Miscellaneous Shit, Part 6

Any readers play miniature golf, par 3 golf, or drive a bucket of balls at B & M Golf on Boston Road? It was next to Zayre, where the Salvation Army is now, and across from A & W Root Beer. I thought I had found all the photos of it that exist on the web so far, but then I found another one of the mini golf course (complete with lighthouse and windmill) and the front and back pages of a scorecard (below)! That’s what the Internet is all about, as far as I’m concerned! Get these gems out of obscurity and online! Is that what the sign really looked like! I want a picture of it!

B & M was run by the late Louie Bracci, who lived behind his golf place on Newport Street. It was named after him and his brother-in-law James Manoni (Bracci & Manoni). Bracci was a man who hated bad language enough to put up a “profanity prohibited” sign. I vaguely remember it. I found an archive story of him applying to the city for an expansion of his driving range at 802 Boston Road in 1953, but it wasn’t there THAT long, was it? Maybe it was.

A guy from the Growing Up in 16 Acres Facebook group lived on Elmore Ave., behind the first hole, and he used to collect the balls that came over the fence and sell them back for 10 cents each. He wrote that Louie, who he ended up working for when he was 14, was "a cranky old man but had a good heart."

Speaking of that Facebook page, here are the 1961 Sixteen Acres Wasps. Recognize any of them? A couple were Motleys, the first gang to rule “The Center,” including Skip LaFleche, who drove his motorcycle through one Friendly’s door and out the other. Other names in the photo: Gallerani, Meaney, Ahlberg, Houghton, Doten, Ed Sheehan, Bussing, Keleher, and Kibbe.

And while we’re in The Center, here is an old sign. Burger King is now Wings Over Springfield.

I know this isn’t The Acres or Boston Road or Pine Point for that matter, but there aren't many photos of the Liberty Theater (1928-1958)  in Hungry Hill. Apparently, in the 1940s, the theater’s manager, “Butterball” Autry, used to get tormented by the rowdy kids in the place. Sometimes he turned off the projector to lecture them, and they responded by throwing stuff. Kind of reminds me of the treatment we used to give the ushers at the Bing during Saturday matinees.

The Liberty Theater block today

I found another couple of photos of the Stateline Potato Chips sign.

The last time I saw the sign? I took this photo pretty recently (2014) on the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston, where there a bunch of old neon signs in some kind of public art project:

The old St Catherine pool! They filled it in about 10 years ago after it was leaking into neighbors’ basements.

THIS must have been quite the party. A little before my concert-going time, unfortunately. Wow: NRBQ, James Montgomery, James Cotton…and cold Beer!

Did you say NRBQ?

Here is a photo of Buckey’s corner on the Longhill end of Sumner Avenue. Buckey’s begat Friendly’s, which begat…an abandoned Friendly’s.

Down the road…look at that, in glorious color: Blakes!

Winchester Square in 1997. The mural on the building at the bottom of the black-and-white photo below is called “Heritage on the Wall,” painted in 1972 by Donald and Paul Blanton. Funded by a grant from the Springfield Arts Lottery Council, the mural is kind of obscured by trees today when you drive down State Street. According to the Springfield Republican newspaper, during riots and looting in Springfield in the turbulent 1960s, the brothers used art to try to calm down crowds.

Don Blanton

How many of you had this Evel Knievel motorcycle toy?

I think I must have been the first person with carpal tunnel syndrome cranking that damn handle—not to mention skinned knuckles. As every owner of one of these knows, the motorcycle was pretty durable, but when you performed some of the more insane jumps (like off Rick Riccardi’s garage roof), it was bound to break, and then you were just stuck with the doll.

The doll, like the real Evel, was impossible to destroy. We tried to blow up Craig Stewart’s Evel Knievel doll with an M-80, but it just flew high in the air from the explosion. We tried to burn it, but the fire never stayed lit.

One day, tired of torching and torturing the disfigured Evel, Craig and I thought the best course of action would be to throw it at a car. It’s perplexing that we’d burn the doll of our childhood idol, leaving half of him black charred rubber, but it even more curious that we’d hide in the woods on Sunrise Terrace and terrify motorists with it. In broad daylight, no less. Oh well. We were bored, I guess.

We hid behind trees on Sunrise Terrace. My first throw was right on the money. Thunk! The driver slammed on his brakes, hesitated, and then kept going, like so many of our snowball victims. Perhaps he thought he kicked up a branch. It’s not like I threw a G. I. Joe at him—just a puny, seven-inch Evel Knievel doll. We retrieved it to try again.

What if we got chased? Remember, these were the woods around our fishing hole, a pond called Putnam’s Puddle. We knew the trails like the backs of our hands. No one would be able to catch us.

We waited. Car came and Craig fired. His throw was spot-on, too, but there was no “thunk” sound. The car didn’t even slow down. What the hell? We emerged on Sunrise Terrace. Maybe Craig had sailed it over the roof, but no—that was a perfect throw. But where was the doll? The car had its windows open. Could Craig have possibly....? No. No way. We searched the street. Nothing. No way? Yes way. The doll had to be IN THE CAR! Wow. We didn’t have Evel Knievel to kick around anymore. We imagined the scene when someone in the family found the sucker. “How did this burnt doll get in here?”

Wow, there is a whole blog devoted to the Evel Student Cycle. Simply Evel.

Poor Evel doll. Like the clay Mr. Bill on Saturday Night Live, he met an untimely fate. Nooooo!

“Why must you torture me so?”

I’ll leave you this month with the Evel Stunt Cycle commercial: