(This story is an excerpt from my upcoming book. It’s intended to solicit your help in piecing together the fabric of the last 50+ years in America. Please contact me with images, stories, and suggestions.)
The 301 Cafe – Jesup, Georgia 1960
Before JFK’s assassins ended the American Dream, kids in the United States were satisfied with a burger, a dill pickle, some hand cut fries, on a no-frills white plate at any walk in cafe along any of the country’s byways. So it was for a lot of little Georgia crackers in the small South Georgia town of Jesup, Georgia, the 301 Cafe was a good enough happening. My five year old’s memory of there frames, a plain enriched bun, with that vinegar infused mayo taste, pure hand patted meat patty, oh, and the quintessential checkered tablecloth too…
Ah! Now that clinging remaining brain cell, it still emits the divine taste of yesterday.
For those of you interested in recalling, or in learning about “back when,” please remember or understand, this was dining out in small town USA. Fast food, it had not yet caught on everywhere, and the mom-&-pop establishments speckled across America, that’s where we all came together. That is, on those super rare occasions when families went to the added expense. Dining out, you know, was a rare treat and extravagance, even for a cheeseburger and a Coke. Or in my case, a Pepsi. More on the nickname “Pepsi Kid” later. For now the visual image of a dad in his suit, mom in that 50s stylish dress, two kids with hair held in place with Brylcreem, you’ve seen this lately in films only.
Oh yes, sorry to get lost in the nostalgia, but the time was that marvelous, the air smelling different and all. You know, you’re familiar with the murky, boring memories grandpa churns out, those of you too young to really know. The 301, named aptly for being along the north to southern highway of the same designation, was a tiny cafe which just happened to be beneath where my father worked. And occasionally, I got to eat lunch there with mom and dad, on his lunch hour from the offices of Glenn Thomas Sr., Attorney at Law.
Glenn Sr., his son Glenn Jr., and my dad, they formed what was back then one of the regions most influential legal entities. Of course this was so because of the political and legal wisdom of Glenn Sr., as the younger lawyers, (would be Perry Masons a la the 60s TV show), they took many a clue from their superior. Yes Glenn Sr. was an almost fabled public figure, if not for winning cases almost always, then for his bulldog-ish nature, or the giant Cuban cigars he puffed on always. And yes, he even smoked them in the courtroom, if you can imagine rising clouds of sweet smelling tobacco burning, everyone bearing witness to a sort of freedom that no longer exists.
Many a rich and interesting story I remember from those days. As colorful and thematic as anything from the days of Glenn Thomas & Son though, is a single encounter in betwixt the bran new and the wise old. On that crystal clear Spring day, a little kid with a red cowboy hat and red cowboy boots climbed the stairs looking for dad. I remember it something like this…
The walk from our house at 406 south Brunswick street to Mr. Thomas’ offices above the 301 Cafe on Cherry Street in Jesup, it’s not so far for “grown up” trekking these days. Back then though, for a little “cow poke” intent on rustling up a cheeseburger, the several blocks were a bit of an imposing adventure. Short legs and the lack of Old Paint, you see, these for all of us an exaggerated journey in early life.
In order to no “exaggerate” here though, I should do some coloring in for you. Just so you see clearly. In 1960 every kid in America wanted to be a cowboy one week, and a soldier the next. Owing to the advent of TV shows like Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, and Have Gun Will Travel on the black & white box, and to mostly John Wayne on the big screen, cow pokes like me were not so uncommon. It seems a funny recollection now, remembering my red, straw cowboy hat, and my matching red cowboy boots from those days. I’m sure too, grownups like Mr. Thomas, his partner and son Glenn Jr., and even my dad, they must have worked hard at not chuckling every time they caught sight of me. So it was that day as I climbed the 21 steps of the exterior stairs to the offices above the 301.
Not unlike those buildings in the TV westerns, the 301 cafe, and the offices above, they were typical of the south of the time. Rickety stairs attached to the outsides of simple square buildings, Georgia in that era was full of them. Two stories, big, green, and pretty well ugly, with it’s awkward side staircase, the only thing distinct about my Dad’s office location was its being across the street from the U.S. Post Office. As for the inside, if you can imagine hearing yourself walk across squeaky oak floorboards, then dusty lawyers’ offices filled with lawyer books should be no strangers. As for the stereotypical south Georgia lawyer of the day, likewise Glenn Thomas fit the bill.
The rattle of the picture glass front door inscribed with his name always alerted Mr. Thomas, as if people ascending a million creaky old stairs would not. Alert, that was the word for this bulldog of a character. Searching for my father that day, I was disappointed to find he and Mr. Thomas’ son Glenn Jr. out of the office. Even the secretary had abandoned her post in favor of lunch, apparently, as a booming voice startled me from behind. “Sonny boy,” Glenn Sr. half chuckled, half whaled at me. “Come in here, sit down and tell me about those rustlers and outlaws you been chasin,” he said. Leather, wood, 100 years of dust, and a cigar aroma straight from Havana, I’ll never, ever forget what 1960 smelled like. My red boots dangling from the high back leather chair, I stared across 20 law books, 100 papers, and a massive expanse of oak desk at my Dad’s boss. Of course the word “boss” for me meant little, I saw everybody the same, like most kids, I guess.
“What brings you to town Mr. Phillip?” “Well, I wanted to see if I could go to lunch with Dad Mr. Thomas,” I said. A third of a giant Cuban protruded, as always, from Glenn Senior’s wideset jaw, an ever present smile was there too, or so it seemed to me. Whenever I met him Mr. Thomas seemed enlivened, probably as I alluded, out of some recollection of his own “cow poke” past. “Albert’s at the courthouse sonny boy, sorry to disappoint you.” Then, as a dozen times before, he took to quizzing me about live on the range, rustlers, and the far removed from jurisprudence comeuppances of little boys. “Well, I got a new six-shooter Mr. Thomas,” I told him. At this, he demanded to see the sidearm. I leaped from the high back chair and quick drew my trusty “Have Gun Will Travel” Colt peacemaker. Glenn’s eyebrows arched as he exhaled a giant puff of cigar smoke, no doubt in amazement at my well practiced deftness with the pistol. “Lemme see that hogleg,” he demanded. I handed over, butt first like Dad had taught me, the 45 Colt. “Now ain’t that somethin,” he interjected as he noticed the full functioning metal replica. If I’d only known back when, this full functioning toy replica would fetch tens of thousands from collectors.
Just about then, the phone rang. “Glenn Thomas,” he answered, handing my sidearm back, butt first, of course. While Mr. Thomas talked over the big, black dial phone common back then, I daydreamed, staring about his book filled office. Waiting as kids must, for grown up business to be over, so we could get back to the serious business of kid reality, I remember envisioning just such an office. Perhaps Marshal Matt Dillon of Gunsmoke, maybe even Paladin himself, yes, that was it, I’d seen an office like this on many TV westerns of the time. Then my thoughts turned, out of boredom, to the conversation Mom and Dad had had about Glenn Thomas Sr., just the other day. As often happens, my remembrance from being a fly on the wall of a parental summit, instigated a whole series of events.
Hanging up the heavy phone with an audible clunk, “what you thinking on now Phillip?” Two puffs on his cigar inundated the room with smoke. “Well Mr. Thomas,” I said, “I know why you painted your offices green.” You see, literally everything about the building was green, highlighted by the brown wood tones and a thousand book covers of tan. Again, recalling the conversation at dinner two nights before, “because you love money so much,” I proclaimed. At this a torrent of coughing, gagging, and booming laughter injected the entire office with a fog of sweet tobacco, mixed with the gravely choked-laughter of a man half falling over in his chair. Puzzled but pleased by the effect, I recalled Mom’s complaining that Dad had not gotten that raise.
Down the dusty steps, along the familiar trail to home, I pondered the joyous laughter of a familiar, and much talked about icon. Later on that evening, when Dad arrived home, another well worn rhetoric resounded. “Phillip, you didn’t,” engraved another indelible family moment at dinner. For years, even as long as my Mom lived, audiences envisioned a money-green office, a little cowpoke, and a rugged American idol lost in time and space, above the delectable cheeseburgers of the 301 cafe in Jesup, Georgia.
Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam
Paladin, Paladin, far, far from home
Have gun, will travel, reads the card of a man
A knight without armor in a savage land
His fast gun for hire heeds the calling wind
A soldier of fortune is the man called Paladin
Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam
Paladin, Paladin, far, far from home
He travels on to wherever he must
A chess knight of silver is his badge of trust
There are campfire legends that the plainsmen spin
Of the man with the gun, of the man called Paladin
Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam
Paladin, Paladin, far, far from home
Far from home
Far from home
Other famous moments in 1960 included; the release of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, the first televised presidential debates, lasers being invented, the Woolworth’s lunch counter “sit in”, and the most powerful earthquake ever recorded happening in Chile. That year was also the first year birth control pills were approved by the FDA, maybe because of another popular TV series called Dennis the Menace. Other memorable TV learning experiences happened in 1960 too. The family was a big focus as My Three Sons, The Andy Griffith Show, and Howdy Doody all premiered that year.
For this memoir though, 1960 was the year the truth got a genuine laugh, and when family drama became real life. It was when I first recalled nearly everything.
Additional photo credit: Pepsi sign via Joanna Poe