20 Years Ago
Week of July 1, 2004
Endangered Pastime
Still Alive in Pendleton
What is it about drive-ins?
Rare as they are, a few still exist—nine in West Virginia, to be exact—one of which, 51-year-old Warner’s Drive-In on Rt. 220 north of Franklin, is right here in Pendleton County.
But, drive-ins—what could be a more appealing vestige of older Americana than something whose constituent elements are cars, movies and hormonally charged teenagers parked on the back rows on weekend summertime evenings?
Drive-ins—what could be more recherche on the American landscape today than a pale-in-the-moonlight monolith that predates television in a post-VHS movie age, when Wal-Marts sell DVDs of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” for less than half of what it costs to drive to Moorefield or Harrisonburg, VA, to see “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” at the multiplex?
The nostalgia for drive-ins is potent.
For baby boomers and for almost all of those who came of age in the years after World War II, which was the heyday of drive-in-going in small town America, drive-ins recall the innocence and imperial omnipotence of Eisenhower’s America—a world that existed after Elvis but before the Beatles, before the pill but after Rock Hudson and Doris Day, or even Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee, began their reign as America’s universal signifiers of popcorn romance.
It’s sad that most young people now grow up without a hometown drive-in to go to during the lilting, school’s-out months of summer.
But in Pendleton County, it’s different.
Here, even little kids have access to the same all American experience their grandparents and great-grandparents had because of Warner’s Drive-In.
“The thing I like about drive-ins is they have that summer afternoon, back porch feel,” said Mike Mallow, a 22-year-old Pendleton Times staffer from Upper Tract.
He’s been going to the local drive-in since he was 16 (the magic age, when teenagers are licensed to drive something other than a tractor around the family farm).
This past weekend, with the almighty and animated Shrek 2 on the bill, Warner’s Drive-In, which has a vehicle capacity of more than 200, had to turn away almost 100 vehicles, so many in fact that a Sunday evening showing of the blockbuster family hit was added to the weekend schedule.
Week of July 1, 2004
SUGAR GROVE
Memories Are
What Make A Holiday Special To Us
Memories are linked with holidays. These are the landmarks that guide one through the year. They provide one with deadlines and celebrations and promises. The Fourth of July Independence Day is here again, bringing picnics, fireworks, barbecues and fun. As “Old Glory” proudly flies above one, this melting pot of the world somehow pulls through any peril that comes its way. One has more language diversity, more religious denominations, more ethnic backgrounds and more pride than any nation on this planet. The country’s freedom was won by the combined efforts of all of its citizens. America is the best country to live in today, and it is with thanks that in these beautiful green hills that one has the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”—the dignity of being an American.
Following the Civil War, the Fourth of July was not celebrated for awhile. It was Pendleton County’s lot to be taken into the new state of West Virginia in July of 1863. The celebration returned into favor as youngsters who had witnessed the war grew into adulthood and came to appreciate the new United States, which had emerged from the chaotic war. The old Confederate veterans were seen marching in the Fourth of July parades.
30 Years Ago
Week of July 7, 1994
Library Displays
Old Carnival Prizes
If you remember going to carnivals and winning celluloid dolls and chalk dogs painted bright colors you will want to see the current exhibit in the Pendleton County Library.
Early carnival prizes is the subject of the exhibit provided by the Pendleton County Historical Society.
Starting around 1910 and moving through the 1940s are examples of common prizes received at carnivals and fairs of the period. Included are examples of carnival glass, which originally was known as iridescent glass, chalk figures, celluloid dolls, and ever popular canes. Also included are two Franklin Firemen’s Carnival posters from the early 1940s and one advertising Eds Park.
The exhibit will be in place during July and August.
SUGAR GROVE
Outdoor Meals
Bring Many Surprises
Outdoor meals make memories. When you are out balancing a paper plate on your knees, there’s something about blue skies and fresh air that makes even plain old ice cream seem like a treat. Crowding around a picnic table with family and friends creates a closeness that can’t be contained within a dining room’s walls. It is a real adventure too—this eating out. Wasps and flies and ants arrive uninvited…paper plates sprout wings in the wind… wooden picnic tables prove precarious—when two people on one side get up at the same time, those on the other side take a tip! In spite of it all, this 4th of July weekend had many of us eating out and once again, the occasion has made memories.
40 Years Ago
Week of June 28, 1984
Arts Committee Gives Library Filmstrips, Tapes About West Virginia
The Pendleton County Committee for the Arts recently presented to the Pendleton County Library a collection of filmstrips and cassette tapes about West Virginia entitled “A Panorama of West Virginia.”
Each of the four filmstrips covers a different aspect of the mountain state.
West Virginia Recreation—Tells of the many recreational activities within the state with major emphasis on the state park system and festivals.
West Virginia Industry—Gives a description of the varieties of industries which function within the state.
West Virginia Transportation—Shows the importance and different types of transportation available to the state and details the geographical problems in building a good transportation system.
West Virginia’s Capitol Complex—Gives the viewer a tour of one of the nations most beautiful state capitols, the Governor’s mansion and cultural center.
The collection is available to individuals, groups and classes and may be checked out the same as any book.
Week of July 5, 1984
Strawders Find
Engraved Turtle
On June 25, Mr. and Mrs. Mason Strawder of Timber Ridge found a box turtle, which had been engraved, outside their yard.
On June 17, 1982, Mrs. Dorothy Bennett of Circleville had carved Dot and the initials of her daughter, Teresa Harper, and her three granddaughters, Lisa Mary, Joni Lynn and Betsy Ellen, on the turtle. Mrs. Bennett stated that the initials had turned somewhat black, and she estimated the turtle to have traveled one and one-half miles in the two-year period.
Salt Tablets
Not Recommended
In the old days if you were playing ball, running, or otherwise exercising in hot weather, you would be urged to take salt tablets—to make sure you didn’t pass out, to make sure you replaced the salt you lost in sweating. But all that salt did was create more problems.
Your most important concern is to maintain your body fluids with the necessary electrolytes (sodium and potassium). The way to do that is to include fruits and vegetables in your diet and to drink plenty of water before, during, and after any strenuous activity. Remember, you don’t need that salt.
50 Years Ago
Week of July 4, 1974
Coffee Break
Is One of Our Hottest Fringe Benefits
The coffee break—that popular forum for the exchange of ideas, gripes, and gossip—is one of America’s hottest fringe benefits.
More than 90 percent of all employed persons in the United States have coffee available to them in the office or factory. They drink about 50 million cups during daily coffee breaks.
Although Americans consume some 40 percent of the world’s coffee imports, their drinking habits rarely are initiated in other countries.
The Japanese prefer coffee at least twice as sweet as the average Americans brew. The Swedes like theirs much stronger.
Italians relish “cafe espresso,” a dark, rich liquid concocted in a gleaming, steaming, spouting monster of a machine. Ugandans make a savory blend of coffee and bananas.
In Arabia, where the coffee plant first was cultivated, the beans are roasted, pulverized, and boiled for each brew. Few business deals are completed without a cup of coffee. Arabs consider a water chaser after a coffee break a breach of etiquette.
The name for coffee in almost every country of the world comes from the Arabian word qahwah—an honored title meaning “that which gives strength”—and its Turkish derivative, kahveh.
The beverage once was so popular in Turkey that if a husband failed to keep his wife supplied with the brew, she had grounds for divorce. (Grounds without coffee?)
In its thousand-year history, coffee has blended with many whims. When the Italians first took to the drink, they seemed more concerned with clarity than flavor. To settle the grounds, they added eggshells, codfish skin, and isinglass.
Prussia’s Fredrick the Great limited coffee-roasting licenses to the cream of the society, and warned the poor people that drinking the beverage caused sterility.
Undaunted, illegal roasters thrived, and Fredrick, who brewed his coffee with champagne, had to employ a corps of “coffee smellers” to follow the unmistakable aroma and arrest the lawbreakers.
Coffee was more readily accepted in Austria. The Viennese today drink gallons of coffee and are finicky about the way it is served. A traveler once saw an elderly Viennese gentleman carry his cup from a dark coffee house interior outdoors to make sure it was the exact color he had ordered.
The Boston Tea Party converted many Americans to coffee drinking almost overnight.
Later, the pioneers who settled the West always managed to find room for some coffee beans in their crowded covered wagons. The precious commodity often was used as a peace offering to the Indians, who quickly developed a taste for the beverage.
Coffee retained its popularity even after the West was won. An old range tradition calls for testing coffee with a horseshoe—when the shoe floats, the coffee’s ready.
60 Years Ago
Week of July 2, 1964
100 YEARS AGO
By LON K. SAVAGE
Editor’s Note—The following is one of a series of articles on the Civil War. Each weekly installment covers events which occurred exactly 100 years ago.
Sherman Loses Battle
But Takes Marietta
Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman stood on a cleared mountain in Georgia 100 years ago this week, looking southeastward beyond Kenesaw Mountain and, beyond that, the city of Marietta.
There had been three weeks down and three weeks of fighting in that area with little important effect, but now Sherman was determined to break through the line of Joseph E. Johnson’s Confederate army which was guarding Atlanta.
At 9 a.m. that day, June 27, Johnston’s army of 100,000 moved into an assault, as artillery and musket fire boomed on a 10-mile front.
Johnston had taken a strong position with trenches running down Kenesaw Mountain southward to Nose’s Creek and then appeared no way to crack the line except by hitting it directly.
Gen. James B. McPherson’s men led the attack on Johnston’s position at Little Kenesaw Mountain and they were turned back. After fighting their way up the side of the mountain, they were halted before reaching the summit.
A mile farther along the line, George H. Thomas, the “Rock of Chickamauga,” led another assault up the mountain but was turned back under heavy fire at the parapet. By 11:30 a.m., Sherman wrote later, “the assault was in fact over, and had failed.”
Sherman’s army had lost 2,500 men, including two generals (one of them Daniel McCook, Sherman’s old law partner), while Johnston had lost only 800. But the battle proved to be no serious setback for the Federals.
For while it was being fought, Gen. George W. Schofield of Sherman’s army had crossed Olley Creek to the south and had established a bridgehead. Capitalizing on this, Sherman ordered a general movement through Schofield’s position to flank Johnston’s lines.