REMEMBER?

by Bill Monson


You're an old-timer if you can remember:

When the Dolly ran to Peoria.

When Meadow Gold delivered milk door to door with a horse-drawn cart.

When western star Rex Allen came to the Knox County Fair.

When Joey Chitwood was the fair's featured thrill-driver.

When a horse named 'Southern Comfort' dominated saddle racing at the Fair.

When half the harness horses had Siskiyou in their names and the other half had Hanover.

Knox basketball games at the Galesburg armory.

Eating packets of Kool Aid without sugar.

The Carnegie Library.

When the Old Post Office at Cherry and Simmons was a youth center.

Roof garden dances at the Weinberg Arcade.

When Johnny Mack Brown westerns played with Three Stooges shorts and a serial chapter for Saturday matinee at the Colonial Theater. All for 14 cents.

When the city closed its park pools and Lake Storey because of polio.

When you'd reach In a muddy gutter for a penny.

The WGIL tower atop the Hill Arcade.

When the airport was on North Henderson.

Buying souvenir postcards of movie stars from the machines at the old Burlington depot.

The all-night restaurant at the old Burlington depot.

The old Burlington depot.

When there were only two types of tennis shoes -- Keds and PF Flyers.

When Mom was home when you got there from school.

When service stations provided free air for your tires, water for your radiator, and an attendant washed your windshield and filled your tank with Ethyl at 35 cents a gallon.

When 50 cents was a good allowance.

S & H Green Stamps.

When there was a C. B. & Q. roundhouse with steam engines.

Playing kick-the-can under a streetlight.

When laundry detergent came with dishes or towels Inside.

When you drank your Ovaltine from an old jelly jar.

Cinders Instead of salt at snowy street corners.

Intact rocker panels on cars.

When nylons came by the pair instead of attached to panties.

Steele Gym.

Churchill Junior High.

Boone's Alley taverns.

Knox couples kissing on Whiting Hall steps.

The King Cole Bookstore.

Shift whistles at the Q.

When you could set your watch by the Court House clock.

Telephone booths in drugstores.

The listening booth at Lindstrom's Records.

A cherry Coke at the marble bar at Hawthorne's drugstore.

''Strand's Studio Story Hour'' on WGIL.

When Galesburg had a real downtown.



Uploaded to The Zephyr Online August 30, 2000

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