Friday, October 13, 2017

Fifty Years Ago This Week in West Rome - 10/16/1967 to 10/22/1967

The Chieftain’s win over Cedartown propelled them to the number one slot in the Region 6-AA title race, while Roger Weaver maintained his position as number one in rushing for the season. The Chiefs were heavy favorites over Cass in the Friday night football game. I’m reasonably certain that Cass actually showed up for the game, but it’s hard to say for sure, since the final score was 55-6 in West Rome’s favor.

West Rome students had a short school week thanks to teacher in-service days. Kids were out of school on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, while teachers spent all three days in meetings.  (Of course, only the first part of that sentence mattered to most of us…)

It was a rough week for telephone poles. On Wednesday night, a truck took down two poles on Shorter Avenue, knocking out power for more than 200 homes. Then, on Thursday morning, a driver took out a pole on Charlton Road, leaving about a dozen homes in the dark. On Friday, a driver took out a pole on Burnett Ferry Road just south of Conn Street. Surprisingly, it was a rain-free week, so weather played no part in the sudden war on utility poles.

The Rome City School System worked out the details with the US Office of Economic Opportunity, enabling them to relaunch their Headstart program beginning this week in 1967. None of the participating schools was located in West Rome, but Superintendent McDonald indicated that Elm Street was under consideration to join the list for the 1968-1969 school year if it met the family low-income requirements.

The new Rome post office and federal building, which had been struck from the budget a few eeks ago, was added back to the budget after some finagling.  

The safe that was stolen from Lowe’s Supermarket a week earlier was found in a wooded area near Rydal, Georgia, on October 16th. Naturally, the safe had been forced open and all the cash was gone—but almost $2000 in check had been left behind. While the burglars made off with almost $4000 in cash, authorities said they recovered nearly $1000 worth of tools scattered around the safe—tools that had been used to get through the safe’s thick walls and heavy-duty lock mechanism. 

Murphy’s launched their anti-Big K offensive with a major toy push as they tried to take charge of the upcoming Christmas holiday season. Murphy’s was pushing its layaway program s part of its toy sale, and they also brought in Santa Claus on October 20th from noon until 6pm for shoppers who wanted to skip past Halloween and Thanksgiving and get right into the Christmas spirit.

Piggly Wiggly had turkeys for 37¢ a pound, Maxwell House coffee for 49¢ a pound, and grapefruit for a dime each. Kroger had sirloin steak for 99¢ a pound, Starkist tuna for 29¢ a can, and large eggs for an especially low 25¢ a dozen. A&P had rib roast for 79¢ a pound, Van Camp chili with beans for 29¢ a can, and bananas for 15¢ a pound. Big Apple had pork chops for 69¢ a pound, red grapes for 25¢ a pound, and a 32-ounce jar of Peter Pan peanut butter for 69¢. Couch’s had ground sirloin for 69¢ a pound, Royal Pure orange juice for 25¢ a quart, and a four-sleeve box of Nabisco saltines for 35¢. 

The cinematic week began with Rough Night in Jericho (starring Dean Martin & George Peppard) at the DeSoto Theatre and the West Rome Drive-In and Alfie (starring Michael Caine) at the First Avenue. The midweek switchout brought Don’t Make Waves to the DeSoto Theatre,  The Sand Pebbles (starring Steve McQueen) to the First Avenue, and Hurry Sundown (with Jane Fonda) to the West Rome Drive-In.

Lulu’s “To Sir With Love” knocked The Box Tops' “The Letter” out of first place this week in 1967—but the Box Tops’ song only fell one slot to the number two position. Other top ten hits included “Never My Love” by the Association (#3); “How Can I Be Sure” by the Young Rascals (#4); “Expressway (To Your Heart)” by the Soul Survivors (#5); “It Must Be Him” by Vikki Carr (#6); “Soul Man” by Sam & Dave (#7); “Little Ole Man (Uptight—Everything’s Alright): by Bill Cosby (#8); “Gimme Little Sign” by Brenton Wood (#9); and “Your Precious Love” by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell (#10). 

Fifty years ago this week, the first issue of Rolling Stone, featuring a John Lennon cover photo, rolled off the presses. The folded tabloid-format magazine would rapidly become the most influential and popular magazines in rock music history.


The first-ever race between Superman and the Flash took place in The Flash #175. Alas, we didn’t get to see how artist extraordinaire Carmine Infantino might have depicted this ultimate speed-test, because Flash #175 was the first issue illustrated by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. (While the art team had done wonderful things in the pages of Metal Men and Wonder Woman, among other comics, they never really managed to portray super speed particularly effectively. As a result, The Flash—which had long been a favorite comic of mine—fell off my must-read list within a few issues.)

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