Saturday Night Fever, Arlington Style

Written by Cleve Powell
Originally published in the May 2006 edition of the OAI Newsletter

So it’s Saturday night and its 1953, where and what was the happening place to be in Arlington? It is almost impossible to convey today the fun spirit that existed in Arlington folks in those days but I can tell you this, it was never boring.

The Arlington Community club was truly the heart of entertainment after Jack and Mabel Haslett opened what was known as teen town. Entertainment was usually a 78 rpm record player, and I can remember Betty Mayhugh asking me if I wanted to learn how to dance. The song was the Tennessee Waltz and it was the highlight of my life up to that moment. We occasionally had live entertainment. Johnny Tillotson, who latter became a Nashville recording star, played for us, and a girl named Thelma Carter, with back up guitar by Tom Jaques did also. The entertainment outside was about as good as the inside. There was usually a fight or two before the night was over. Sonny Warden and Chuck Merkle come to mind right away. We climbed the water tower and occasionally a roll of toilet paper came floating down. “Smitty” mufflers blared out, and occasionally Howard Bell would stop by and do his “buck and wing” for us boys outside.

When the dance was over groups of us would go swimming (skinny dipping) at the mine lakes at what is now Regency Square or go park by the river at what we called “Kuckamonga” Beach, now known as Blue Cypress Park. Or go to Uncle Joe’s, which was really the hub of our social life, which I’ll talk about a little more shortly.

If you were lucky enough to have a car and you had saved up at least two dollars you could ask a girl out for a night at the movies. That didn’t mean going downtown to an indoor movie (which was hard before the Mathews Bridge opened), it meant to the Atlantic Drive-in on Atlantic Boulevard on the east side of Bartram Road. I believe The Atlantic Drive-in opened in 1939; I remember going there on Friday nights in my Dad’s 36 Ford, and watching newsreels of WWII. They kept us abreast of the status of the war before TV.

The drive-in had a playground for kids in front of the screen and an open-air concession stand next to the projector and the bathrooms. In the fifties it cost fifty cents apiece to get in and there was always someone riding in the trunk or backing in the exit to save that exorbitant sum of money. Families parked in the front rows and lovers parked in the rear. Mr. Jackson was on patrol to make sure things didn’t get two arduous. We liked to go on rainy nights and if you really wanted to see the movie you could take a plug of “Bull of the Woods” chewing tobacco and run it up and down your windshield vertically; “the rain didn’t bead on the glass” (forerunner of Rain-X).

So you spent one of your two dollars to see the movie and when you leave you drive almost right across Atlantic Boulevard to Uncle Joe’s Drive-in “Home of the Foot Long Hot Dog.” I can’t think of anything I’ve every eaten that tasted better than those hotdogs. They were cooked on the grille and cost twenty cents each, cokes were ten cents, and an order of fries was a dime also. So out of your other dollar you got two dogs, two cokes and split an order of fries which left you 30 cents for gas, a gracious plenty.

Uncle Joe’s had curb service, and their parking lot was hidden from the road by a concrete block wall. It had a couple of big oaks that added atmosphere and of course was paved with good old Arlington sand, which made it a mandatory to “dig out” or spin your wheels when you left. It was a great place to sit with your date or visit with others and any John Travolta movie would have benefited from scenes from Uncle Joe’s. Claude and Louie ran the place and Boots was one of the waitresses. I would tell you stories from Uncle Joe’s but “What happened in Arlington’s early days stays in Arlington!”