This grubby little number has been around for a while. Roberts & Johnson Lumber Company, located next to Oakwood on West Sullivan Street, burned in the late 70s. For some reason, nothing was ever done with the plot of land at 451 West Sullivan. Until the apartments were built. Alas, if this were yours and you just had to measure something, you’d be out of luck…it’s rusted closed.
There were two of these, this one and a blue one, at an antiques mall in Church Hill. Each was on sale for $7.99
I’m taking a chance here, but I think this was taken before the fire that severely damaged the WKPT studios. I don’t recognize the studio configuration or that strange wall treatment.
I didn’t have any luck tracking down when Pilgrims Songs sheet music was published, but the microphone is a Western Electric 639 or so, made in the late 1930s (after 1941, it would have been branded as an Altec). This mike, or one like it, was still around when I was at WKPT. People had their preferences as to the setting. I liked cardioid and got fussed at one time for switching it. Today, these mikes are selling for around $600 to $800 on ebay.
There is nothing of interest on the back of this card…no publisher, no photographer attribution. Annoying.
H. Marvin Parsons bought this book in 1945 for $5 (41 days after I was born in another city far, far away…well, Morristown). Two years later, he was City Attorney:
An example of the work of Card Lock Company, Inc. Located in Prattville AL, they’ve been in business since the 1940s. Let me in (wee-ooh)
This is the back of the old Coca-Cola bottling plant on West Sullivan. This ramp was used by the former King Motors to store Studebaker cars on the second floor
The windows in front of the building allowed you to watch the Coca-ola bottling process as the bottles whizzed by. Hot stuff in the ’50s.
This really has to do with Eastman in Rochester, but the key fob and key ring were found at a flea here, so let’s check it out.
The patent office shows that Eastman was granted a patent for this ISO Plus Nutritional Supplement, apparently for those of the bovine persuasion, in 1983, the first known date for the commercial use of this product. As of 1992, however, the patent is shown as “Continued use not filed within grace period, un-revivable”.
Perhaps it just didn’t work out.
I ran across an old page of slides from the early 70s that had been used on WKPT-TV. Figure these slides are around 40 years old, so live with the poor quality (highlights blown out, mostly).
The Scene at Six. On the left is anchor Mike Lee, then Frances Eden, who did weather, and Bob Haywood, sports. I don’t recall the name of the lady on the right.
Pat Woodham and her Somebody Special Show
And the man himself, Bill Trailer. He also did TV weather and, yes, he always tied his tie like that. When Bob Ratcliff, the boss at the time, warned him about letting his hair grow too long, he held firm until Bob paid for the haircut. I don’t know why this shot doesn’t have a caption…it may have never been used, although it was prepped properly.
I first met Bill when he was doing the Night Sounds show on WKPT-AM, which started off with the quote from Longfellow:
I was doing a show down in the FM control room and had to make sure that the door was shut, because, now and again, Bill, irritated at something, would storm out of the studio cursing loudly.
A 2.25″ pen knife. These were generally given out to customers or potential customers who were a little above the ordinary “hearty handshake” group. I’ve received several of these over the years, not from auto dealers, mind you. The blades will cut butter, once or twice. After that, the joins begin to decouple.
JBR, owned by the Belle family for three decades, was absorbed by Courtesy Chevrolet in 2010.
I did at least one remote broadcast from JBR on Lynn Garden Drive. I was in the showroom, facing the street through those big windows. It was a morning remote and business was slow. At one point, the manager came over and handed me five one-dollar bills. “Tell ’em that the next five people who come in for a test drive will get a one-dollar bill,” he said, “that’ll bring some in.”
Sure. I recall that one guy straggled in after I’d put out the word a couple of times. The rest of the time, I could almost hear the crickets outside.
I can hear Daffy hissing, “Ingrateth!”
Bob Lawrence's Kingsport 
