"What'll Ya Have???"

Other than being a "car town," if the Atlanta this writer once knew did anything well, it was eat.

Cars and food found their marriage just across I-75 from that, "Little North Avenue Trade School." It took a Georgia Tech dropout to figure out that college kids will eat almost anything in their path. Especially if that path is cheap, greasy, convenient, open late, and has anything to do with hamburgers and french fries.

The Varsity eventually became the, "World's Largest Drive-In Restaurant." Technically, the Varsity was not located in Atlanta's Upper West Side. But, it might as well have been. Most of our neighborhood could be found there on any given Friday or Saturday night.

Varsity food was, admittedly, not good for the human body, and the hard booths and small, round tables were not the most comfortable dining room appointments. But, one cannot deny that eating greasy fast food in one's own car in the middle of the busiest city in the South held a certain attraction and fascination that no other eatery could match.

However, the food and the atmosphere were/are not all that was/is unique about the Varsity. The car-hops (themselves becoming legends in Atlanta folklore) developed their own unique lingo for ordering certain entrees. A plain hot dog was a, "Nekkid Dog." A plain hot dog to go was a, "Nekkid Dog Walkin'." And, a plain slaw dog to go was a, "Nekkid Dog Walkin' on a Bale of Hay." It was like hearing a rural Pentecostal church speak in tongues when those car hops got it cranked up on a Saturday night.

This writer had the good fortune of attending a high school strategically located near the center of the Tech campus. This meant that the Varsity was only a few turns of a set of tires away. Many a school lunch gave way to a hurried sneak-off to the Varsity. The mystical draw of that great old drive-in could be heard in the mythological siren's call: "What'll ya have?" This invitation has enticed many a patron to eat more rings, fries, chili-steaks, fried pies, and F.O.'s ("Frosted Orange") than any cardiologist would allow.

During my growing up years, the Varsity was not without competition. Just down North Avenue was the family-owned, "Yellow Jacket." Also a drive-in, The Yellow Jacket trumped the Varsity's famous chili steaks with their patented, toasted-bun, chili dogs. The YJ's food was good, and the atmosphere was at least a fourth cousin to the place up the street, but even with this, living in the shadow of a Guinness Book landmark is a tough thing indeed.

When the Yellow Jacket's land was bought by the Coca-Cola Company, (or perhaps another corporation) it closed and stayed dormant for years. In recent years, the YJ re-opened under new ownership in Ellenwood, Georgia. They have the same great hot dogs as before, and all the Georgia Tech decorations and memorabilia than anyone could ask for.

For a lot of the 1950's-60's, going out to eat was not the national obsession in America that it is today. Families ate most every meal at home. Mother's cooking rivaled, or even outdid, the cuisine one could find in any diner or cafeteria. And yet, with the maturation of the baby boom into its teenage years, burger places, drive-in's and fast food establishments began to catch on.

In Atlanta, there were a number of local restaurants and chains that seemed to spring up overnight.

There was Lum's - whose claim to fame was hot dogs steamed in beer. Aunt Fannie's Cabin in Smyrna, served traditional Southern cuisine in an atmosphere reminiscent of an old, antebellum plantation. The Old Hickory House was noted for their barbecue, brunswick stew, and the largest "cat-head" biscuits known to man. Shakey's Pizza was THE place to go after a Friday night football game in the Fall. The Rio Vista offered their delicious all-you-can-eat catfish on the weekends. And, places Carroll's and Sandy's Hamburgers were the South's answer and precursor to McDonald's.

Of all the Atlanta restaurants of this writer's past, one comes to mind more than any other.

Former Georgia Governor, Lester Maddox, and his wife Virginia, owned and operated the Pickrick, located on Hemphill Street at the opposite end of the Georgia Tech campus from the Varsity, from 1947 until 1965.

This writer met Mr. Maddox once at a funeral home. He had come to the visitation for one of my aunts who had passed. When Mr. Maddox came in the door, everyone stood up and shook his hand. My Daddy brought him over to the chair where I was sitting, probably to show me off. I stood up as Daddy introduced us. Mr. Maddox leaned over to this nine year old boy, adjusted his tie, told him he was a handsome young man, and charged him to remember to always vote when he got older, and to be proud of America and what it stood for.

Perhaps this meeting is the reason behind this writer's vivid remembrance of his restaurant.

The Pickrick was known for its skillet-fried chicken. Mrs. Maddox did a lot of the cooking during the restaurant's earliest days, and reportedly used her own family recipe for the fried chicken batter. The Pickrick's menu centered around the chicken, appealing to the idea of an old-fashioned Sunday afternoon family picnic. The restaurant's by-line, posted over the front door, read: "Picknick At The Pickrick."

Mr. Maddox supposedly sold the restaurant to his employees in 1965 prior to his run for Governor. I seem to remember that politics and those who were trying to bully others for so-called "civil rights" purposes had a lot to do with Mr. Maddox's decision to sell. Later, as Governor, Mr. Maddox proved himself to be a champion of the "little man," no matter what skin color was involved.

There were many local Mom & Pop restaurants in this writer's day that often come to mind that few if any of this blog's readers would know or remember.

The Humdinger Hamburger Shop at the intersection of Hollywood Road and Johnson Road near Grove Park was an example of these locally-owned businesses. A husband and wife ran the Humdinger. She cooked the burgers on a small hot-plate-like grill while you waited. Customers could get five hamburgers, on the freshest buns this writer can ever remember eating, for $1.00.

The Humdinger did a thriving business. Mama would send this writer there often to fetch back a white paper bag full of the five burgers for a dollar. The great aroma coming from that bag was almost more than a young lad could bear. The neighborhood dogs must have loved it too, as they often provided an "escort" on the bike trip back home.

Sadly, the Humdinger's husband eventually died from diabetes complications. His wife carried on the business alone until the day that someone robbed and killed her, leaving her body lying in a pool of blood in the restaurant's only restroom. She had been stabbed repeatedly and her throat cut.

It was almost unthinkable to have this sort of savage crime happen in those days in this writer's Atlanta. Thankfully, the good always outweighs the bad, especially in the memories of an Upper West Side where everyday life was not always this way.

Readers of this blog could certainly add volumes to the list of restaurants listed in this post. Please feel free to do so in the "Comments" reply section of the blog.

Eating in Atlanta was a great part of its past. Restaurants of all kinds made living in this grand old city both pleasurable and fondly memorable.

Like The Good Book says, "Man does not live by bread alone..."

"A Car Town"

Just having returned from a week's visit to New York City, I am again most glad to live in Atlanta. With so many things that are different about the two cities, the one thing that stands out to me is transportation.

Ever since the crazy explosion of growth in my home town which began a few decades ago, there seems to be an average of 8.4 automobiles per person on Atlanta's roads both day and night. Love it or hate it, Atlanta has always been a, "car town." MARTA can do what it wants - this is not likely to change anytime soon.

In his earliest recollections of Atlanta, this writer remembers the old trolleys that used to run all over town. They were connected to large, overhead electric cables which were the source of their power. Whenever a trolley would pass through an intersection, sparks would fly from the cable crossings. These trolleys gave way to buses, and then to a limited network of subways.

But still, if you live in Atlanta, you drive. Period.

There were no foreign, "rice-burner," death-trap, sounds-like-a-sewing-machine, cars in this writer's young, hometown days. Large, American cars were everywhere. Ford, Chevy, Mercury, Oldsmobile, GMC, Buick, Pontiac and various others. These great old machines were made out of 100% genuine American steel, metal, chrome, and cast iron. They were big, heavy, wide, noisy, and gas guzzling.

In other words, they were perfect!

There were no so-called "muscle cars" in this writer's day. Practically EVERY car was a muscle car. Engines like the 327, 350, 396, 440, 442, and the 454 gave the power to models like the GTO ("goat"), Challenger, Charger, Road Runner, Six-Pack, Hemi, Trans-Am, Thunderbird, Camaro, and Mustang.

The most exciting ride this writer ever took was a short hop from Shallowford Road down I-85 to the Varsity at North Avenue. The five high school football players riding in the car were amazed at the Chevelle SS-396's performance. With a powerful roar, that great, old, car lustily topped 120 miles per hour, chugging down over one full quarter of a tank of gas during the less-than-ten-mile journey. It was a ride this writer will never forget.

Gasoline rarely if ever got above .25 cents a gallon, so mpg's didn't really matter. Service stations competed with each other by periodically engaging in "gas wars." During these clientele tugs-of-war, the price of regular gas (there was no such thing as "unleaded" - the only alternative to regular was a souped-up octane variety called "Ethyl") could fall as low as .17 cents per gallon. No rag-headed Arab anywhere had his throat on the energy pulse of America.

In addition, there was no EPA. So, a smoking exhaust system, while a nuisance, was not a valid infraction that would cause one to be pulled over by the police. There were no nambi-pambi urbanites that lobbied for speed breakers in the middle of neighborhoods, nor noise-level restrictions on anything with four wheels. Therefore, the unmistakable sound of cherry-bomb mufflers rang almost nightly through the air, and drag racing found a home in many an Atlanta neighborhood.

Atlanta car dealers were few, and the names were quite recognizable: John Smith Chevrolet, Tim Timmers Chevrolet, Nalley Chevrolet, Hub Ford, and Boomershine Pontiac. Looking back, Chevrolet was probably the dominant brand in Atlanta, perhaps because of the presence of the GM assembly plant at Lakewood.

The tag lines of the radio and television commercials from these old Southern car dealers etched their messages into the public's collective brain:

"I got mine at Boomershine..."

"Don't dally, see Nalley..."

Too, before the Atlanta Motor Speedway came to be, and long before my cousin, Max Simpson, began Dixie Speedway outside of Woodstock, there was the Peach Bowl.

At one end of the old stock yards between Marietta Street and Howell Mill Road, there was an asphalt short track called the "Peach Bowl" that hosted all sorts of automobile racing on weekends. There was the figure eight race, the demolition derby, and at least two short-track features every weekend. From sitting in the stands at the Peach Bowl during an afternoon and evening of racing, patrons took home a thin layer of rubber tire shavings covering every inch of clothing and exposed skin.

Still, these races were exciting! The drivers were fearless. And, the crowds hungry for speed, the roar of engines, wrecks of all description, and basically just old-fashioned, gasoline-powered fun.

The Peach Bowl surely provided all of the above.

Another aspect of Atlanta's love affair with the car was the network of interstate highways that ran through town.

Today, those interstates are multiple lane (up to eight, nine or ten lanes in some cases), divided by a concrete wall, and packed to the gills almost any hour of the day or night. Atlanta's 21st century commute is reportedly the longest in the country at an average of 1.5 hours each way.

In the Atlanta of my youth, I-75 going through town was only two lanes on each side with a single guard rail in the middle, and seldom if ever did it get backed up - and never with anything remotely resembling the gridlock of today. I-75 ended just north of town, I-20 ended at Douglasville, and I-285 (now affectionately referred to as, "the world's largest parking lot,") didn't even exist until the early 1970's.

Great cars rolling off nearby assembly lines, uncrowded roads, few restrictions, and cheap gas - these and so many other factors destined Atlanta to become a "car town."

Driving in Atlanta was once a great part of the experience of growing up here.

One could only wish it was still that way.

"A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood"

Center Hill was a fine place to begin the earliest days of life. Not far from West Fulton High School, and dissected by Bankhead Highway (it will NEVER be Holowell Parkway to Atlanta natives and old timers and me), the neighborhood where this writer began his growing up was just that - a neighborhood.

In the Atlanta I knew as a boy, the scourge of metropolitan sprawl known today as the dreaded "subdivision" was rarely seen. Rather, folks lived in neighborhoods. There were no cookie cutter houses on barely enough ground to hold them. Yards seemed like acreage instead of postage stamp size. There was a plentiful supply of big, shade-producing trees. The homes were modest, the streets wide, and the atmosphere for a boy to grow up in was, in a word, SAFE.

Kids in the Atlanta I knew could ride their bikes just about anywhere, go to the corner grocery or the nearby park, walk home from school, linger after dark at after-school activities or playing touch football in the street, and stay outside all day, every day, all summer long, all while never giving a second thought to their/our safety.

The only "Neighborhood Watch" in the Atlanta I knew were the neighbors who shared care for each other's children, and hosted "spend-the-night" parties and impromptu, pick-up football games in their yards. If a child acted up in a neighbor's yard, the neighbor administered the same form of discipline that the child would find at home. If the neighbor child was hungry, they would get the same cookies and milk that one's own children received.

Mothers were at home during the daytime hours in my old neighborhood. The father worked and brought in the living. The wife and mother kept the home. Kids were not left to let themselves in and out the family home with no one around to supervise their comings and goings.

Most families had one car, and so there were no soccer moms in mini-vans keeping the roads hot. Women in most families embodied the life of June Cleaver. There were no rallies or protests with feminists carrying signs declaring that they were oppressed, or that, somehow, personal fulfillment had passed them by. Thank God for them. They were one of the reasons that America was such a strong, moral, and vibrant nation in those days.

Another part of the neighborhood that was Atlanta in those days was the corner store. There were no Arabs who could barely speak English encased behind bullet-proof glass enclosures. The corner grocery was owned and run by your neighbor and his family. You knew his name, his wife's name, and his bratty kids' names. If he sold gasoline, he pumped it for you. His store was the drop-off for the local newspaper truck that supplied "paper boys" (I was one) for their routes. If you bought a big "bill" of groceries at his store, he or his son delivered them to your house in a pasteboard box. And, his was the place where you got your first taste of Coke in those big, greenish glass bottles.

In Center Hill, we had three such stores.

Mr. Jake Rakestraw ran one of them. His was the biggest of the three stores. Looking back, he had so many things in that store, it just may have been the early forerunner to Wal-Mart. Jake's wife and kids helped him run the store. Included in his brood was a large, strapping son named Larry. Those familiar with University of Georgia football history will remember that name. Larry became well-known and successful as one of Georgia's first-string quarterbacks during that era. I well remember seeing him working around the store.

Just down Bankhead Highway from Rakestraw's was Bagwell Sales. This store was owned and operated by the Gospel Music star, Wendell "Wendy" Bagwell, of "Wendy Bagwell and the Sunlighters." Wendy and his two female singers had a well-known, regional, "hit" during the 1960's-70's called, "The Rattlesnake Song." The song highlighted Wendy, humorously telling about their first and only experience in a little, rural church that handled snakes. Hilarious!

Wendy was a great story-teller.

Like Rakestraw's, Bagwell Sales was a General Store of sorts, but more toward the furniture and home furnishings side of things. Wendy, himself, would meet you at the door and talk to you like you were a long-lost cousin. You could sit in the rocking chairs on the front porch of the store or "play" with just about anything in his store and he didn't seem to mind. It was a very "homey" place to wait on your mother while she shopped.

The third little store in Center Hill, the name of which escapes this writer's memory, was just across the side street that ran perpendicular to Bankhead Highway. This same street ran beside Center Hill Elementary School. All the school kids stopped in this little store every morning to "blow" their lunch money on candy and soft drinks. It was in front of this little store that, as a third grader, this writer had his first experience seeing a couple "making out." Right there in broad, open daylight, they were, "going at it," one morning before school. What a sight!

Toward the middle 1960's, a little farther down Bankhead Highway and back toward West Fulton High, the very first K-Mart to open in Atlanta was built. Like the infamous Wal-Mart Supercenters in our modern day, this K-Mart had both a large department store and a grocery store built into one facility. This monstrous, "shop-a-tropolis," became the mecca of our neighborhood, and all but sounded a death-knell for the Rakestraws and Bagwells - just like WalMart does today for countless little Mom & Pop stores in neighborhoods all over America.

Some of the other chain stores and businesses I remember that lay between our house and West Fulton High School included: C&S Bank, Shoe Town, Miss Georgia Ice Cream, The Big Apple Grocery Store, and the Ben Franklin Five & Ten Cent Store. Along with an array of local businesses such as drug stores, dry cleaners, automotive repair garages, filling stations, and barber and beauty shops, our neighborhood had every sort of retail experience anyone could want. This was long before the advent of shopping malls. Simply, there was no need for such.

In 1966, my family moved from Center Hill to my father's old stomping ground of Riverside. We bought a house that had been built in the 1920's on a 1-2 acre lot - just five doors down the street from where my father was born and raised.

Riverside was also a true "neighborhood." Same characteristics as Center Hill. There was Gary's Store, and later, the Busy Bee. There was a local Phillips 66 station, a fire station, a doctor's office, a drug store, and a local barber shop.

In nearby Bolton there was a Dairy Queen, Paris' Hardware and the Bolton Drive-In Theater.

Again, what else could a family possibly need?

Neighborhood memories such as the preceding recall a time before the monumental changes that would change forever the South and the America that this writer once knew. Things like "white-flight," illegal immigration, terrorism, and rampant crime. It was a time and a world that was so truly pristine, and remarkably similar to Andy Griffith's, "Mayberry." Neighbors knew one another and seemed to have a genuine sense of what it meant to be neighbors. There was room for kids to be kids, and to explore their surroundings - rather than constantly sitting in front of a television set or computer.

And, of course, there was always time set aside on Sunday for families to go to church together.

In The Good Book, "Heaven," is presented as THE ultimate place to spend life eternal. For people who follow Christ, there will never be a place on earth quite like it.

But, this writer does know a place where, at least to a young boy, a lot of what he saw and "lived" seemed a lot like heaven here on earth.

How great it is to go back to that place in time - if only in memories, pictures, and words.

As the late Fred Rogers used to sing, "It's a Beautful Day in the Neighborhood."

Thanks for walking down those streets with me once again.

"From Alabama Baby To Georgia Cracker"

October 21, 1955.

What a day!

An eight day old baby boy is introduced to his new home - Atlanta, Georgia. Little did he know that this was the beginning of a love affair with an elegant, southern lady. One that would last for all of his life.

Ernest and Hazel Decker had survived great hardship and sorrow in their individual lives, as well as in their marriage. Born in 1920 and 1922 respectively, each came from a humble background. He as one of nine children born into the family of a farmer and part-time Deputy Sheriff in Fulton County, Georgia. She as one of two girls from a coal-mining family in Walker County, Alabama.

Their initial challenge as children came during the Great Depression of the 1930's. Enduring the hunger, poverty, and difficulty that came to all Americans during that era, each would recall in later years the scars left by their experience. Unforgettable stories of trial and sacrifice spilled from their hearts and memories. Things such as being forced to quit school in the sixth grade to work on the family farm, and the stabbing, consuming pain of a hunger and desperation that made even stray animals fair game for the family's one chance at something to eat other than cornbread and buttermilk.

December 7, 1941, brought their world to war. Already a PFC in the Marine Corps, later he left for Guadalcanal and later Peleliu. She, having quit school in the tenth grade, did the odd, meager jobs available in a poor, Alabama coal mining community.

As a machine gunner and squad leader in the 7th Marines (1st Marine Division, 7th Regiment), he was thrown into the most unfathomable horrors of jungle warfare. The oppressive, equatorial, heat of the South Pacific, along with disease, hunger, and the killing and death he experienced was a far cry from his boyhood farm back in the outskirts of Atlanta.

During his last days on Peleliu, a fellow Marine showed him a picture of a young lady he knew from back in his home of rural Alabama. Evidently liking what he saw in the photograph, Ernest Decker began to write Hazel Trice. In late September of 1944, when his orders for a first furlough back to the states came through, he hurried home.

After visiting his family in Atlanta for a time, this young Marine Corporal bought a Greyhound Bus ticket and headed for Burnwell, Alabama - a little hole in the road approximately twenty-five miles west of Birmingham. Showing up virtually unannounced at her mining camp home, he met the family, sat on the front porch swing for several hours getting acquainted with her, and planned a day trip back into Birmingham for the next day, October 13, 1944.

When they finally made it back to Walker County two days later, they were husband and wife.

After two more years of Marine Corps service, which he spent on Guam and she working in an A&P Grocery Store in Williamsburg, Virginia, they both finally came home to live and work in the coal mines of Northwest Alabama. Her family gave them an acre of land, and helped them build a small, asbestos siding, five room house, which they would keep in the family for many years in the future.

In 1947, they had their first baby, a girl - Connie Jean.

After a few years of the hard, coal mining labor, he got a call from his family back in Atlanta. The Decker siblings had become a Southern Railroad family. His older brother, Alan, had risen through the ranks, and had become the personal Engineer for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. When Roosevelt died at the Little White House in Warm Springs, this writer's uncle Alan piloted the train that took President Roosevelt's body from Georgia back to Washington for the funeral and burial.

The call that came from his family told of job opportunities in Atlanta with the Southern Railroad. They immediately packed their belongings, their little girl, and their hopes for a better life, and moved to Atlanta. He soon got a job on the railroad, they bought their first house on Oak Street in an area known as Center Hill, and they settled into building their post-war life - as so many other Americans were doing.

In early 1954, Connie got sick. After many months in the hospital, and at least one exploratory surgery on her brian, she died on October 7, 1954, at the age of seven. The death certificate stated, "Cause of Death: Unknown."

Distraught over her daughter's death, and left alone often by a railroad working husband, Hazel went home to Alabama to spend time with family, and to stay again in their small home where they had lived when Connie was born. Eventually rejoining her husband in Atlanta, they carried on with life as best they could after having lost, so tragically, their beloved daughter. In later years, Hazel said she prayed every night that God would "fill her arms" again with a child.

In early March of 1955, the doctor brought them good news. God had answered her prayers, and a new baby was on the way. As the pregnancy moved along, Hazel wanted to have the same doctor deliver her new baby that had delivered Connie seven years earlier. Ernest arranged for a temporary transfer to the Southern Railroad field terminal in Birmingham, and they set up temporary housekeeping in their old, five room house in the country in Walker County.

On October 14, 1955, at just after lunch time, in the old Carraway Methodist Hospital in Birmingham, a baby boy was worn. Weighing in 6 pounds - 11 ounces, they named him after his Grandfather on his mother's side and his mother's favorite Bible character. His name would be, "George David." His mother would call him by his full name many times over the course of his childhood, especially when he was in trouble for some wrongdoing.

Given only a temporary transfer by the railroad, the baby's father was instructed to come back to his permanent duties in Atlanta as soon after the birth as possible.

As a result, on October 21, 1955, the "new" Decker family rolled back into Atlanta. This writer doesn't personally remember that day, nor the next few years of his life. But, he does remember many of the details his family told him about his life, his new hometown, and all that brought him to this first installment of this blog.

Living in Atlanta for the majority of the fifty-five years that have now passed since that time has been a great thing. Like all of life, so many things have changed in Atlanta since this writer was a boy. This blog is meant to paint a picture of how great it has been to have lived in this wonderful old city for almost a lifetime.

I hope you enjoy reading these reflections even a fraction as much as I have enjoyed living them.