Jump to part: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - Menu
March 16, 2002
- Left to right in the photo above
are: White's Furniture, The Tourist Cafe, Harmony Music, and The Timber
Cafe. The car in the center of the picture was Sweet Home's only
taxi cab at the time the photo was taken. A few doors West of White's
was a little hole-in-the-wall popcorn shop that Mrs. Shockly <sp> operated.
The best popcorn on earth! She also raised Cocker Spaniels; we had
one of her pups - Skippy - named for the peanut butter.
- From left to right: Tourist
Cafe, Harmony Music, and Timber Cafe. As I recall there was a dentist
on the second floor of the Harmony Music building.
- I think the building on the
left was vacant at the time this picture was taken. The building
with "Cafe" on it housed the Eagles Lodge on the second floor. Their
sign is above the door on the left side of the building. The building
on the right was Sweet Home Auto Supply and a bank; the bank the Bishop
boy robbed. They did not fill in the bullet holes.
- The Roxy building is gone now,
but it was just a short way from the Eagles Lodge building. The building
on the far left was The Steak House; the bank was the next building East
of it. When they built the RIO over on Main Street they put the new
projectors in the Roxy, and the old equipment from the Roxy went to the
Rio. Big mistake.
- This photo was taken looking
North across Main Street at 12th. The Flying A gas station isn't
there now.
- This man brought his pet to
the Frontier Days Parade.
- The building on the far left
is still there and it is still Santiam Auto Supply.
- You can just make out "Santiam
Supply" in this photo.
- I don't remember her name, but
this lady is dressed in her Frontier Days costume. The photo was
taken behind Lee's Pastime Tavern. There car behind her is parked
on 12th Ave., between Main and Long Streets. My uncle Guy Houk owned
this tavern at one time in the early 1940's. The structure a little
to the left and above her is the evaporation tower to the cold storage
plant on Long Street.
- This photo was also taken behind
Lee's. The gents had to grow a beard during Frontier Days or face
a fine. They did conduct a kangaroo court.
- If only I had know then what
I know now I might have had a chance to go to Akron. I did make it
to the state level in Salem, but they screwed me there. They insisted
on taking the wheels off to inspect them. One of the retaining nuts
was tightened just a wee bit too much, and the guy refused to loosen it.
If that was to happen today I would deck the S.O.B..
There were several Amateur Radio Operators in Sweet Home in the second half of the 1950's. They were: Ira Mays *W7GWE, Stewart Baker *W7RHJ, Don Switzer W7UMO, Marion Cesna W7YOM, me W7ZNB, my brother Doug *WN7DXU, and Al Carpenter WN7DXW. The "*" indicates no longer living.
It was our wonderful 5 tube Philco that got me interested in ham radio. One day we picked up W7RHJ on it! That was 50 years ago, and I now have that radio.
- Ira was one of several ham radio
operators in Sweet Home. He was also a long time friend of my parents.
Both he and his wife have since passed away. Ira built all of his
transmitters, but his receivers were Hallicrafters.
- Wayne Garber and his wife Edna
still live on Clark Mill road. He still has this Collins equipment!
Edna is a native of Sweet Home.
- This photo was actually taken
in Portland in early 1957, but the Heathkit equipment was put together
by my brother Doug in Sweet Home. I no longer have the Heathkits,
but I do have the Hallicrafters S-38-C that he bought at the same time.
- I forget what year Al and Amy
got married, but it was either 1956 or 1957. They had four children;
a girl, a boy, and then a set of twins in 1961 (a boy and a girl).
The marriage ended a couple of years later. Al did not continue in
ham radio, and I have not seen him since the 1960's.
- Well at least we tried.
It seems that Amy's father insisted that they take his car instead of Al's
old wreck. Doug didn't continue in ham radio either, but he did take
up electronics. When he came to live with me in the late 1990's he
had intended to get a license again but he didn't live long enough to do
it.
We hams had it rough in Sweet Home in the 1950's. TV interference was a big problem because the CH 6 signal from Portland was so week, and there was no cable. Then there was the TV repairman that blamed everything he couldn't fix on us! I will never forget the night when we had some weird propagation conditions. For about an hour the signal from CH 6 was nil in Sweet Home, but rock solid much further South. I was blamed for that until the Oregonian paper printed the story on the front page the following day.
Then there was the engineer for the phone company that accused me of causing "red" dots on his black and white TV set. I told that S.O.B. that if he could help me duplicate the process we'd be rich!! He had nothing to say to that; I wonder why.
More to come
