Cruisin' The Dub First Night Coverage from May 28/10......

Here's Allan's very cool '33 Ford Coupe.....He's owned it since 1962, and here's Al again in his grey primered shirt too asking, "Where's all the cute car hops I remembered in 1962?" Al, they're all in the old folks home!!...LOL :-)

A&W owner/operator Larry D. with the Great Root Bear while Jan is trying to pull Bear's tail....cute eh Jan! Next is my grand-daughter Claire on the left with her friend Sierra, Pat Wilson's daughter. Pat does the Canadian Tire Cruises on Thursday nights at CTC on West Arthur Street.

Here's Claire and Sierra again with the Great Root Bear and loving every moment. Bill also brought his two grand-daughters in his beautiful '56 Ford Convertible .

From front to back as far as I can see is cars by owner, Clarence, Garry, Allan, Wally, Tony, Ken and Randy. On the right and post predominant is Pat`s Rat, Pat's Mac Tools Car he actually won( Lucky or What!) and Dennis' Rat a little further down....and a few other guys, names I can't recall.

Here's Wally giving the Great Root Bear a bigger bear hug than he was getting....awwwww! Finally the next picture is Roger`s Chevelle, Rick's '33 Ford Coupe, yours truly's model A sedan, and Richard Spooner's Harley.
Much fun was had by all.......be sure to click on all the photos to enlarge them. We'll see you next Friday and every Friday all summer long at Cruisin`the Dub. Car hop service will begin in July.....watch for it!
Finally...thanks to Richard Spooner, local artist of renown for some of these photos!

What We Watched in February and March of 1965 - Lakehead TV Guide!

Nostalgia: The 1986 Webster's dictionary says, "home-sickness, sentimental longing for past times --adj. nostal'gic, feeling, showing or expressing home-sickness, or, more often regret for vanishing days...(greek - nostos....a return, algos....pain)."
Well, whatever the meaning is, Greek or not, it is a little sadness for vanishing good days, days that you remember that make you feel good, not regretful. My thought is that as we progress through our life...things of the past give us joy, not regret, as you will surely experience looking at the following items from the Fort William and Port Arthur TV Guides from 1965.

I had found these amongst my collection of vintage paper and found some great ads and memories regarding the tv shows we watched around the Lakehead area. On the two covers is The Pettycoat Junction family on the left and Bewitched on the right. A page or two into the first one is an ad for the Don Brown Duo appearing in the Marine Room which was in the Shoreline Hotel on 61 Cumberland Street.

Our typical great Brill bus photo from 1969 shows the Shoreline sign just above the bus. The next clipping is of Donna Douglas who played the roll of Elly May Clampett on "The Beverly Hillbillies".

A great photo of the cast of the Beverly Hillbillies with Elly, Granny, Jed and Jethro....and....did you remember that their dogs name was "Duke"? Next is The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Do you remember what the letters stood for? Guess before you scroll down.

"United Network Command for Law and Enforcement". The agents were Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo, David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin, and Leo G. Carroll played Alexander Waverlly, the British head of the organization.
The photo on the right is an autographed one of the Bewitched Television Show, Elizabeth Montgomery, Agnes Moorehead, and Dick York.

Here are the CKPR Radio hit pages of the two TV Guides...be sure to click on them to see the top hits of February and March of 1965....plus a few ad's you will remember, even if you're younger than I am! ....Remember Dick Wilson on CKPR?

"I Love Lucy" with Lucile Ball and Desi Arnaz.....need I say more!

The most incredible commedian that many commedians still mimic today...Red Skelton, born Richard Bernard Skelton and nicknamed America's Clown Prince!

A few ads....Dinty's(the original KFC)...a 1974 Henderson Directory states that Gord Crompton was president of Dinty's at the time. Remember when cable was called "Videon"...that was not too long after having only Rabbit-ears on your TV. And lastly here is an artists rendition of John Murphy the morning man on CKPR radio in 1965.

Finally, click on this and the rest of the photos and ads to enlarge them(some twice to view extra large), to see what we watched on TV and how cheap our tires were in 1965.

......A Post Script, Don't miss Cruisin' the Dub....rod, custom and vintage car cruise night at the Memorial Ave. A & W, this coming Friday the 28th of May and every Friday all summer long!!!

Lawrence is Waiting for You - Don't Forget "Cruisin the Dub"....Memorial Ave. A&W, Friday May 28th...7PM Sharp!

Don't forget, its Thunder Bay's(you know...the old Fort William and Port Arthur) first A&W "Cruisin the Dub" cruise night on May 28th...one week from this Friday and every week all summer long. Below you will see some more A&W classic photos from our fair cities taken back in the 1960's and you can connect with the last post we did introducing the cruise by clicking here - http://hotrodsandjalopies.blogspot.com/search?q=A%26W and scrolling down!

Here are two of the most famous logos that we never forget!!

And here.....since 1956 "the Frosted Mug", "the Car Hop", and the best fast food burger ever made..."the Teen Burger"(that's my quote...not theirs...I love the Teen...LOL). Come out and enjoy these with all us gear heads on the 28th!

I found this coupon in my own collection and on the back it actually tells you what is in the famous A&W Root Beer. Next is the Great Root Bear, who will be on hand for the opening night. The last photo here shows a real car hop at the 10th Ave A&W circa 1960.

Is this you??? If it is, or you know who it is...please email me!! An unknown cook/chef waving at us from the 10th Ave A&W in 1961 as noted along side of the photo. The photo on the right is that of the Cumberland Street restaurant taken in the mid 1960's as noted by the year of the vehicles.

This photo taken by myself in 1980 shows the A&W on the corner of James and Arthur street in Fort William. The music students from most of the local high schools got together for a 50's tribute and needed a number of hot rods for props. In the back row from left to right is Jerry McKenzie's green Model "A" Ford Coupe, Art Lee's yellow "33 Ford Coupe(now Rick Stokaluk's totally re-done car), my own Red and Black '32 Hudson Terraplane 2-door sedan, Gord Wall's black Model "A" 2-door Sedan and in the front was "Dinger" Bell's red T-Bucket....note the camera man on the left.

The last photo shows the Metro Store today where this A&W used to be.

Owner/Operator Laurence Deswiage says that he has had a number of phone calls about the cruise. He has had the parking lot resealed and new spaces painted. Speakers have been installed outside and there is also great oldies music piped into the parking lot. "The Great Root Bear" will also be there on opening night as mentioned above.

Thanks to Lawrence for the vintage photos and for started the long awaited cruise night at the A&W here in Thunder Bay.

Click on the photos to enlarge.......and......SEE YOU AT THE DUB ON MAY 28TH, 2010!

A Few Excerpts from the 1958 and 1959 International Dirt Track Stock Car Championships...

This is a close-up of the great graphic art that adorned the Championship programs in 1958 and 1959. In 1958, the CLE track here in Fort William and Port Arthur had already had a championship race of sorts in 1957. It was called the Western Stock Car Championship Race and was put together with drivers from Canada and the USA. In 1958 however, it was a much more organized event drawing top drivers from here, as well as the Midwest US, Winnipeg and Southern Ontario. The light green program cover is the first year of that very well organized event.

The first year(1958) drew top racers such as Ralph Spencer and Russ Larsen(Russ' last name was spelled differently in many of the prior and latter year programs). The actual spelling is Laursen. We will at some time do a tribute post to Russ. The story next to the photos was written by Doug McOuat, sports editor in 1958 for the Port Arthur News Chronicle. It's a great story that was published in the '58 program.

Here is the second year(1959) program cover and inside it stated that Louis Tocheri and Tony Massaro were co-promoters of the event. That was very interesting as Tony and Louis had many grudge matches and a number of fights prior to the Championship years. Tony doesn't look too happy in this photo either. The information here also notes all the officials names for the event.
This program had a number of great photos and a variety of stories about some of the guys that raced then, such as Don Marsh, Al Massaro, Merv Dove, Barry Kettering and Louis Tocheri.
Louis of course was the guy everybody loved to hate(the words "see and boo" are noted under Louis' picture here).
The guys below are some of the fellows that came from afar to join in the fun and try to win some of the $3000. that was up for grabs!

These are all great individual stories and a good read. Be sure to click on all the photos. They may need a double click to get them extra large to read the print beside them.

If there are any specific drivers you like, let me know and we can do a research story on them, or if you have a story or photo of your own, don't hesitate to email me directly from the blog site.

Many thanks to Jack Rea for the wonderful programs.