J'ville Of Old.
The Source
It labels you as and old-timer when you start talking about Jacksonville as it once was, but sometimes I go ahead and bore my students of J’ville gone by. Like the old Howard Johnson’s where BJ’s sits today. Wednesday night, all the fish or clams you could eat for six bucks. Bucket loads of cole slaw, bushels of French fries, and clams, clams, clams. Illinois College had a formal dining night on Wednesdays so those of us who didn’t own a tie would load up and head for Ho-Jo’s to pig out on seafood. Ho-Jo’s apparently knew that despite the edicts of the local priests at Our Saviors, Wednesday was the night to snag the extra bucks from the Illinois College crowd. Besides, Presbyterians had to be less picky during Lent. The waitresses were not stingy. We’d commandeer the big table in Howard’s back room and tell them to simply keep the clams coming. Amazingly, we’re all still alive today. The loads of tartar sauce alone would now clog our sixty-year-old arteries to the point that would make our doctors faint, but in those heady days, six bucks took us to heaven. Tops Big Boy. What a treat! None of us had any idea what Big Boy served as meat because the Thousand Island sauce slathered over the sandwich turned the whole thing into a high-calorie feast. Some restaurants lightly dose their slaw in dressing. Big Boy would drown the cabbage and when you plate arrived you saw a small salad swimming in a sweet dressing soup. For some reason the townies seemed to own the drive-up at Tops, while the college crowd crammed ourselves into the inside. The waitresses were …how to do I put this?...experienced. No fresh-faced teenagers, but good old girls who’d been around the grill a few times and new how to handle the smart-aleck comments of the college boys. They were like our mothers and we liked our mothers. I don’t know if my young passengers actually listen to me as we buzz down Morton, but I carry on my historic tour as if they hung on every word. “Hardees. That was Sandy’s. Had a girl wearing a kilt on the sign out front. Great French fries…little bitty thin things that fried up really hard and crisp. We grab a couple extra ketchup packages to take back to our dorm room and make tomato soup.” “That’s gross.” “We were hungry…and broke. And this was Pizzans Pizza. Great place for pizza. It was dark and fairly cheap so we took our dates there. Pizzans showed you had class.” “That was a date? Just pizza?” “Then Nichols Park.” “For what?” “And the Blackhawk. Fantastic smorgasbord. That’s before they called it a buffet and everybody had one.” “What’d you do in Nichols Park?” “Seafood night was the best. I had a college roommate named Newt who was the host at the Hawk. Just before closing time he’d order up a bunch of clams for the food line so he’d have a whole box of them leftover to bring home.” “What about Nichols Park, Mr. Bradbury?” “The Blackhawk had the Pump Room down below…never did catch on in Jacksonville. I used to play the organ down there. When the crowds were backed up at the door the manager would tell me to play faster music. He said that fast music makes people eat quicker.” “You ate clams in the park?” “And this was Mother Tucker’s, but boy, that’s been a long time ago. Used to be, Jacksonville ended right here. And if you timed it just right you could drive all the way back down Morton without hitting a red light.” “Why?” “Because it was there! Don’t you kids have fun anymore?” “Like eating clams and missing red lights? Sounds pretty exciting. But you never said what you and you date did in Nichols Park.” “Astronomy.” “Huh?” “We studied for our astronomy tests. You’ve got to have a dark sky to see all the stars.” “You’re kidding.” “I’m your teacher. I don’t kid.” Kids will believe anything.