Lids Off: September, 2002 |
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Messages in a Cyber-Bottle between a Couple of Old Marooned PiratesSeptember, 2002
E, So, do I miss the Panda? Yes, in the sense that it is an important bit of our history, at least mine. As plain and tasteless as the burgers and shakes were, it was the place to go after school or after an evening out, if you had "wheels," as we used to say. Some people would drive around just to see who was parked on any of the four sides. Now it's just a vacant spot of asphalt. Is that better than some other structure in its place? It doesn't deserve any type of memorial, but it's hard to describe to our kids and grandkids just what the Panda was to us. As far as burger joints, Rutherford's Triple XXX further south on Division was another place. I think we went there only for a change. The food wasn't any different, unless you enjoyed root beer, their specialty. It was a chance to see kids from other schools, NC or Shadle, if one was interested. I wasn't. That's why I only went there at others' suggestion. Even though it was close, the Pirate seemed off-limits if you didn't smoke or want to risk getting into a fight. At least that seemed to be the reputation. I only stopped in there twice: once after a late track practice when I was dying of thirst and once in the summer, when no one else was there. I remember it seemed awfully dingy. And old. I am so pleased to see the Davenport make a comeback. That was the place to get a taste of elegance. That's where the formal dances took place. That's where groups met for banquets. That's where we might just walk through the lobby to hear the birds, sit briefly in a comfortable chair, get some shiny coins at the desk. One of my post-high school summer jobs was in the Davenport's Matador Room. It gave me a chance to see the inner workings of that stately place. The inner workings were disappointedly not so stately. When my dad decided to move the Newman family from Mt Shasta, CA to Spokane, and he took me there on a preliminary scouting run before the move on one of his business trips, my first night in Spokane was spent in the Davenport. I remember hearing sirens nearly all night, something I never heard in Mt Shasta. The theaters were comfortable, compared to those today. The Orpheum seemed old but grand. The Liberty was a standby, where a kid could always find a good movie. I read recently in a Bing Crosby bio that the Liberty was one of the first theatres in Spokane, 1915. The Post was another favorite, the one I think I attended more than any other...unless it might have been the Queen of theatres, the Fox...the grand Fox, near the Davenport, which seemed appropriate. It's poor sister, the State, was nearby. What was the name of that theatre on Riverside near Post Street? The Rialto? I remember seeing Shane and Uncle Tom's Cabin, plus some Jimmy Stewart movies at the Bandbox on Sprague. Then there were the "bum" theatres, where it was rumored the bums would go to sleep because of the cheap seats. The El Rey on Trent, (I dared to go in there once to see some Roman movie, "Fabulous Fabiola," I think it was,) and the naughty Rex on Riverside, a block from the Paulsen Building, where we might sneak in to see a Bridget Bardot movie or something racier. Newberry's was the place to shop, or just wander, always getting one of those hotdogs that had rolled around on those rolling grills for who knows how long. Good place to ride an escalator, which was the first I'd ever ridden on my first visit to Spokane. Moving stairs! I was fascinated. Newberry's seemed to have everything. Kress was pretty good, though, especially for toys in the little boy days of our lives. Payless was a whole lot more than a drugstore...it also had some neat stuff in the toy line Did you buy you fancier duds at Harvey's Men's and Boys Shop? Didn't they have one downtown and at Northtown? I remember the one downtown had a Playboy bunny there to autograph her centerfold picture. Northtown always seemed to be somewhat disappointing. I guess I just wasn't ready for mall-type shopping, or it wasn't meant for kids. The Spokane City Lines seemed to provide faithful service and ease in getting anywhere we wanted to go. I think I actually enjoyed riding the bus. Liked the token system. Liked looking out the windows, even if I'd seen the same things hundreds of times. My only bad memories are the time a kid tried to pick a fight, who I didn't even know, and the time a corrupt driver tried to sell, yes sell, me a transfer when I was riding a bus from the stadium after a football game. I didn't have the money to buy, so I got off somewhere that looked close to home and walked the rest of the way, which I think was from Monroe to my house on Hamilton. It seemed like a long walk late at night. I never felt safe walking by myself anywhere in Spokane. There were always ruffians roaming the streets, or at least I suspected there were. But there were a few instances where I did meet up with some tough characters. Finally, was Joe Albi Stadium named that then, or was it something else? It seemed big, but when I've seen it on visits, it sure looks small...too small for a city of Spokane's size. Smaller than the stadium at Pullman. Anyway, many a good time was had going to the football games. However, the Coliseum was more fun for the triple-header basketball games on Friday nights. What a neat system, packing all those schools into one building, each with it's own designated area, so much fun that we would stay for the whole series of games and not leave when Rogers' was over. Central Valley and West Valley sat across from us. I think NC was next to us, so we couldn't really look at them in action. The noisy Bullpups were down in the corner area on our side. And then there was the detested Lewis and Clark, which we enjoyed chiding by mocking their fight song, something about their colors looking like Halloween. Pretty good days, all-in-all. Pretty good place to live and go to
school. W, I do greatly miss one artifact: the Great Northern Depot. They kept the tower, why not the depot? I see that would have required a road to be displaced a few yards. So displace it! The depot wasn't a sleazy skid row bar. Rule number one: YOU DON’T RAZE TRAIN DEPOTS. I always called it “Grampa’s depot,” because my German-immigrant grandfather worked his entire adult life at GN. I have not lived in Spokane for 36 years. I once went 11 years without visiting. In 1989 I figured it was time to visit elderly parents. Now I visit once a year. I think you and I see Spokane with slightly different eyes, W. I’m always amazed how little Spokane has changed, the valley and Riverfront Park notwithstanding. Downtown still appears vibrant. That’s unusual in this country. I cannot think of many cities of 196,00 that still have a decent downtown. By the way, the population was 180,000 40 years ago. Not much increase compared to most. It actually sank to 175,000 in the interim. They did essentially raise downtown about 15 feet and gut some blocks to make parking, but once you leave downtown, what changed? There is a lot of growth to the North, but in my eyes, the stuff between downtown and Francis never seems to change. Northtown is revamped every 20 years or so. There is a lot more shopping to the north of it now, but look at Division south of it. Many of the businesses are the same as they were when I was five. Rutherford's Triple XXX is there and was when I was young. The Cathay Inn was there, in another building. It’s still on Division. Granted, Northbound Division is now routed onto Ruby. They moved Knight’s Diner to my old neighborhood, but at least it’s still around. Great breakfasts, but if you have too many of them, you won’t fit between the barstool and the counter. Knight’s supplies a self-limiting diet. Spokane seems to be full of cultural experiences. The Bloomsday race is a good thing. It made National Geographic, with a view of people on the Main St. hill near that glassed-in view of the river of what was Smith Brothers’ Funeral Home. I guess I don’t miss the Panda. I only went there a few times. I probably didn’t have the average Rogers experience. For me, the Panda was across town, on the Shadle side of Division. We had Pete’s Coney King, Jack and Sue’s Fountainette, and the Bend Drive-In - now the Bend Restaurant and Casino. I once took the late Bonny McMartin the Bend for a hamburger after the Sadie Hawkins dance. More on Rutherford's XXX. The term XXX means something else today, eh? I'm thinking T-shirt sizes, not movie ratings. I notice that Rutherford's is still around, at least in Spokane and Seattle. There's a XXX on I90 in Issaquah. We may stop there for rations as we begin our October eastward invasion of Spokane from Seatac. I’m pleased that the Davenport made a comeback. Trouble is, I didn't know it left until we had our 40th at the Ridpath. I had a few banquets and happenings there myself. Dudley McCracken and I once spoke there at the Optimist’s Club as part of some debate exercise. I had a banquet or two there as part of the Inland Empire Science Fair, even before our senior happenings. Inland Empire! Where did it go! What's the Inland Northwest? What an insipid name. I guess the PC crowd had at our regional name, eh? Maybe I can handle change less well than I thought. I could devote a column to the theaters. I think you put a couple on the wrong streets. The Rialto was on Main and Howard, across from the Santa window of the Bon Marche (B.M. Palace). I always considered skid row on Main to begin at the east wall of the Rialto. The Liberty theater was on Riverside near Post. I saw my first movie there. Held hands with an older chick. I was about three. The El Rey was on Main, not Trent - smack in the middle of drunks sleeping on the sidewalk. It had no carpet. The floor was sticky, just like today's theaters. Carpet was the norm for theaters then. Jimmy Wellwood and I once sat through the triple feature three times there just to see a cartoon shark do a Tarzan yell. The feature was Burt Lancaster in The Crimson Pirate. We got home at sundown. I want to discuss theaters in another column, but first let’s try to list them:
Can you add to this list? We had a bunch of theaters, but each had one screen, not 20. I’m probably missing a theater somewhere. Did the valley have any? You implied that today's theaters are not as comfortable. I'll grant that they're not nearly as nice, but stadium seating is good. In June, 1999 we moved. After a hard day's work, we went to see Star Wars I in a stadium seating theater. The movie was good. The surround sound was at the threshold of feeling. The seats were comfortable. I'm getting old, so I caught some Zs. I recently bought the DVD, so I now know the story. Still, nobody is going to try to preserve that theater in 30 years. Of course nobody preserved most of that list above either. I never bought duds at Harvey’s Men and Boys Shop. We were Penney's people. A friend’s kid who spent every dime he saved at Bells Young Men's Shop impressed my mom. She let me know that she wished I could I be like him. I spent every dime on model airplanes. My jeans had holes in the knees - quite fashionable today. I was ahead of my time. Newberrys was like downtown Hong Kong - a mass of humanity. I worked a block away at W.T. Grants. They wish they could have had Newberry’s business. All of these places seemed to shrink when I returned four years after graduation. I agree about Payless. It was special although we would have been roasted in the basement had a fire started. How about Kress? Neat toys. I had a Twilight Zone experience in January. My company is in Asheville, NC. I go there about twice a year to teach or meet. I found an identical Kress building there. The two stairways to the basement were exactly the same. This building is now an art gallery in the basement and main floor with pricey condos in the upper floors with a view of the Blue Ridge and Smokey Mountains. For me, it was time travel. The tin ceiling was identical to that of Spokane’s Kress. What was upstairs in our Kress? I had a similar experience ten years ago when I went into Raleigh’s downtown post office. It was a clone of Spokane's’ PO right down to the tables along the windows with inch-thick glass. My mom used to sit me on those tables as she addressed letters. I guess the government had a standard post office kit once upon a time. The Spokane City Lines served us well. A movie ended too late for the bus a couple of times myself. That late night walk home to Minnehaha was scary. When I was little I could see a movie for 50 cents: a quarter to get in, two dimes for bus fare, and a nickel for a candy bar. Later, a city bus took me to Rogers for a dime. I got in several fights in the back of that bus. I remember a load of us in a completely full city bus going up the Garland Hill. We found the bus’ resonant frequency and got the back wheels almost hopping off the ground. That bus just barely made that hill at a crawl. It was full of fans returning from a Merry-Go-Round Game at Memorial Stadium. Yes, that was the name. I watched them build the stadium. I thought it was big! All these years, I thought WSU had their home games there. I honestly didn't know y’all had a larger stadium. Sorry. Got to visit Pullman some time. I don’t know when this Joe Albi name came along. At least it wasn’t renamed Kennedy Stadium in 1963. Some firm should buy naming rights, in keeping with our penchant for making everything an ad. Picture Alaska Junk Stadium. It could happen. I think of the Spokane Coliseum as being brand new! My grandfather (the German one) was against it. He said we needed more bridges. I saw bridges all over Spokane. I wanted a Coliseum, and got one. My dad was on the crew that opened it. He had his picture in Life Magazine. We graduated there, of course, shortly before I bolted from the city. I liked the basketball games there. I remember that Shadle blew the rafters out of the place, probably because it was their first year. The (Bob) Parrys took me to many hockey games at the Coliseum. I remember going to one about two years after we graduated. That was my last time inside. Those were indeed good days. It was and is a good place to live and go to school. Now I'm exiled in an equally good, but different place. I shall never live in Spokane again, but I intend to keep making yearly visits. E-
Page modified 06/02/04 06:06:09 PM EDT |
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