Visit To the Everly Brothers Childhood Home in Shenandoah, Iowa

On Wednesday, October 23, 2019, Cindy & I drove 150 miles almost straight North to Shenandoah, Iowa, to see the childhood home of the Everly Brothers. We visited Shenandoah in 1987 at which time the one room house was still a private residence on the same lot as when the Everly family lived in it in the 1940s & 1950s. Our tour guide told us that the house was not originally on that lot but that it was one of a few one-room shacks on the side of town used as housing for railroad workers when repairing tracks in the area.  When the railroad no longer wanted the shacks a local person bought one and moved it to 6th Avenue where it stayed until 2006. Now, the restored house sits next door to the Greater Shenandoah Historical Society Museum. Inside the museum on display we saw lots of photographs, newspaper & magazine clippings related to the Everly Brothers (Don & Phil), their parents Ike & Margaret and the two radios stations where they sang and played guitars on live radio broadcasts on a daily basis.

Across the street is the Depot Deli, an old railroad passenger depot converted into a restaurant & bar.  The interior is a filled with lots of Everly Brothers memorabilia and other artifacts of the era.  The Depot Deli is owned and run by Bill Hillman, who has been the instigator of most/all of the local efforts made to acknowledge Shenandoah as the boyhood hometown of Don & Phil Everly. In 1986, Hillman and his crew brought the Everly Brothers back to Shenandoah to play an outdoor concert which attracted thousands of people including hundreds of people who lived there the same time as the Everly family.

The Everlys moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in the 1950s.  In a few years, Don & Phil were recording hits records that were heard on radio stations around the world like "Bye Bye Love", "Wake Up Little Suzie", "When Will I Be Loved", & "On the Wings of a Nightingale" (written for them by Paul McCartney).  They became among the biggest stars of first generation rock 'n' roll music.  Their hit records & concert tours continued into the 1970s at which point they had an acrimonious break up that lasted for ten years. Upon patching up their relationship they made fresh, contemporary music that retained the essence of their sound.  Today, Don Everly survives the passing of his younger brother Phil. (UPDATE: Both of the Everly Brothers have passed. Phil on January 3, 2014, Don on August 21, 2021.) The Everly Brothers still have millions of fans everywhere.

Cindy & I thank everyone in Shenandoah who made our day there pleasant.

Now here are the photographs I took, all with captions.  Feel free to share these photos--do with them whatever you like. https://www.flickr.com/photos/daddyodilly/albums/72157600861976127/page1

Frostie Root Beer

My Frostie root beer story: In the 1960s we never had Frostie in Kansas. Every year my parents and I would drive on the (newly built) interstate highways to Southern Indiana to visit the grandparents. Frostie was not available in Southern Indiana, either. On perhaps our first drive there I managed to buy a bottle at a gas station and discovered it was (back then) the best tasting root beer I'd ever had, every bit as good as A&W, which in those days was not available in bottles or cans. You could only get it at A&W drive-ins in frosted mugs. Frostie had a thick sweet taste and a foamy head which would just sit there on the top of my glass. I could eat it with a spoon. Hence, every time we traveled back to Indiana, I would plead with Dad to fill the car up at a station next to a grocery store so I could spend my allowance money on a couple of six packs (which I would space-out for about six months, usually drinking the final bottle on New Year's Eve). Anywhere in Illinois East of St. Louis grocery stores were likely to carry Frostie. Even the bottles were unique, slightly wider and thicker than other brands of soda with a a textured surface to mimic frost (just like those shown above). And what about the bearded character on the bottles, cartons, and promotional materials? No name that I am aware of. Santa Claus? Jack Frost? Old Man Winter? Or just Frostie?

Another thing, if you remember seeing Frostie in stores back then or look it up on eBay now, it becomes apparent that the Frostie company thought highly of back-lit clocks bearing the names and logo. Over the years Frostie made lots of different designs for clocks and thermometers for display at retailers. Like so many brands, Frostie has spent the last several decades caught in the corporate conglomerate vortex. It's availability remain elusive. In its current configuration, the Frostie name is put on several different flavors of soda. In spite of claims on the cartons that the original 1930s recipe is still used, I think Frostie root beer now tastes thin and watery. There is no foamy head anymore, just some momentary bubbles.

These days, I recommend Dang! as the best root beer, found at micro-brand soda boutiques that have proliferated in many parts of the country.

Definitive History of the Collingwood Magpies

In 2018, a Collingwood Magpie super-fan from Melbourne very generously sent me a copy of the book "Kill For Collingwood", which he described as the good, bad, and ugly history of the football club from its earliest origin through the time of the book's publication in 1985.  I was very surprised at this kind gesture.  My offer to pay, at least for the airmail postage, was politely declined. So, I made a donation to his favorite local charity* and informed him.

Author Richard Stremski is an American who moved to Australia to teach at La Trobe University.  His tenure at La Trobe included his research and writing of this book.  My friend says that the author is qualified as an unbiased perspective on the subject matter having not grown up in the culture of Australian rules football.  Still, Stremski digs deep into every source available to come up with this account of the origins and growth of the club.  Printed materials on the subject appear to be exhaustive and dozens of people from as many decades as possible are quoted at length.

Stremski stresses the point that Collingwood was a poor suburb of Melbourne from its beginnings. Australian suburbs like Collingwood were more like neighborhoods in the American sense, where a street marks the boundary between them and not at all far from the central business district.  Even in the 1880s there were civic disputes like where manufacturing and processing plants could dump waste. Personal transportation was very limited in those days so it was common for people to pretty-much stay in their own part of town.  A trip to the other side of Melbourne was considered a major excursion.

It was in this environment that the new, fast growing sport of Australian rules football had lots of local fans and many young men willing to play it either for fun or for local fame.

The circumstances of how the Collingwood Magpies came to exist may not be a whole lot different than that of other clubs, and the author really doesn't make comparisons.  I confess to not knowing the origins of competing clubs so I'm no expert.  Still, the Magpies, the players, the fans, the investors, and the organization's higher-ups seemed to never shake the feeling of sensitivity to their impoverished roots.  Competing clubs never stopped reminding them.  It was energy borne of this feeling to prove themselves that has been a source of inspiration to the club.  The author uses phrases like "most loved and the most hated team in Australia" (1) and "fanatical devotion or detestation" (2).  This quote encapsulates the story of the Magpies' early decades:

"Collingwood has been on the receiving end of this kind of animosity [from the Carlton Blues] for eighty years.  The extraordinary success of the Club generated this reaction.  By 1922 Collingwood had only missed the VFL finals twice, had competed in twelve of the 25 grand finals and had won five flags.  No team had competed in the finals or the grand final as often as Collingwood.  Only Fitzroy [the Lions] had won more premierships, and Fitzroy was beginning its long descent while Collingwood's golden years were just on the horizon.  The reason why other teams sought victory over Collingwood is obvious: the Magpies were the team to beat; they were the yardstick by which others could measure their own success." (3)

Structural growth of the club is also described year by year, including who stepped forward to manage and finance the club, the animosities and subterfuge between club leaders, the construction of ovals, the various permutations of seating and accommodations for spectators, the coaches, the players, and by the post World War 2 era, the sudden appearance of massive amounts of money pouring into sport as a whole including the Magpies.  As big business assumed club leadership, the Magpies' humble beginnings seemed to appear ever more distant but never forgotten.

As the book concludes, the Collingwood Magpies were experiencing an extended drought of Premierships.  The 1990 Grand Final was five years in the future and couldn't come fast enough.  The nickname "Colliwobbles" had become very old.

My thanks to Joffa Corfe for his gift of this informative book.  Rare book websites offer copies at prices too rich for my blood. I hope this was a spare copy of his.

*  https://www.epilepsyfoundation.org.au/

1. R. Stremski, Kill for Collingwood, (Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1986), back cover

2. Ibid., ix

3. Ibid., 75