By Tim “Shoe” Sullivan

The kids of today in Stevens Point don’t have a clue what our fair town was really like “back in the day”. Hey, it’s not their fault. Since they weren’t around, how would they know?

Well, I’m here to tell you, as Jay from the Top Hat likes to say. Today’s youth really missed out on a lot of things. Let’s go back to the ’50s and ’60s when there were simpler days. Quieter days. A kinder and gentler era.

For starters, most kids usually had a yo-yo. When was the last time you saw a kid playing with a Duncan yo-yo? Kids were happy just to be playing hopscotch, jacks, or marbles. You never see that anymore. And pea shooter fights were common. Nobody in the neighborhood ever locked their doors, and boys liked to ride around on their bikes, especially when they put baseball cards in the spokes.

Today’s youth will open a wax pack of cards, look at them for two seconds, and gently place them in plastic albums where they’ll look at them again in twenty years. When I was a kid, many of my buddies had Daisy B.B. guns. B.B. guns? Some of today’s kids run around with AK-47s.

Friday nights were usually reserved for Youth Center at the Rec Department. You could play basketball, shoot pool, play games, or go to dances. Not sure if they do that anymore. As you got older, Friday nights also had great dances at the American Legion and polka bands at the Ritz downtown.

On Saturday afternoon, you could usually be found at a matinee at the Fox. Kids also liked to buy cap guns at the local Five and dime — now we have dollar stores.

A lot of the fun you could have didn’t cost anything. You could build forts in the neighborhood and hide in them for free. I’m talking way back now; back when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was just a duet.

One of my neighborhood pals was slapped because he said the word “swell” to his mom. He also was caught saying “damn” and couldn’t go out to play for a week. Kids who really got out of line got spanked.

Now they just have their video games taken away for an hour.

And you could use a fountain pen when you went to school. It had an ink cartridge and everything.

Eating was also quite different than now. People put ketchup on hot dogs and loaded up everything with salt and butter. The greasier the pizza, the better. Nobody ever heard about sodium. And a chicken TV dinner cost 39 cents.

You could send a letter out in the mail and get back a “Mr. Peanut”. The stamp probably cost you four cents. You could buy a case of Quality soda for about two bucks.

When we were kids, every now and then you’d see a real horse trotting down the street.

You could drive up to the local A&W and a cute car-hop would come to the car window and take your order. Then after you paid her she’d give you the exact change from her steel change thingy.

It also was a lot of fun pulling into the gas station. A friendly gal would come out and fill up your gas tank and even wash your windows. For free. The wash was free. You paid a little for the gas.

Kids walked around wearing Davey Crockett coonskin caps and Mickey Mouse ears. Everyone had land phones with easy telephone numbers. Mine was 1064J. There were no cell phones. A nice lady on the other end of the phone line would say, “Number please”. You’d tell her the number and she’d connect you. You could always find a phone booth with a pay phone in it.

There were movie stars on Dixie Cup tops and in the ’50s most streets were two-way. Beatles haircuts were the rage in the mid Sixties.

In the late Sixties, the end of winter meant “50 degree” parties; as soon as the temps reached 50, you could always go down to Iverson Park and crash the parties where everyone was tapping half-barrels of beer.

Kids in the ’50s in Stevens Point went trick or treating, alone, at dark and never had problems. And it was actually fun to win a Cracker Jack prize. You could sit in a booth at Country Kitchen and play a song on the jukebox right from there.

The beaches and swimming areas at Mead, Bukolt, and Iverson were always packed.

I don’t know. Things were so much different. If a plumber dropped by to fix a leak, he’d be happy to get five bucks and a six-pack. Kids in our area liked to gather around a picnic table in someone’s garage and play pinochle for hours while listening to Johnny Cash or Patsy Cline or Elvis.

You could turn on your black and white TV and watch Groucho Marx, WC Fields, and Jack Benny. Roy Rogers was a big favorite. People actually read encyclopedias and gentlemen held the door for the lady. And every now and then, if you walked into an elevator, a nice man in a uniform would ask you, “Are you going up or down?” and push a button. How cool was that? And everyone wanted their neighbor to be Fred Mertz.

People back in the day actually used phone books, and Shane Gehin usually won at Bingo. Folks went to the YMCA. Now they just go to the “Y”. THEE big place to go as a teenager was the infamous “Casino”. It was actually a beer bar called the Indian Crossing Casino on the Waupaca Chain of Lakes.

And people seemed to have better manners. One older guy told me that the reason a couple walked down the sidewalk side-by-side and the guy was closest to the street was because if a car splashed through a puddle the guy would get splashed first.

Things were also a lot less politically correct. Kids would play “Cops and Robbers” and “Cowboys and Indians”. Now I guess it’s “Law Enforcement & Bad Guys” and” Cowboys and Native Americans” — though I suppose neither is socially relevant anymore.

In sports, you couldn’t watch the Dallas Cowboys in the ’50s because they didn’t exist. Neither did the Minnesota Vikings or Milwaukee Bucks.

If a player got a concussion in football, he simply “saw stars” or “got his bell rung”. An NBA player was only allowed two steps while going in for a layup, and a relief pitcher was someone who wasn’t good enough to start.

I hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane. Stevens Point had so much to offer back in the day, and I know a lot of people miss those fun days of yesteryear. In fact, Cheryl O’Donnell remembers when she bought candy at Kelp’s Grocery which was next to Paul’s Bar on Second Street. She also enjoyed fresh-bottled Dad’s Root Beer from a small bottling company on the other side of Paul’s. Cheryl’s dad’s auto garage called “Bob’s Garage” was also over there. People don’t forget stuff like that.

If you also wondered what used to be in Point back in the day, Doug Noskowiak of Auto Select has a great example — his business, located at 3145 Church St., was originally a cheese factory building. 

“Then it became Coca-Cola Bottling, and after that it was Zag Electronics & All-Car Auto Parts,” he said. “In fact, when they tore the building down, they found a bunch of old Coke nickel bottle receipts.”

Now there’s a guy who knows his Point history.

Hey, it’s been a slice. And remember to enjoy life while you can and never take anything for granted.

Catch ya on the flip side…