COLUMNIST ROQUEMORE'S CORNER
Marh 23, 2021
Long time Cedar Key resident and Cedar Key Beacon columnist Susan Engle Roquemore has compiled her writings into two wonderfully and cleverly titled books:
Turn Left at the Big Osprey Nest and
Water Under the Number 4 Bridge: A Memoir of the Beacon Years (1988-1993)
Turn Left at the Big Osprey Nest and
Water Under the Number 4 Bridge: A Memoir of the Beacon Years (1988-1993)
These books are currently sold at:
the Cedar Key Chamber of Commerce Welcome Center,
the Cedar Key Historical Society Museum,
the Florida’s Nature Coast Conservancy events,
and the Woman’s Club.
These organizations receive the book’s full sales price.
the Cedar Key Chamber of Commerce Welcome Center,
the Cedar Key Historical Society Museum,
the Florida’s Nature Coast Conservancy events,
and the Woman’s Club.
These organizations receive the book’s full sales price.
For your reading pleasure and enjoyment of an incisive, often humorous
view of Cedar Key two decades ago, Ms. Roquemore and the Cedar Key News intend to publish selected articles monthly.
view of Cedar Key two decades ago, Ms. Roquemore and the Cedar Key News intend to publish selected articles monthly.
Cedar Key News hope you enjoy the articles. If you do, and should you purchase one or both books, the above non-profit organizations will certainly appreciate the effort.
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JOG YOUR “RADIO DAYS” MEMORY;
TAKE THE NOSTALGIA QUIZ!
The magic that is childhood lives on in our mind’s eye. The colors, the smells, the touches can be retrieved by a casual remark or tune.
This happened to me at the gas station the other day when Richard Zeigler said, “Twang your magic twanger, Froggie.” Someone else might have slapped his face, but I knew exactly what he meant.
I flipped the latch to my gas cap. “You know Froggie the Gremlin?” he quizzed. “Sure.” “But do you know the name of the show, the sponsor, the day and the time slot in which it aired?” I was smug!
While the car was filling with gasoline he asked me what the “Shadow” knew! Any child of the forties could have told him: “What evil lurks in the hearts of men.” (Most teenage girls are in on this one as well.) “What was Buster Brown’s dog’s name?” “Where did they live?” he shot at me Quiz Kids style. “I’m Buster Brown, I live in a shoe. Here’s my dog Tige, he lives there too!” In chorus we gave the same emphasis to each word. Richard had the last word: he caught me on “Who is Everywhere?” “Chicken-Man.” Frankly, I think he made it up or it is a figment of an Indiana childhood. Has anyone else ever heard of “Chicken-Man?” (I don’t mean Colonel Sanders!”)
Oh, I could have nailed him with important people: Who did a song where Chewing Gum is stuck to the rail, cabbage is leading by a head...Grandma’s Girdle in the stretch and here comes BEETLEBOMB!
As a child, in pre-TV days, there was a radio in every room of our house. (One Christmas, unbeknownst to the others, everyone gave each other a radio. Those things happen in the best of families.) Our family retired about nine o’clock...! I listened to the creaky door of “Inner Sanctum” more than once, and “Gangbusters” regularly. (We always knew who the bad guys were.) Once, my parents woke to shouting and shooting. My dad told my mother: “Go back to sleep it’s only “The Sheriff.” The next day they found a blackjack in front of the house. Realism? You bet!
Television disappointed some of us. We had imagined a different Matt Dillon and Joe Friday. We knew just what the Green Hornet’s car looked like and to hear that bzzzz-whirrr left us excited. We didn’t need to see the villains splattered on the wall to know that the bad guy “got his.”
There was a move afoot even in those days to take the “violence” off the air. When quizzed by my first grade teacher about favorite radio shows there was no doubt in my mind: “Sam Spade.” My mother went to the school office one more time. Sometimes I think my mother spent more time at school than my first grade teacher. The teacher didn’t like my reading material either.
My brothers and I had six feet of comic books that we read and re-read and even translated to our own radio show—broadcast to the neighborhood. While I had my share of “Little Lulus” (my nickname at the time) I tended to prefer “Mr. District Attorney.” (Another disappointment on TV.)
One of the all-time radio greats was “The FBI in Peace and War.” (Can you imagine the ratings that would get today?) Everyone was sought for “unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.” I asked my teacher what that meant. It was obvious that she couldn’t figure out why I would want to know. My brother told me it meant “taking it on the lam, Sister.” I could understand THAT!
Everyone knew what Fibber McGee’s closet looked like. We had only to think about opening the door to my brother’s bedroom.
Amos and Andy and Sapphire and Kingfish are lost to us forever. We’ve become uptight about racial and ethnic stereotypes. There will never be another Rochester who said with eyes rolling upward (you just knew they were rolling upward): “Yes, Mr. Benny.” What higher accolade than to be called “dear and faithful friend?” Yet, if Tonto were here today, would he say “Kemo sabe?” It is a shame to tuck these memories away because they are embarrassing. Tuck them away we do, until someone like Richard starts talking about Froggie the Gremlin. Thanks, Dick.
Now for a little quiz to see how good you really are:
1. Daytime radio soap operas were usually how many minutes long?
2. Stella Dallas came from what kind of town in England? (If you say it with the right inflection you get extra points.)
3. “Riders of the Purple Sage” was the name for what musical group?
4. What was the “one and only cereal that was shot from guns?” (Extra credit for the name of the person who wrote the tune.)
5. Who sponsored the “Lux Radio Theatre?” (At what hour and day did it air?)
6. What kind of car did Jack Benny drive? What instrument did he play? A four letter word that started all of his answers?
7. What was the name of the undertaker on “The Great Gildersleeve?”
8. “You'll wonder where the yellow went” when you do what? Extra credit for what show it sponsored.
9. Fill in the Blank: Hen-REE—HEN-ree ___________!
10. What were the two colors representing NBC in the years of the Great Depression?
11. What “hit” show was the precursor of today’s Top 40?
12. What cigarette sponsored “Dragnet” on early radio? (Clue: it was not Chesterfield.)
13. Baby Snooks and Barbra Streisand have what in common?
Nostalgia quiz results...
Some of my readers in 1989 did so magnificently in the nostalgia quiz about radio days that they left me somewhat red-faced. I really did try to make those questions esoteric. I guess some other kids of my vintage hung around the radio instead of the malt shop.
1. Fifteen minutes.
2. I have no idea where Stella Dallas came from. I must have been thinking of Our Gal Sunday, who came from “a little mining town in the west.”
3. “Riders of the Purple Sage” was a musical backup band to cowboy star Roy Rogers and others. The “Singing Rage Miss Patti Page” was the girl in the band.
4. Quaker Puffed Wheat used part of the “1812 Overture” of Tchaikovsky for theme music.
5. Lux Radio Theater, sponsored by Lux Soap, played at 8 PM on Sundays.
6. “Well…,” Jack drove (or was driven in) a Maxwell and played the violin, sometimes in celebrity concert.
7. In another toast to lapsed memory, the undertaker Digger O’Dell was a favorite on “The Life of Riley” radio show, not “The Great Gildersleeve.”
8. “Brush your teeth with Pepsodent,” the sponsor of “The Pepsodent Show” starring Bob Hope.
9. Aldrich—“Coming, Mother!”
10. There were two NBC networks, the Red and the Blue. In 1942 Blue was sold and became ABC.
11. Lucky Strike’s “Your Hit Parade.”
12. Liggett & Myers’ Fatima cigarettes.
13. Barbra played Fanny Brice, the Funny Girl, who in later years played obnoxious Baby Snooks on radio.
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