Pictures from the Shoe Box

(Thomas) Roger Noon '62
Former Sports Writer for the Flashlight:

                         "I’m Bored!"

It seems to be a time worn phrase these days! That’s not to say that we didn’t have boredom in our early lives as well. The issue was that we did not expect our parents to do something about it. If we were bored, we simply did something about it!
     It has been a surprising revelation to me there was a skating facility in Wellston. Living in Hillsdale, I only knew of the one in Pine Lawn. But I was familiar with two bowling facilities in the Wellston area. The Wellston Lanes have already been well documented. But there was another bowling establishment called Bowl-O-Mac.  The mind may be somewhat foggy here, but it seems I became familiar with it in Junior High School, while the Wellston Lanes were the favorite haunt of the WHS Bowling Club. 
     At that time bowling was a popular sport on a par with pool, baseball, or any other blue collar activity because it was relatively cheap and great for dates.  It was most likely bowling’s Golden Era because the professional “beer teams” (with names like, Budweisers, Falstaffs, Strohs, etc.) were in stiff competition with each other. I remember well when those guys came to the Wellston Lanes. The place was packed with people like me watching and appropriate ooohs and aaahs with those strikes and misses.  Even television at that time had a bowling show on Saturdays. It may well have been the reason why Don Carter took it up, but moved it to another financial category because of his individual prowess.
     If roller skating or bowling was not your thing, there were always the movies. Both the Wellston and Victory Theatres have been well documented in previous alumni issues. But Saturdays at either place was a real treat, what with the coming attractions, cartoons and whatever other short subjects (usually serials) were shown prior to the feature. The Wellston Theatre, in my opinion, was probably classier. But at the Victory Theatre I remember seeing that all time winner of a movie: “Rodan The Flying Monster” and a number of World War II epics as well.
     I am a child of the TV age. My parents seemed to have been the first in the neighborhood to purchase that big box with the small screen. It was truly fascinating to watch early programs like “Howdy Doody, and the “Wrangler” shows for kids after school and “Flip the Frog” cartoons which were soon replaced with favorites like “American Bandstand” on weekdays and the “St. Louis Hop” on Saturdays. Remember when High Schools had the chance to go downtown and strut their stuff to other kids who were watching? I can still remember the Adams Milk, Tastee Bread jingles and Sally SoGood potato chips. Who could have ever thought TV could become X-box or virtual reality?
     What I do remember as a child was making up games of cowboy and Indian, Yankees and Confederates, and World War II soldiers. I remember playing bottlecaps in the back alley with caps taken from the receptacle of the local grocery store cooler and using a cut off broom handle as a bat.  Later, there was the more sophisticated “wiffleball”. There was also exploration of the cliffs and ponds on the Hillsdale side of the railroad tracks that separated us from Wellston.
     Radio also played a big role in my early life. I loved to hear the play by play with Harry Carey, Joe Garagiola and Jack Buck of the St. Louis Cardinals on KMOX as well as the mystery shows that came on Sunday night and to listen to the rock and roll stations like KXOK.
     I couldn’t take the music with me and download it like today’s Ipod, but there was radio in the cars and those hand held ones to dial in the stations.
     We can’t forget the all essential “telephone” attached to a wall jack. Imagine that! It was the bygone version of today’s cell phone, palm pilot, blackberry, etc. Remember how hard it was talking to your boyfriend or girlfriend without your parent’s listening in or that younger brother or sister threatening to tell on you? And remember how time with the one you had a crush on seemed like minutes when it was more like hours to others!
     I remember a “malt shop” up on St. Louis Avenue in HIllsdale with a juke box. In some places there was the inevitable “pinball machine” for diversion as well.
     No doubt the automobile (and the magic age 15 to get the learner’s permit together with the Driver’s Ed. Course at school) increased one’s mobility beyond its predecessor, the bicycle. That Junior or Senior Year with bringing a car to school was just too cool for words. We are not even beginning to talk about the date attraction possibilities! Then add school dances, basketball, football, and baseball games and the intramural stuff as well as other after school offerings, it was indeed a busy time!
     Then of course, there was homework and chores. I don’t remember homework being as overwhelming like the kids claim today, but I do remember the necessity of chores with parents who both worked with the promise of an “allowance” for taking care of my responsibilities.
     I may have gotten bored, but I don’t remember it lasting very long and not doing something about it!  How about you? 

Editors
Bill Voos (’48)
Sandy Gibbons(’57)
JoAnn Williams (’60)

President
Mary Kay Parker '56 -

Sec/Treasurer
Jim Shaw '45 -

Trustees
Joe Hunter '54
JoAnn Williams '60
Larry Turner '60
Phyllis Crouch '62
Donna Hagan '68

Buzz Book
Pat Miner '62

ClassMates Remembered
Carol Beeman '60

Mailing Database
Tom Manley '67

WELLSTON HIGH SCHOOL
Welhisco Alumni
P.O. Box 774
O'Fallon, MO 63366

Phone  636-978-9330

E-mail
WelhiscoAlumni@GMAIL.COM