Job Up In Smoke

Yesterday's  Looking Back article in THE MARIETTA DAILEY JOURNAL is about the Larry Bell Park Bowling Alley in the basement of the Auditorium.

Click here for the article.

I remember it well, along with down the hall was the Larry Bell Pool Room ran by Pop Smith who lived on East Dixie Avenue.  He enjoyed my visits, he talked about watching he Hunter Boys grow up (my uncles and Daddy).  But he never let me play pool, I was too young.  Pop Smith was the grandfather of Jimmy Smith, who, with his brother,  moved in with Pop during his teenage years.

Back to the Bowling Alley down on the other end of the hall:  Around 1955 or 56 after I quit my job as a paper boy I was always on the lookout for a part time job.  I went to see the manager of the Bowling Alley.  I do not remember his name.  He told me, sure, he would hire me, but first would he help me clean off some land he just bought.   He said he would paid me $10 or $15 each.  I agreed.

My friends, also hired, brothers Jack and Billy Joe Royal, and Jimmy McEntire, and I met him some place off Macland Road to clean the land.  We cut up brush, and trees, and put them in a big pile to burn.

The bowling alley manager doused the pile with gasoline  from a can and stood back and threw a match on it.  The pile went up in flames.  So did the Bowling Alley Manager.  I'm surprised, but we had enough sense to roll him and covered him with a blanket or something.

Back then there were no cell phones or 911 calls, so we loaded him in one of our junky cars and rushed him to the hospital.

I don't know remember what happened to the man, if he lived or die.  Since hiring us was all verbal, I never pursued it.  And I thought, and still do, that pursuing the $10 or $15 cash he owed me would be in bad taste.