Hootchy Nights At The Allentown Fair

Morning Call columnist Bill White had a piece earlier in the week where he lamented that  Bobo the dunking clown was no longer at the fair. Although that's about as funky as it got for Bill in his era,  we older Allentonians remember much hotter nights at the fairgrounds. Up to the late sixties the fair had girly shows. I'm going back to the era of Gooding's Million Dollar Midway and Benny's Bingo. I'm going back to three midways packed between the Farmer's Market and Chew Street. I'm going back to when the fair only started after Labor Day.

I mentioned in one of my previous fair posts that Fred Schoenk and I made and sold printed t-shirts at the fairs during high School. At the Kutztown Fair we were hired by the burlesque show owner to letter a new banner for his show tent...as high school boys we would have paid him for the experience.

reprinted from September of 2018

photocredit:molovinsky...Black rock and roll review with strippers, 1969 Allentown Fair

The King Has Abdicated

In 1958 my father had a food stand at the fair. It took him about an hour to realize you cannot sell hot dogs in the King's back yard, that is Yocco the hot dog king. When Yocco's claimed last year(2006) they were not at the fair because their canvas ripped, I was skeptical. This year it's official, they have abdicated their spot. Tonight the fair was jammed. In Ag Hall the granges still compete in vegetable canning. A wiseguy still incites you to dunk him. The world's smallest horse hasn't grown. Maybe Yocco's is gone, but the fair is still much more like 1958 than any other aspect of Allentown.

reprinted annually since 2007

Blogging, The Last Watchtower

Anybody who buys The Morning Call on Monday knows what slim pickings is. The paper is produced on Friday, with a one man weekend crew, to cover the police blotter. There's hardly enough paper to cover the bottom of a bird cage. That leaves the news junkies forced to read garbage like this. Even the blogosphere is slim pickings. Bernie O'Hare, arguably the dean of local blogging, says that I'm lazy and preoccupied with choo choo trains. I actually haven't done a choo choo post in over six minutes, that's how long it took me to read the paper this morning. Truth to be told, I am fascinated with how much Allentown has changed within the last 50 years, and the railroads are a good metaphor. In my youth, the city was serviced by rail branch lines with dozens of sidings, supplying many industries with raw materials, to produce products distributed all over the country. Those industries fostered a large middle class, and a high standard of living. We were the truck capital of the world, we were home to the first transistors, and a retail legend. The tower shown above in 1963, and the gas tank in the background, were on Union Street. Although they are both now gone, this lazy blogger will continue to combine history, news and commentary for those of us who still remember a different era.

reprinted from November of 2013

An American Saga

Say what you will about Trump, he's an American showman. Yesterday's mainstream media spent the day counting down to his booking in Georgia. Although there would be no suspense to that spectacle, every step of the trip was treated as breaking news. His large TRUMP jet flew into Atlanta and the surrender was intentionally prime timed.

While Trump may have resented his trip to Atlanta, Prigozhin would have gladly traded places, his flight did not go as smoothly. Here in America Trump could explain to Tucker Carlson how inept Biden is.  Elsewhere, Putin has announced that there will be an investigation into the crash which took his critic's life.

Some of us conservatives couldn't vote for Trump in 2020 because he wasn't presidential enough in his first term. Likewise, we cannot  consider him for 2024 because he wasn't American enough on January 6th, 2021. 

Rainy Morning Chronicle: DeSantis Wins Debate Show

Rainy Morning Chronicle: DeSantis Wins Debate Show: Trump wasn't at the debate Wednesday night, but MAGA was in the audience.  Their boos and jeers seem to have affected the pundit/analyst...

Drag Races At Queen City

During the 1950's, for a summer or two, city sanctioned drag races were held at the Queen City Airport. Dopey Duncan, radio personality and racing car enthusiast, was instrumental in organizing these events. The airport and large hanger seen in the background was built by Consolidated Vultee, to produce airplanes for the war effort.

reprinted from September of 2013