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It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that old patriotic song, but it was a popular tune after December 7, 1941. Another thing forgotten is what was in the old building right in the center of Allen’s main business district. It sits empty but it was recently repaired. No hint it once housed the busiest drug store in town. It was a center of gathering, a place to enjoy a Coke or a banana split. The women of the Allen area bought their cosmetics there while waiting to have their prescriptions filled. Yes, the brightly lit place was a prosperous centerpiece landmark run by a popular pharmacist named Otho Butler.
Read moreMy own personal experiences riding passenger trains as a child were exciting. But as it was, I was more a watcher than rider. One hot July day in a cotton patch near Lula as the “Streamliner” zipped past. My Uncle J C and my brother Gerald stopped their work chopping cotton and leaned on their hoes. As the train went by you could see people walking about the train and then the dinner car passed. There were people in coats and ties eating and drinking “Heaven knows what” in airconditioned spender and my brother was stunned.
Read moreThey said Sam was a dependable, reliable person. He was a man who took care of his family. He went to church on Sundays and enjoyed his job, working on a big aircraft carrier being constructed at the Fore River shipyard Massachusetts. The carrier Cabot had been ordered sometime earlier and was expected to join our fleet — if they ever got it finished. Pressure was on the shipyard and its 23,000 workers and Sam to hurry up and do just that.
Read more“Customer Service” - the belief that every person walking in through the door of the store needs to be treated as vital to the financial life blood of that business. When did it become “Customer To Be Tolerated Or Ignored?”
Read moreI probably should write more often about Allen’s rich history in Oklahoma. Last week I mentioned Allen’s role in the Green Corn Rebellion back in 1917. This rebellion fizzled out before it really got started after action taken by Pontotoc County sheriff Bob Duncan and 10 deputies. They were first on the scene after these insurrectionists burned the big Francis railroad bridge and cut the phone lines out of Ada to areas north. Then the governor sent his big “posse” down and arrested 450 locals, loaded them up in box cars and took them to prison in McAlester. I made the comment that later the governor released all these malefactors but actually 150 of them were tried and went to prison for 10 years. But a point I wanted to make is that important history occurred here.
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