click on any picture to make it bigger and readable.
Here in the 1954 Marietta Southern Bell Telephone Book. I had a blog on this earlier. In that one I was just amazed that I had possession of a book that shows a very different Marietta.
This time I opened the book and look at the Yellow Pages (one step at a time). Well, they are called Yellow Pages, but they are not yellow. Either the yellow ink has faded in the past 55 years or they were not yellow to begin with – I don’t remember.
I took a cross section of the Yellow Pages – the pages that would likely show businesses in 1954 that OMs of my age group would be familiar with back then.
Drug Stores. I think back then there were more drug stores than there were churches. We all went to drug stores. They had counters that sold Coke and notebook paper. We mostly went to Atherton’s more than the rest. But we hit them all enough to know the faces of the sales clerks in every store.
In the same picture as Atherton’s and Dunaway’s advertisement are advertisements for Leiters, Goldsteins, Millers, and Sears Roebuck (on Atlanta Street).
Restaurants. In 1954 there was not a big selection of restaurants. Varner’s was in the yellow pages – seems the Yellow Page advertisement would be a waste of money for them. I almost chocked to death on a red snapper fish bone at the Dixie Inn one time.
Romeo Hudgins was a man well known around Marietta. He and Pepper Martin was my Little League coach for Southern Discount for two years.
Harris Machinery was owned by Scott Harris’s father. Scott was a classmate. They lived on Powder Springs near the turn off to County Farm road.
Service Stations. I was age 13 in 1954. Driving a car was three miles away. It didn’t take long to learn which ones were teenage drivers friendly.
Taxi companies. We knew our Taxi companies. In 1954 I was 13 and didn’t have a drivers license. From time to time we found it necessary to take a taxi home.
One time while riding my bike in the rain I slipped in the mud and was knocked out. A Victory Taxi driver saw the accident and pulled over and put me and the bike and his cab and carried me home. My mother about fainted when she saw a taxi driver walk up the steps with me slung over his shoulder like a sack of flour. The point is that is was a small town and people knew you whether you knew they did or not. That would not have happened today.
It's fun to go through old books like that - and old magazines, too.
ReplyDeleteJudy,
ReplyDeleteI think over the years we have thrown away tons of magazines - or actually putting them in bins to be recycled. So, hold on to your zines and telephone books for your upcoming great great grandchildren!
Neat post. I remember. Going down to Bennett's Drugstore for a cherry Coke and a CMP (chocolate, marshmallow, peanuts) sundae. Neighbors reporting everything I did naughty. Well, they missed a bunch, too.
ReplyDeleteSi,
ReplyDeleteI remember Larry B., me, and others got kicked out of Atherton's Drug Store when we started reaching grabbing a french fry off Larry's plate and suddenly he said, "Everybody have a fry!"
And started tossing them up in the air and they came down on everybody in the lunch booth section.
I find it interesting that The Maple Street Inn and Lollis Place found it necessary to inform the telephoning/eating public of the clintel to which they catered.
ReplyDeleteReuben,
ReplyDeleteTo even compound the interest there is no Maple Street in Marietta. Or maybe there was then, before the loop around downtown Marietta was made in the late 60s or 70s... however, there is a Maple Avenue - but no businesses - just Maple Avenue Methodist Church and homes.