| The older gentlemen who played poker every day at lunch on the round card tables at the Billiard Room on Main Street? Not to mention the LP record-sized tenderloins and the pool tables upstairs? Today, if you stop in the “Other Place” in Westport you can enjoy a tenderloin sandwich on those same red tables. |
| When the Record Cellar was still ‘underground’ on Second Street, and ETC. upstairs was the place to buy the new polyester shirts and leisure suits made famous by John Travolta and Leif Garrett? |
| When restaurants were ‘local’ and the nearest McDonalds was in Princeton? Remember calling in your dinner order by phone at King’s Food Host located across the street from the Stoplight Restaurant? Ordering a mouthwatering “Topper” or “Big Chef” at Top Boy and Burger Chef? Having “Fish on Friday” at the Harmony Society? Enjoying the Norman Rockwell charm of Charlie’s Café, and a “Barnburger” from Burger Barn? Don’t forget picking up your birthday cake at Cake Creation? |
| When Byron Bobe’s Pizza House was located in a former grocery store on 10th & Main across from Smith’s Drug Store and Soda Fountain – home of the “cherry coke”, and Italian Village was on Second Street a few blocks south of Jim’s Hot Fish – ever wonder why their fish sandwiches tasted better than homemade? They fried them in lard. |
| When a former gravel pit reopened as “Sun & Sand” across the river on Hwy 50 near Lawrenceville? When Rainbow Beach was still round, and had sand and an island in the middle? And over on Washington Avenue, when George’s Handymart kept all the practicing YMCA football teams in Gregg Park loaded up on candy and frozen pop? |
| When your only ‘under-age’ entertainment options were three movie screens, a drive-in, a rusty go-kart track, pinball and video games, shopping at the Plaza, playing Euchre, cruising endlessly up and down 6th Street with a right turn on Main, and of course cow tipping and snipe hunting? |
| When the New Moon Theatre was one large auditorium that had not been remodeled since the 1940’s and, before each movie, showed a trailer encouraging families to attend the church of their choice – just as little Jimmy was lifted up to the curb by his parents at the last frame? When WTTV’s ghoulish Sammy Terry presented an “Afternoon of Horror” on stage using a real guillotine? |
| When the first youth soccer game/season was played in Vincennes on the football field next to the YMCA (then under construction) in the spring of 1975 – the result of constant requests by members of the future Class of ’81 for the “Y” management to give local kids an opportunity to play “Pele’s Game”? |
| Watching those dorky old 16mm b/w science films in school that were “presented by” The Brown Shoe factory of Vincennes – a building that fell to ruin along with the Blackford Glass factory for many years? |
| When so many bands had three names like the Andrea True Connection (“More, More, More”), the Bay City Rollers (“Saturday Night”), the Climax Blues Band (“Couldn’t Get It Right”), the Starland Vocal Band (“Afternoon Delight”), Black Oak Arkansas (“Jim Dandy to the Rescue”), and Bachman Turner Overdrive (“Takin’ Care of Business”)? |
| When the train depot was still operating and you could ride a passenger train to nearby Washington? When accommodation options for out-of-town guests included the Kum Back Inn, Brock’s Motel, Dora’s Covered Wagon Lodge, and the Matador Hotel? |
| Sixth Street before the Bypass when all of Hwy 41’s traffic came rumbling through downtown? When the stockyards were located across from Frostop? And when Prestolite was not yet a Lowes/Superfund site, but a major employer in Vincennes? |
| “What’s your function – hooking up words and phrases and clauses” at Conjunction Junction on Schoolhouse Rock – the three-minute cartoons that appeared on Saturday mornings in between episodes of Scooby Doo, the Banana Splits, H.R. Pufnstuf, and the Sleestak infested “Land of the Lost”? |
| When the drinking age in Illinois was still 18? When the bar at the Holiday Inn began the Taco Tuesday tradition - later moving on to Brownies Pub? When your dad could still drink Falstaff and Falls City, and the arrival of a rare shipment of Coors beer from Colorado was a special event? |
| When every kindergarten class visited the chicken hatchery on First Street to hold the warm eggs and pet the chicks? Later, class trips could include the Planetarium, the Harrison House, the Clark Memorial, a visit to New Harmony, and a dairy farm. |
| When your mom gave up knitting and learned to “crochet” an afghan comforter, while your older sister attempted to create something “artistic” with string called “macramé”? When your older brother brought home the “Do The Hustle” dance step kit that included a set of footprints to help teach him the technique, and an 8-Track tape entitled “Hot Disco Hits”. |
| The days before K-Mart and Wal-Mart when Big J’s, Clarks and 3D were our shopping centers, and on Main Street – Gimbels, Kresge’s Five and Dime, Tresslars, Hills, Sears, and Albert’s were still open for business. |
| Staring at bison, bobcats, mountain goats, and other dead animal trophies mounted on the high walls of Van Meter’s Sporting Goods store (The collection was later donated to a national trophy museum), and paying the burly guys at Old Post Sporting Goods to screen-print your name on a t-shirt using their “cool” new machine. |
| The humid, chlorine smell that permeated the old, squeaky YMCA building on Fifth and Broadway, and the oval running track located above the basketball court? Not to mention longtime YMCA fixture Ron Alexander managing the daily chaos of hundreds of kids playing sports in an overcrowded gym, while the old guys who lived upstairs dozed on the cracked naughahide chairs in the lobby? |
| When the Hack & Simon Brewery was still bottling beer? OK, too far back…. |
