Tag: 1957

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The Legacy of Junior: Cowboy to Coffeehouse Icon


Junior Gives Fort Worth The Blues

An old friend of mine passed a few months ago. We had been apart for years, yet he held a distinct place in my thoughts. I sometimes borrowed fragments of his vivid life for my short stories, which pleased him. His name was simply Junior. He believed a last name was of no consequence and cared little for family ties.

In 1957, he opened a coffee house in the heart of downtown Fort Worth, Texas. Although they will tell you that “The Cellar” was the first, the “Hip Hereford” came first by a full year.

Junior was born to be a cowboy. His father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and all the uncles and cousins wore the same boots and lived by the code of the West. There were more cowboys in his bloodline than in a John Wayne film. It should have been his fate. But then, his favorite horse, Little Bill, kicked him hard in the head. After that, he turned his back on the rugged ideals of the West. He became the owner of a coffee house club, a renaissance man, a poet, and a man who lived life like a Stetson-wearing beatnik. He said a life spent on a sweaty saddle, inhaling the stench of cattle farts, was not the life he dreamed of.

The opening night for the coffee house was Halloween 1957. Junior hires two street winos to help run the door and do odd jobs. They were reluctant to give him their birth names, so he christened them Wino 1 and Wino 2. They were good to go as long as Junior paid them and kept the booze flowing. The following is an excerpt from the unfinished story.

Around 7:15, Wino 2 informs Junior that the first performer has arrived and takes the stage for the introduction. He steps to the mic and, in that pleasant voice, says, “Ladies and gents, please welcome to the stage, Mr. Blind Jelly-roll Jackson and his nurse Carpathia.”

An ancient black man with hair as white as South Texas cotton, holding a guitar as old as himself, is helped to the stage by a prim female nurse dressed in a starched white uniform. The old man wears a red smoking jacket, a silver ascot, and black trousers. Dark sunglasses and a white cane complete his ensemble. The old fellow is as blind as Ray Charles.

The nurse gently seats the old gentleman in a chair provided by Wino 1 and lowers the large silver microphone to a height between his face and his guitar. She then stands to the side of the stage, just out of the spotlight. Blind Jelly Roll starts strumming his guitar like he’s hammering a ten-penny nail. Thick, viscous down strokes with note-bending riffs in between. His frail body rocks with every note he coaxes out of his tortured instrument. He leans into the mic and sings,

“We’s gonna have us a mess o’ greens tonight…haw..haw..haw…haw…gonna wash her down with some cold Schlitz beer..haw..haw..haw..gonna visit ma woman out on Jacksboro way…gonna get my hambone greased”. This was Texas blues at its best.

On cue, his nurse steps into the spotlight, extracts a shiny Marine Band harmonica from her pocket, and cuts loose on a sixteen-bar mouth-harp romp. Her ruby-red lips attack that “hornica” like a ten-year-old eating a Fat Stock Show Corndog. The crowd loves it. They dig it. When Blind Jelly Roll finishes his song, Wino 2 passes a small basket through the group for tips. Jelly Roll and his nurse take their kitty and depart. He’s due back at the old folk’s home before midnight.

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Traumatized By Puppets!


A Childhood Tragedy

Back in 2020, I penned this true account of one of my favorite childhood tragedies: there were more than a few.

The asphalt parking lot is so hot it’s melting the rubber soles of my PF Flyer “tinny” shoes to the pavement. It’s July of 1957, and there are at least one hundred kids, including our neighborhood coterie of twenty-five, standing on that lot, waiting to see our television idols, Mickey Mud Turtle and Amanda Opossum.

Piggly Wiggly Food hired the puppet duo from Channel 11 for the grand opening of their newest grocery store on Berry Street. With the show’s growing following, the folks at Piggly are betting on a full house because every kid in Fort Worth, Texas, wanted to meet Mickey and Amanda up close and in person.

Without an introduction, the puppets popped up onto the stage of their television theater and launched into their shtick. The jokes are age-appropriate and corny. Birthdays are shouted out, and then more jokes, but with no cartoons to kill time, the felt and cardboard critters are out of material and are bombing like the Hiroshima fat boy.

The Mud Turtle launched into a commercial for Piggly Wiggly, and the Opossum began her’s for Buster Brown Shoes, over-riding Mickey, which in turn made him mad, and he grabbed a small bat with his mouth and popped Amanda Opossum a good one. The kids loved it. Watching the two puppets fight is better than cartoons, any day, hands down.

I feel a tug on my shirt and realize my mother is dragging me into the grocery store. As we pass the back of the puppet theater, the side curtain is halfway open, and there, in living color, are two adults sitting on low stools with their hands stuffed up the butts of our beloved stars. Kids are good at fooling themselves into believing things that aren’t real. I know they are cheesy cardboard and fabric puppets, but destroying my imagination is serious stuff.

Mortified and traumatized from the scene I witnessed, my mother drags me through the air-conditioned store as she completes her shopping. There is no sympathy or coddling from this tough-as-nails woman. She mumbles something about puppets being stupid, and I feel tears forming on my cheeks. I may never recover from this destruction of my childhood.

Leaving the store, we pass the stage, and a man and woman are putting the puppets into their wooden boxes and autographing glossy postcards of the critters. I still have mine.