I never got one.
My cell phone made a noise that I've never made before.
It was like,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Said, you have a text message.
I didn't even know what to do.
I was like, comment text message.
My wife had to show me how to read a text message.
My first one ever, I was all excited.
I opened it up, it said, yo, yo, we clubbing tonight.
Graham?
My first text message of my whole life was a wrong number.
That's true.
And I wanted to be polite and let that person
know that it was a wrong number.
So my wife had to show me how to write one back.
So I wrote back to who it may concern.
I am not Mr. Yo-Yo.
I am sending you this notification as a courtesy
to alert you to the fact that you have not reached
the end of it, you, with whom you wish to commune a case.
Good luck in all of your future endeavors and God's
speed.
Well, she got her day's car, each of you through the hamper at 708, and a good morning.
Oh, it's going to be a fun hour here, coming up, Denver, Sierra, KELD, and Fort
here here.
And we're talking about recene growing up in the 50s and 60s, and we're going to talk
about Christmas time downtown, recene.
Now, of course, I didn't grow up here.
And it didn't really matter because every town looked like this, every, you know, I lived
in a town called Masa Pequa in our downtown area, somewhat resembled recene.
But since New York City was only a half hour away, most people went to the New York
to celebrate their Christmas time, but I have remembrances of that.
Last time you were here, we talked about another type of program, but you had some things
you wanted to add that we didn't get in that time.
So what are they?
Well, we were saying done that we couldn't have done these many programs without people
we call panelists, people that have real knowledge of the topic, maybe like Washington
Park Pool or Kittyland.
And we did not get to two people that we call our comedy team, Marcia Connid and Joe
Povkovich to recognize Marcia Connid used to work here.
We found out that each one of those is such a witty person, and they didn't know each
other.
But we put them together and made a comedy team.
They took us scooping the loop and they took us to the outdoor as teenagers and brought
down the house.
So we want to make sure that people remember our comedy team.
We also want to thank my son Mark, who is our technical advisor.
He's the one who colorized a lot of our old photos.
He developed our slideshow.
And like I said, he was just our technical guru without him.
We just couldn't put this together.
We also want to thank the Rondelle, of course, for allowing us to be there.
We really appreciate being there.
That's a great theater by the way to be in the Golden Rondelle.
Oh, sure is.
Even at the worst seat in the house, it's still close up.
So you get to see all the action.
Absolutely.
I mean, there's no balcony.
There's no blinking box on the side where, you know, it's first class.
It is.
It's very nice people there at the Golden Rondelle theater.
I remember being at the Golden Rondelle in 1964 at the New York World's Fair.
Oh, sure.
I was there about 12 times.
You were there before we were then.
Yes.
And it wasn't gold back then.
It was red and white.
Oh.
That's the picture I took with my brownie camera at the World's Fair.
So it was back then there.
It was a theater, but it was mainly promoting Johnson Wax products.
It was called Johnson Wax.
I think there was a film to be alive.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Every one of those pavilions had a movie to sit through.
Okay.
And you got to remember, it wasn't like it is today where, you know, people had videos
and where they can watch things when they wanted to.
Let's talk about Christmas time in Racine in the 50s and 60s and the stores that you did
a program on shopping at the Golden Rondelle.
So we're going to kind of touch on that and all the shopping that went on the stores.
And I'll tell you when I see in the pictures that you don't see anymore, those big vertical
signs.
Oh, absolutely.
I don't think any cities got those anymore.
Yes, yes.
Even when it was growing up, they had big vertical signs in the downtown area.
Yep.
They're all gone.
That's right.
We had plenty of those vertical signs and a lot of them were even neon signs to name
a few.
We had a black furniture, of course, to Venetian and Raelto, Bacorni drugs.
And I'll tell you down at night, you think you were in Las Vegas.
Now there was a lot of hustle and bustle, of course, downtown back in the 50s and 60s.
Anybody remember the walk signs?
Traffic stopped completely and you were allowed to walk straight ahead or to left the right
and also diagonally because traffic stopped completely.
I don't like what they do right now.
You know, I hate to stand by there, but I never understood where all this parking was
downtown.
And I brought this up to you before.
When did people park these cars with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people?
That's true.
Yeah.
They didn't have even the movie theaters.
Yep.
I mean, even if 1,000 people went to 500 to each theater, that's 1,500 cars.
That's right.
I have an idea.
People tell you they took the bus.
Bus walk.
Yeah.
We walked and took the bus.
They did 11 o'clock, 11, 30 at night.
Well, a lot of us didn't even see anything.
And what is the rain?
And for rain, it was all the outside.
We walked down.
We walked.
I don't know.
I just, every theater I ever went to had this huge parking lot.
Yeah.
So there was always parking.
But this does raise a good question and brings us back.
For instance, maybe about cars too, families had one car.
So perhaps you got dropped off downtown.
Maybe that's okay.
That could be.
That could be.
So it's family, families of four or five cars for every single person in the family.
I don't know.
It's just, it always amazed me when I drive through downtown.
Where people put in these cars.
Yeah.
But anyway, I'm sorry for interrupting you.
Go ahead.
Well, the stores were open on Monday and Friday nights.
The stores were closed on Sundays, which left a wonderful chance, though, for window shopping.
And.
Keep talking.
Yeah.
We, I think we felt that downtown was ours.
We took it for granted.
It was a gathering spot, a very natural spot where we could walk to.
As kids, we maybe started taking the buses down at maybe even age seven, eight or nine.
And those buses were so familiar.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
So familiar to us.
All buses parked in front of the three dime stores, for instance.
We'd arrive in a cloud of fumes.
And jump right out to start, start our shopping.
Yep.
Talk about Monument Square.
Oh, yes.
And then Monument Square, a beautiful Monument Square.
You said when you came to recene, it was a reflecting pool, remember the reflecting pools.
But forever, we had the beautiful Christmas tree and a nativity scene, which is there now.
Yes, it is.
And yes, and we're, we're really very glad that we've had that scene is huge.
Oh, yes.
The Christmas tree this year is the first time they had an artificial Christmas tree.
Yes, it has very interesting, isn't it?
But maybe it's time.
First time.
And when I spoke to Kelly Cruz, she said they can add to it from the bottom and make it
bigger and bigger.
The problem is it starts into fearing was stuff above it.
Yeah, they can make it bigger and bigger and it looks great.
Yep.
We've got some new thoughts to mind it did.
And Jim, I think your Knights of Columbus put up the tree scene.
Yeah, very responsible for that.
Yes.
And you're part of that.
And no tree was murdered to put up.
No.
We had a lot of elaborate decorations strung across Main Street, of course, Sixth Street
as well.
And those had bells and stars stretched across the Main Street and Sixth Street too.
We have a picture here, which obviously you can't see, but it's.
I'll show it to the microphone.
Okay.
There you go.
Has the bells and the and the stars is just just beautiful.
You don't see that really anymore today.
Well, you know, they do hang wreaths up on the poles now, but they don't.
They don't do the things across.
Right.
Yeah.
I don't know if it's because of trucks or or, you know, things that can knock it down.
Maybe it's a danger.
I don't know, but it looks beautiful in this picture.
And maybe part of this is through the eyes remembering the eyes of us is children.
Yeah, it's right.
You know, we talked about that earlier this morning growing up as a child and things
you remember that aren't there today.
Uh-huh.
So we think that the downtown was dazzling, including the decorations.
As children, too, we can still now remember from those early years, Salvation Army was
there.
And I think I can still hear the bell, the bell.
I can too.
Wait a second.
I'm hearing it.
I just happen to have one in my pocket.
We wanted to bring that home a little because and as children, I think to put it
dying in to the red kettle, there were two, there were two Salvation Army, Army locations,
both near Zons, one East Side, West Side, and music was even played.
So as again, as children, I think, we approached that as all the Salvation Army and we're glad
that we can still contribute.
And it's still there.
I mean, those red Kettles are synonymous with the Salvation Army.
So we are, again, thinking of the dazzling store windows, we think of the downtown sometimes
very much at night, like with the vertical signs, lift, like almost Las Vegas.
But we could stroll along.
There were over a hundred stores down there.
And one of my favorite anecdotes is that my girlhood friend Martha Rock Hudson and her mother
would take some walks from State Street all the way up for a Christmas event.
And the stores were just beautiful.
But to sum it up, downtown was just a whirlwind of activity with all the shoppers there.
It was really the place to be.
I know credit cards.
Everything was cash.
That's right.
Back in the 50s and early 60s, you didn't have a credit card to shop, so you had to bring
a lot of cash with you or checks, I guess, you can pay by a check, you know?
Yes.
They take checks.
Yeah.
I mean, I bet they did.
Unless you had the diner's club card, because that was the first credit card.
Yeah.
I know.
But yeah, when you think about it, everything was going to be a cash on a cash basis,
right?
Yeah.
That's right.
Well, we had several large stores.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah.
Zon's being the largest at Zon's, you could buy just about anything there.
And remember the two elevators that they had for Christmas time, they operated both
of them.
The operators were so dressed up, even with white gloves.
They also had those pneumatic tubes.
You didn't pay for anything with cash there.
The clerk would just send everything up to these tubes, these copper tubes, and a few minutes
later, you get your change back and a receipt.
And if you were a baby boomer, you probably had your picture taken with Santa there.
Don't hold it right there.
I'm going to take a quick break here.
At 17 at WRJN, Carol June 14, and Jim Rossira here talking about what it was like in
receiving a Christmas time in the 50s and 60s were reminiscing plenty of time still to
go.
Keep it here at Civic Media, WRJN, hometown radio refreshed.
Carol June 14, Jim Rossira here talking about receiving the way it was back in the 50s
and 60s.
It had 720 at WRJN radio and let's continue talking about Zon's department store, which is now
a hotel.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
That was such a gorgeous store.
I think everyone's number one memory.
And it was really built, we know from Pete Seizick, the descendant of the Zon family, that
his relative built it like a Marshall Fields.
So, but then we have pennies.
Yes, and people don't really, JC Penny before it moved to the mall was downtown.
It sure, oh, it was a steeple downtown.
Yeah.
And I think it was on the east side of the street.
It was.
Correct.
Now pennies.
The plaza too.
Okay.
Yeah.
Now pennies, in my mind, had some very special features, pennies catered to lay away.
So if you came in on Main Street and you walked all the way back to the Lake Street end, there
was the lay away department.
And that is how we were able to purchase a lot of our things.
The pennies catalog, you could pick up your catalog things from the pennies.
Well, I still love the catalog when it came to the mail.
I know.
The whole December, I'm picking up everything he wanted and getting nothing, and then also
you know, a lot of the stores had a gift wrap section.
Penny's had a gift wrap section.
Everything was very, very proper.
Now, I also have to say about pennies.
One of our dear friend of my husband's in mine, who is very physically fit today.
He has brought up several times that pennies did have an unusual department.
They had the Husky department.
Oh, yeah.
I know about that department.
He did not want.
Our friend did not want to be noticed shopping in the Husky department.
But that's a word that we don't hear much today.
Well, I tell you something.
There was an episode on King of Queens when the wife bought Kevin James bought him something
to big tall shop and she threw out the bag and he saw the bag and he said, I'm not tall
so you must have bought this from the big shop and he wouldn't wear the sweater because
he had from the big tall shop.
He had a stigma.
Now, the recene dry goods was also a very important store that was right near the American
bank.
Now, it's part of the recene, what is art museum?
Oh, okay.
It's part of the RAM.
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
And of course, we had the dime stores downtown.
Actually, we had three in a row.
We had Woolworths, Creskeys, and Nizerners.
And Creskeys became?
Came out.
Came out.
Oh, yeah.
That's right.
But yeah, they were all located right in a row next to each other.
Two of them even had lunch counters.
I know as a boy, I bought all my Davy Crockett memorabilia there, toy soldiers, cap guns,
marbles, you know, just boy stuff.
So where's that coonskin cap?
I still have it.
Yeah, we used it at our store.
We didn't wear it today, dad.
He didn't wear it.
I didn't know you still had it.
I think you displayed that.
You modeled that in a program, didn't you?
Yeah, that's a program.
That's right.
Yeah.
Still fits.
No, the dime stores were a perfect place at Christmas to buy for siblings.
You know, we had a lot of games in those days.
So Jim and I were trying to remember the two what some of those games were.
Mr. Potato Head.
Kooty.
Kooty.
Kooty.
Kooties.
And they still played Mr. Potato Head today.
Sores.
Yes, yes.
Kooties, yeah.
Kooties.
That horrible word.
Terrible word.
Terrible word.
And then people were calling each other.
Oh, you got kooties.
Oh, I remember that.
I had them in fourth grade.
Yeah.
All the girls did.
All the girls had them in fourth grade.
Not the guys.
I had them just terribly.
Who don't touch us?
You got kooties.
That's exactly what happened.
And you know, I'm kind of exaggerating, but this was the era of parakeets and the dime
stores sold parakeets.
That's also little turtles, too.
Oh, absolutely.
A little turtles, which they can't sell anymore, but I used to get them, yeah.
I think that's it.
So just perhaps a Christmas gift to the family was to have a family parakeet.
But anyway, we love the dime stores.
Had everything for us.
Now women's clothes.
You might think women, all how we love to shop.
But Jim's going to walk us through the men's stores, too.
Our women's stores, Zons, of course, had floors of beautiful coats and all kinds of dresses
in children's.
Idols was solely for women.
And I'm thinking in the era of my teenage time and gorus sweaters in the pastel colors.
Very important.
Light pink, light blue, maybe knee socks from Idols.
But Idols and Zons even had bridal departments, which we displayed at the Rondell when we
had a program.
One unusual store was on the west side of Main Street, it was called Le Maud, Hozary.
And you went into Le Maud and on one solid wall that you looked at, where maybe hundreds
of slim boxes in each box had one pair of nylon stockings.
And if you wanted a particular shade, a box would be taken down, carefully put over
the clerk's hand, and then you would decide if that was the stocking for you.
Not used anymore, but very, very important in those days.
Sixth Street was probably our fifth avenue, so to speak, the high-end women's stores.
Hicksons, I never went in, leps, vagus brothers, truce del furs, and then the one that many
of us went into on Sixth Street, a beautiful store, Ruth Karns.
I wish I had a biography of Ruth Karns.
I would like to develop that someday.
We, the owner, made sure that we felt like we were in a parasolane, but at relatively
affordable prices, formals, wedding gowns, bridesmaids.
So Sixth Street was really our high-fashion end.
Maybe something that we didn't always appreciate, though I had to say, was the attention from
all of these clerks.
They told us that we look great in everything we tried on.
Of course, of course.
We looked just wonderful in it.
If a llama showed up wearing it, they'd say it looked great.
Yeah, they were our biggest fans.
And then one other thing for children, especially lads and lassies, was a beautiful store.
I was in the era of poodle skirts.
Black felt with a poodle on it and a chain right from lads and lassies.
Well, the guys had a lot of stores, too.
Stores that come to mind for me was Joel Lawrence, which was located on Monument Square.
Mr. Jr. and George and Leicester's on Sixth Street, they were great stores for guys.
Wolf Brothers was located in the Hotel Racine Building.
We also had Mill City for the bargain hunters.
But if you recall, these salesmen were always dressed in their fine suits and almost every
one of them had a tape measure dangling around their necks.
Yep, yep.
So they can measure you.
And the chalk.
And the chalk.
And the chalk.
And the chalk.
And the chalk on the pants or the jacket.
Right, yeah.
And of course, we had the shoe stores downtown as well.
And I'd say Laos was the most stable or staple, most popular.
Laos was on a corner on Sixth Street.
We had the attention at all these stores of the finest salesmen.
Jim and I cannot think of being waited on by a woman.
Hold it right there, Carol.
Harold, Jim Forte and Jim Rossi are here talking about Racine growing up in the 50s
and 60s.
What it was like to shop in Racine.
This 729 at WRJN Radio, we're at 1400 AM, also 99.9 at 98.1 FM, whole town radio refreshed,
a civic media station, more coming up with Carol and Jim in just a moment.
On 1960, three of the year for this song was the flip side of, please, please me by the Beatles.
That's when the Beatles had, there was an A side and a B side, but they really weren't
B sides because every song the Beatles made was a hit.
You can't tell which was the popular song, which was not.
We're talking about the 50s and 60s growing up in Racine, especially during Christmas time,
all the stores that we're in.
Jim was talking about some of the men's stores when I rudely interrupted him for the break.
Go back to some of the men's stores.
We're on the shoe stores, right?
Oh, shoe stores, OK.
We've gotten to Laos.
By the way, I've got to tell you, I grew up going to Stride Right shoe store.
My mother always went to Stride Right.
The guy said, well, I'll fix, he was always tough in the back by my foot.
I'll go in the back and fix it.
You know, the guy had a broom or something.
He was running it over in the back there.
They said, where's my machine for?
Look at that machine.
He had a broom.
He had a broom.
Well, we got very, very detailed attention from the shoe salesman.
They would sit on kind of a slanted bench.
They brought out the boxes with the tissue paper, but at Laos, you could get your feet examined
with radiation.
You could go into those boxes.
Yeah.
You could see your bones all lit up.
That couldn't have been healthy.
Oh, my God.
No.
No.
What were they thinking?
But we were fascinated.
We thought we were getting great tests.
I didn't have the radiation, but I've seen them before.
Oh, we did.
Laos had it.
Laos had it.
Wow.
And so our other stores, Kenny's, Robert shoe outlet, idols and Zons had it.
And during one of our programs about downtown, we had the privilege of meeting Terry Lynch,
who has still since passed away.
But his father had Seymores find shoes on Sixth Street, that fashion street.
Seymores was known for their dying ability.
If you had a woman's red dress for Christmas, you could have shoes, the exact shade.
That I heard of.
I heard of dying shoes.
We also had jewelry stores downtown.
I think the most popular one was probably Brantz, located on Monument Square.
We had Brantz, which is now the sugar shack ice cream parlor.
Was that what that was?
Sure.
Yeah, okay.
Doreng's Porosix, which was right next to the Old Rialto Theater.
And Vincent's, that was unusual because that was located above one of the dime stores.
You had to walk upstairs to go to the jewelry store.
But I think that was mostly watch repair and things like that.
Well, I would say that at Christmas, one of the popular, popular gifts from jewelry stores,
everyone needed their birthstone necklace or ring or bracelet.
And I still, to this day now, our granddaughter is six.
It's about time that I got back to birthstones and got her birthstone for her November birthday.
And Christmas engagements, watches.
I think Boulevard was a big name back then.
Maybe Spideel, plenty of jewelry for us.
And then we had regular gift stores.
Sandy's was newer but became very popular.
They had small appliances, I think, junior sister.
Kathy worked there.
Worked there.
Jewelry.
And they had, yes, they had jewelry.
They had gifts.
For some reason, I have been fixated on that was an era of bridal registries with stainless.
And stoneware.
And also, people were still smoking.
And I remember, my parents didn't smoke.
I didn't smoke.
But the big ash trays, mosaics.
That was a very popular gift.
And Sandy's had ash trays for us.
I also had Jenny dolls.
And we were always looking for bride dolls for little, as girls, tall bride dolls.
We also had more Jones hardware downtown.
That was a seasonal toy store.
They were known for appliances, hardware, paints and wallpaper, things like that.
As a matter of fact, my first erector set came from there as a Christmas present.
And that was a great thing for a boy to play with.
My brother got one.
I didn't ever get another erector set.
He got the chemistry sets, the erectors, I didn't get that stuff.
Yeah, sure.
And of course, we had record stores downtown.
The record mark was located near the Venetian theater.
And it had a small enclosed booths for playing records.
You could actually try the record out before you bought it.
And these are 45 RPMs we're talking about.
45s or albums.
Yeah.
Speaking of albums, that's where you bought your Christmas albums.
Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Paul and Paula.
Anybody remember Paul and Paula?
I want to marry you, hey, hey, Paul.
I guess we struck the note there.
That's right.
Even Elvin and the Chipmunks had a Christmas album out.
And then right on Sixth Street was a store, a different kind of name, Cook Gear.
Where Ralph Schoenleven worked.
Yes.
He was a marvelous man.
He was here 55 years on the air at WRJ and doing the classical music show Sunday night.
And in his 90s, he was still working here, Cook Gear Music.
He was a class gentleman.
He happened to be a neighbor of ours, and Carlisle Avenue for many years.
So at Cook Gear, too, you could go in and there would be the bins of albums.
Do you remember seeing albums by alphabetical order?
But Cook Gear and Ralph, they, in a very sedate way,
provided the latest in stereo equipment and high fidelity sound.
So I know my father just appreciated Ralph so much.
And that's where we got our first small stereo set for Cook Gear.
And books, right along there, too, on Sixth Street, were bookstores.
I'm thinking of Martha Meryl's, which was extremely popular.
Yes, they were, they, they lasted a long time, Martha Meryl.
That's where, that's when they were deweys, is that now?
Well, maybe she moved there, but I'm thinking it was more of a, more of a west thought.
Yeah, I think they, I think they moved there one time.
That dewey is just there now.
Now, whites, I don't think was as popular.
But for those of my, our listeners who know about whites,
my friend from grade school and we're still very close, Karen.
She and I fell in love with Nancy Drew books.
Third, fourth grade.
So we would take the bus downtown, but especially at Christmas,
we wanted Nancy Drew books or maybe Hardy Boy books.
Well, do I dare say this?
We would go into whites bookstore.
And the shelves were up to the ceiling.
There was one of those rolling ladders.
But since we were looking for mysteries, I just have to add that
Mr. White seemed to resemble Alfred Hitchcock to us.
It was a mystery all the way around.
Good evening, Carol.
Good evening.
That's kind of the way it's seen.
Yes.
So whites remains kind of a mysterious place in my mind.
There was also rails downtown right on Sixth Street and Wisconsin.
Now, that was mostly a cigar and magazine store.
However, they sold cliff notes there.
And if you were a high school student,
who would want to stay home and read Macbeth or Hamlet or Julius Caesar,
you'd go to derails by the cliff notes,
and you could have that thing done in probably one hour.
I don't think the teachers didn't know you were using the cliff notes.
You had other things to do.
And that was the place that I bought my mad magazine.
If you were a teenage boy during the 50s and 60s,
you know what I'm talking about.
What?
Me worry.
What?
Me worry.
Alfred E. Newman.
Of course, we had bakeries downtown as well.
Lindstrom's bakery was right near the Venetian theater on a corner.
They had glazed donuts.
Federal bake shop.
They were located south of Zons.
And you could always see the tall wedding cakes through the windows.
That was a sign that, hey, there was a bakery here.
Let's go in and get something good to eat.
And I think Jim, one of our favorites was the Fanny Farmer Shop.
That was on the corner of Monument Square in 6th.
Yep.
White and darling white lights to brightly shining like on a wintery night Christmas candy, of course.
White bags, you know.
And but Zons and pennies had candy counters right as you practically walked in.
And I have such a nice memory of my mother and I at pennies.
Funny how you remember certain things.
She would hold my hand and I can remember the touch of her hand.
Maybe it'd be our last stop before taking the bus home which stopped right outside pennies.
We would walk in for a bag of chocolate-covered raisins or melted milk balls.
And wait at that central candy counter.
Looking down on us was this very awesome portrait of Mr. JC Penny.
So he was watching everything we were doing.
And the C stood for Cash.
James Cash Penny.
What a great name for a businessman.
Oh my goodness.
And there were so many candies to choose from.
You felt like just saying, I want one of everything and be quick about it.
Well, I go to the Durangoes on the mainstream.
Yes.
They have a whole room full of chocolates and they bought back them a little boxes for you.
20 of those, 30 of those, nothing of those.
It's not cheap either.
No, it's not.
Now, Don, this is an aside but I do believe that those recipes come from the candy maker Mr. Melley.
Oh really?
So that's a history to double check but I think it goes way back to Mr. Melley on stage.
Yeah, they're made right there on mainstream right there.
I think it's the same recipe.
Durangoes I think it is.
And of course we had Wicks downtown.
That's where you got all your film developed.
Film.
Film.
Film the bell up.
What are you talking about?
Remember the brownie cameras?
Bell.
And if you had slides, of course, or movie film, of course, that was the place to go for developing.
And also to buy cameras.
Ray Wick was very, very nice and very knowledgeable when it comes to camera cameras.
My husband and I still have probably 4,000 slides.
My father took most of them are of the P and E's of our backyard.
My wife just took out when her mother passed away, found these boxes of slides.
Yeah.
And my father-law passed away in 1976.
So I finally got to see what he looked like.
Oh.
Other than his Navy is a marine uniform.
Yeah.
I saw this guy now.
Oh, he darned.
And I loved looking at those slides.
Well, how did you view the slides?
Did you have a projector scene?
We went to a second-hand store on Lathrop Avenue and bought a projector.
Lucky.
And I had a screen in the house.
Yeah.
And I saw the family for the first time in my life.
Well, our brownie cameras were very big Christmas gifts.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
But then back to 6th Street 2, now we're kind of winding up here.
There was the most beautiful luggage leather store called Hadens.
And I know, once I went on a shopping trip trying to buy my parents a nice present for Christmas
when I was about eight years old.
And I knew that I couldn't afford anything at Hadens.
But years later, my friends and I, we were at Hadens when we were going to go to college.
And we were all getting American tourister, light blue luggage sets.
Especially with a train case, just for your makeup.
That was our Hadens American tourister.
That was also the place to buy gag gifts.
I remember that, Jim.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So they had a funny sight.
They did?
It wasn't all just leather and seriousness.
Yeah.
Jim is here with his joy-budzers and whoopie cushions.
Yeah.
I didn't have the bulls, my memories of that.
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
Who remembers the downtown furniture stores?
We had several down there.
Porter's, of course, was very high-end.
It was fun to look through the windows at that very high-end furniture.
And I have a Porter's table of my kitchen.
No kidding.
When they were going out of business.
You were lucky.
Oh, yeah.
And it's a wonderful kitchen set.
Yeah.
And I got it from Porter's.
Right?
I have to say to, we are using John's parents, Porter's dining room set to this day.
That's a status symbol.
You and I have status.
My Porter's furniture.
Yeah.
We also had grants furniture downtown.
Who remembers L-fish?
They were located between the two theaters.
All three of these furniture stores are long gone.
However, blocks furniture store is still standing.
That was located on Main Street on the east side of the street.
Just north of the theaters.
And, of course, we had the many flower stores downtown.
Well, we had two in particular.
Okay, that's right.
And they were right next to each other.
Yes, that's right.
So, again, envisioning Racine at night, how dazzling it was with beautiful windows.
We can see Miller's flowers.
Still there.
That is, we think our one remaining store.
Millioldes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Killery, Miller Creature, and her husband are dynamos.
Still there to do everything for us.
And the flower shop was next door on the corner.
So, if you went to the flower shops and then crossed over to Porto,
she was seeing extremely beautiful things.
Right in a row.
Hold it right there.
We take quick break to come back with Carol Jean Forte and Jim Sear.
I'm Don Rosen at 749 at WRJN Radio, a civic media statement.
All-town radio.
Refreshed.
You say you will love me.
If I have to go, you'll be thinking of...
Carol Jean Forte and Jim Sear are here talking about Racine way back.
Seems like a long time ago now.
Didn't seem to long ago when I was a kid.
Fifty and sixties in Racine, shopping Christmas time and year round.
Talk about some more of the stores and some of the fun we had back then.
Well, after you were shopping for a good part of the day, of course, you got hungry.
And downtown provided many restaurants for you to go and eat.
And we're going to list a few of them here, but see how many that you remember.
Well, of course we had Cupid's.
Oh my gosh.
It's still there.
And it's the only one.
Yeah.
You know, that would be along with Miller's flowers and Cupid's.
Two different places.
Maybe those are the only two.
Only two remaining.
That's right.
So Jim, now tell us again about Cupid's and how they had to relocate.
Well, they had that parking garage located above them.
And when that was going to be demolished, of course, Cupid's was directly underneath it.
That had to come down to.
So once the dusk cleared, they built the brand new Cupid's.
I think almost on the same spot a little bit over a little bit over.
Right.
And they enlarged it, of course.
But the good news is that it's still there.
And I think that's probably what maybe the most popular restaurant downtown to this day.
I think so.
My wife just went there the other day.
Oh yeah.
And you know, something stays the same.
I think the taste is the same.
I hope.
I think so.
Yeah.
And we had always heard that Sam Johnson used to go there in Cognito just to get us to be
epicors.
Really?
Oh.
Was he that recognizable?
Well, I don't think so.
Well, I remember one that I don't know how popular it was.
And it had a wonderful spot.
It was called the salad bowl.
And that is where dewey's is today.
So I remember feeling very grown up.
Let's say maybe I was in fifth grade.
I was already taking the bus downtown.
But I would have some allowance money.
And I would go to the salad bowl.
And again, I'm envisioning this at night and sit on a table right next to the window.
And just enjoy the vertical signs and the hustle and bustle down there.
Can't remember what I ate at the salad bowl, but the location.
Probably salad.
Yeah.
I'll have a salad.
Yeah.
And of course, we had the dime stores, which we talked about.
Two of them had lunch counters.
And you could probably buy a hamburger for maybe a dime I'm thinking.
Hot dogs, hamburgers, you know, fries.
The good healthy stuff.
And that was always a fun place to go.
Because as a kid, you really felt grown up by going to your to a lunch counter
and just sitting on the stool and acting like a grown up.
That was a big, big deal.
And Jim, didn't they have the light green Hamilton Beach mixer?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mine's not green, but I have a malted milk machine.
Okay.
And because I bought it several years ago and has the tin container, the aluminum container.
Yes.
Yes, they would give you the whole container.
Because there was always some leftover in the container.
Yes.
Yes.
Oh boy.
Yes.
That's right.
And then I think the waitresses probably had white caps or white crown things and white aprons.
Yeah.
It looked like nurses in a hospital.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Everybody had uniforms back then.
I don't think they had hair nuts.
Did they have hair nuts?
Maybe that was prior to their prior.
No, that was just a school.
The lunchroom ladies in the cafeteria.
Even a gas station attendant said uniforms with caps and everything, you know.
What's the bad thing to do?
Right.
And then of course we had the ace grill.
The ace grill was known for its pool hall in the basement.
But the restaurant was up under first floor.
And if you were a guy back then, you probably are very familiar with playing pool at the ace.
That was the place to be.
I remember the discovering ace.
And I think boy, kind of naive, a friend of mine in high school, we would go to the library.
We were going to study, but we were going to sit by the card catalog and see what guys were doing reports with the card catalog.
And then when we left, we discovered ace for their banana splits.
Oh boy.
So we would top off our library excursion with ace.
A little did we know what was going on in the basement?
Boy, yeah, another restaurant was.
Heckles.
Heckles, that's right.
And I don't remember that very well, but I know it bordered on Wisconsin.
It was on Wisconsin.
Did you have to enter from Wisconsin?
I think so.
I could walk through from monument square all the way through.
I don't know, but I remember entering on Wisconsin.
And heckles would have had great things like club sandwiches.
Yeah.
Right across from Coupies, really was.
I remember a lot of attorneys went there for their lunch from the courthouse.
To heckle each other, you know?
Yeah, of course.
Anybody remember the white tower that was located downtown?
They were located right next door to Ivan Hose.
The white tower was a competitor, of course, of white castle.
But this one looks like a tower.
And still there, it's empty right now.
It used to be a pizza place, but now it's empty.
And now we did have the Ivan Hose.
Yes.
Still there today.
Still there.
That's still there.
For years it was closed.
Wasn't it an empty building?
Yes.
For years.
For many years.
And now it's been brought back.
Yes.
And actually the Nelson Hotel.
That had a lunch counter.
It did.
I think we're adding these as we talk.
Uh-huh.
Yep.
And that's a Divino.
Divino.
That's correct.
Right.
A lot of us don't remember a small hole in the wall called a Gladys lunch or Gladys lunch.
Located right across the street from the journal Times.
And I remember when we, as paper boys, would go pay our bill every Saturday.
We'd come out of there.
We had money in our pockets.
And the first place you would go to would be this little hole in the wall hamburger place right across the street.
Although some of us went to the dime stores and even the QPs.
But hey, this was the first place that you would see with the money.
Well done.
This has been so much fun.
And now we can look ahead to next month.
When we'll be back.
Yes.
And we thought that being January we would touch on outdoor activities.
And then we would go back to the balcony, the sledding, um, the school, the school snow days.
Ice skating, ice skating at the many rings we used to have in Racine.
We'll talk about them all.
Should be a lot of fun.
I remember listening to the radio.
I would wind up working at the radio station.
But I was a little kid.
Uh-huh.
I was listening when they say Massimic was school district number 23.
Closed.
I know.
I know.
Wasn't it great?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we didn't care how cold it was.
We didn't care how wet our mittens got.
Or our snow pants.
Yeah.
Or snow in the boots.
We were outside as fast as we could be.
Carol, G and 4K.
Jim Garcia, you guys are legends in Racine.
We've got to make Ron statues to you guys in Monument Square one day.
Renek's at the cannon.
We'll keep you guys out with it.
Thank you guys for coming in.
I love the show.
You do it with the Golden Rondale.
I can't believe you.
It can be a couple of years from the next month.
But we've got to hold on for it.
It's a lot of work putting those shows together.
Thank you very much.
I'm Don Rosen.
It's 758 at WRJM Radio, a civic media station.
Home town radio refreshed.
We're at 1400 AM, 99.9 FM, 98.1 FM.
Tomorrow we're talking Movies.
What's new for 2024?
I'm going to talk that with Brett Hoppen for Marcus Theater.
See you then.