Years ago, I used to write a column titled, “Coffee Shop Conversation.” The idea behind the column was a large round table located in a restaurant. This particular restaurant was in a small farming community and was frequented by a group of retired gentlemen several times each day. As they enjoyed their coffee, they would also hold many interesting conversations. During the course of the conversation, it was not unusual for one person to make a single innocent comment that would remind the others of a story from their own past and by the time each person sitting around the table would share their own stories or memories, it was anyone’s guess where the topic would end up.
I no longer have access to that coffee shop, however the Internet can also be used for sharing stories. We receive a massive amount of email from a group of WW II veterans and their family members. One day, a member of the group received a blank email by mistake. His reply started a flood of nostalgic emails we thought our readers would enjoy, so here is a ‘sample’ of the comments that followed. If you enjoy this section, please let us know and we will make it a regular feature in our magazine.
Franklin T. Wike
Tom Mix and Decoder Rings.
From Bernie
I don't know.. I guess I missed something.
Received a blank e-mail [the other day] and I don't have a Tom Mix Decoder Ring. I lost the box tops, too.
Please forward as soon as possible one Tom Mix Decoder Ring so I can read these blank e-mails I receive.
From Doc Ellis
I don't mind "showing my age..."
I'm 80...so who is Tom Mix?
Tom Mix was a then-famous movie and television cowboy from the 1920s through the 1950s...He made Westerns or "Oaters" as they were called, long before Roy Rogers and Gene Autry...in his T.V. phase, he was sponsored by Ralston Cereal Co., and the show was, I believe, "Tom Mix and his Ralston Straight Shooters".
From ABN503
Dang! I'm 82 and I thought it was Tom Mix in Cement. Just kidding, of course, but not about the age. I remember the "Great Train Robbery" and "Twisted Rails" both great movies from the days of silent film.
From Doc Ellis
Did Tom Mix have a "decoder ring"? I know Orphan Annie had a decoder device which I got in 1933 for mailing in a couple Ovaltine coupons...GEE, I was 8 years old...then each day during her radio show with ... what the heck was that kid's name...Oh, Joey Corntassel...Annie would issue a message in code and us kids would sit home decoding...it was a hand-held device about three-inches wide and long...wish I still had it. Funny thing to me is, when I went into the Army Air Corps in 1942, personnel put me in the Signal Corps where I became a code specialist...cryptographer...
From Milton Long
Hi! I had everything tom Mix had for “The Straight Shooters”. He did not have a Decoder Ring to my knowledge. He had about everything else. I think Ralston sponsored him. I went to the Tom Mix Circus when it came to Wooster. Tony turned his rear end to me and made a mess right in front of where I was sitting. I picked one up and put it in my popcorn box. I don’t remember what I did with it, but it was special to me.
From Jim
Tom Mix died in a nightclub fire in Chicago.
From Joe
Wasn't Tom Mix's horse named Tony?
From Bernie
My earliest memory of the silent movies was one called "Ramona." The piano player sat just underneath the screen and played through the entire movie.
From Barbara
When I was a young girl my grandfather owned a movie house. They showed silent movies there and we had a piano player sitting in front of the screen. I was so small I could not even read so I had an older person read what was on the screen. Later, when I was older, my sister sold the tickets and I took them. Good old days. Wonderful memories.
From Doc Ellis
YES, and I remember when us kids showed up for the Saturday Matinee movies we had to check our cap guns with an usher 'cause us kids were always firing caps at the bad guys in the Western and Gangster movies...and the movie ticket was a dime, and you could get a hotdog and root beer at the refreshment stand for 15 cents. Why the heck did we have to grow up and change?
From Disy
I remember when we scoured the entire house for tinfoil and scrap metal to bring for admission to the movies on Saturday afternoons...and..... no one has mentioned my Dick Tracy secret compartment ring?
From DOC ELLIS
Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd)...In 1950, I came home from serving in the army in Berlin during the blockade...and got a job at General Foods Sales Division office in St. Louis, Mo. Hoppy was doing his television show for our company, which owned the cereal division sponsoring him. One day while making public appearances in town, he showed up at our offices in the Paul Brown Bldg. in downtown St. Louis and handed out bags of “Cheerios” to everybody, execs and peons alike..."taste, 'em, judge 'em", he said..."they're the next great cereal"...It's these little instance-flashes that make life so damn interesting.
You know, like so many of you, I've been a lot of places, done and seen a lot of things but I guess I sound like a blowhard daydreamer when I do talk about some of it. I was telling a bunch of “coffee klatch” cronies about how I screwed up a Harry Truman teletype episode in the White House in 1947...I was temporarily assigned to his code room in the East Wing...anyhow, one of my cronies asked me, "Ellis, did you really do that, is it true? Or, you didn't really do it and you're either a damn liar or hallucinating..." YOW!!!
From Old Tiger
Hoot Gibson could take Tom Mix on the draw any day.
From DOC ELLIS
During World War II, Roy Rogers was a Warrant Officer assigned at one time to Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, Arizona, and he had his horse Trigger with him...the horse was stabled with the Commander's horse in a corral near the motor pool.
From Glenn
I came up before TV. Just before TV, was the best Western on radio, Lone Ranger.
When I missed school for sickness I would listen till mom says, "If you are too sick for school, then you are to sick for radio." Man she was right. Still miss it.
From Thom
Anyone remember who did the Lone Ranger on radio???
How about Sky King, Wild Bill Hickhock, Cisco Kid, Red Ryder & Little Beaver?
Who was the Canadian Mountie with the Dog??
From Rusty
The Canadian with the dog would have been either Lance O'Rourke or Sgt. Preston of the Yukon - I think it was Sgt Preston but I'm not sure.
I loved the Cisco Kid's horse. And I tried not to ever miss Sky King.
How about Zorro - and Paladin - and Bat Masterson?
Published U. S. Legacies August 2004
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