Sunday, March 7, 2010

In An Entirely Different Universe Far Far Away

This was across the street from the Indiana University Law School. I was transfered here because the guys I worked for, tore down the A & W drive-in that I was working at so they could rebuild it. This place had a full old fashioned soda fountain. They made their own ice cream, had syrups in dispensers to make cherry cokes and strawberry shakes (and malts) and on and on. I was a soda jerk par excellante here. Each lemonade was made with its very own lemon. There were floats and parquets and freshly ground coffee beans for each pot of coffee and home made rocky road and bits of strawberry or blueberry in your shakes so it was impossible to drink them with a straw. I learned to play pinball here, met my first wife (who was a waitress) here. They had musicians in to play on Friday & Saturday nights and they put in a pizza oven. My freshman year in college I got free lunches for making all their ad posters. Hoagy wrote the first draft of Stardust here on a piano in the front corner. Ernie Pyle wrote for the IU student paper sitting in here drinking coffee. The place was begun by these brothers, the Poolitsons and sold in '68 or so. My middle name was awarded me because their son Chris had gone to college with my father and was our family doctor. An alum showed up one afternoon with three 50 yard line tickets to a big IU football game for the brothers, only to find me and the bad news that they were long gone. He handed me the tickets and left. I gave them my buddy who was off work that day and he scalped them at the stadium and made us each about 35 bucks, which was good money back then. It had a jukebox, and I can't hear these songs without smelling the place. A cook, who played rugby for IU took one of the waitresses he was seeing up on our little stage to dance in front of everyone one Saturday afternoon when they were making up. They had a fight about marriage. She did and he didn't want to. He played this song for them to dance to:


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