MEMORIES PT10

Growing up as we did in the 1950’s we were right in the middle of evolution of
rock and roll. When we were living in Malden my grandmother Aggie must have
heard the commercials for the Adventure Car Hop restaurant on WMEX, the
station that was THE rock and roll station back then. They had a DJ named
Arnie Ginberg who hosted the “Night Train Show” every weeknight and his
nickname was “Woo Woo” (as in a train’s whistle). So the deal was this:
if you went to Adventure Car Hop and ordered the “chicken in a basket” meal
and said “woo-woo” to the car-hop, you got a free 45 in the bottom of the
basket.

No, not a gun.

A 45 record.

Umm.  It was sort of like a cd but made out of vinyl and the hole in the
middle was much .larger.

Anyway, we rode over to Saugus to the restaurant, and Nannie would order
the “chicken in a basket’ and say “woo-woo”. Hey, a free record was a
free record!

By the time we’d moved to Boston there was something even bigger than
the Night Train Show: American Bandstand. We used to come home from
school and turn on the show to watch those kids in Philadelphia dance and
see the rock acts lipsynch their songs. Even more important was to see
how the kids were dressed and how they wore their hair. It was just as important
for guys to see what was cool as it was for the girls. One of the hot looks for a
while was a string tie with a sweater and as you can see, I managed to keep in
style with that one.

Life was so much simpler then for kids, wasn’t it?




((294 words))
Written for the Family History Writing Challenge