Table of Contents
The Third Time, We Stayed by L. E. "Bus" Walton
What Was "The Thing" In Daggett? by Paul K. Taylor from
Southern California Senior Life, May 1992
A Letter From A Friend
Los Angeles In The Heyday of Route 66 by Mary Bessent
Nuggets from Needles by Maggie McShan
San Bernardino Rendezvous
Pushing 90 and Getting Up At 2:00 A.M. by John Jopes, Inland
Valley Daily Bulletin
Death in the Route 66 Family by JoAnne Willis
SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY ISSUE: This issue of Roadsigns is the first of two special
anniversary issues. We begin with a little of the history of Route 66. In our next issue
you’ll find the highlights of the Route 66 Anniversary Shield Relay and a look at
Route 66 today.
ROUTE 66 — THE THIRD TIME, WE STAYED by L. E. "Bus" Walton
My dad was raised in Los Angeles and was a "Jack Of All Trades". He was
building automobile tops in L.A. in 1914. He was a railroad man going through Shelbyville,
Indiana, where he met and married my mother. It must have been real love because my oldest
brother Bill was born in 1916 and our family just grew and grew. It seemed like every 18
months our family had a new addition. We were a well-known and "well-to-do"
family.
In 1920 my dad was a well known building contractor. He wanted to see home again so
that’s where I was born, in San Gabriel, California 1920. We soon returned to his
business in Indiana. In 1927 he was still making good money so he bought a new sedan
automobile and we returned to Los Angeles. I was seven years old and I remember going to
school in Eagle Rock. Then, in the evening and on weekends we played with the original
movie dog, "Rin Tin Tin". We lived next door to Mrs. Rosemeyer who owned the
dog. My dad’s sister was a close friend to the comedy movie actress, Louise Fazenda,
who had a connection with Hal Roach. We were lined up for an appointment with Mr. Roach to
see if we could fit in with the "Our Gang Comedy" bunch. But my mother’s
sister in Indiana passed away so we immediately started back home, via Route 66.
A couple of years later the bottom dropped out of our little world. There was no
movement, no work, no nothing except the long bread lines and things falling apart. I
remember standing in those bread lines. I remember wearing "hand-me-down"
knickers from one of my close friends whose father owned the only two theaters in town,
the Strand and the Alhambra. The theater put on a family "feed" once a month.
Whoever came to the theater with the largest family could keep all the food they could
carry off the stage. Well, by this time our family was number one. But there was a catch
to it. We didn’t have the price of admission. My rich uncle did, so we had to split
the groceries in half when we got home. He only had three in his family and we had eight!
The depression finally got to my dad and he started hitting the bottle. In early 1934
my dad promised my mom that if we could go back to Los Angeles he was sure he could get a
good job and get us back on our feet. He must have convinced her. He quit drinking and all
he could talk about was L.A.
We sold the nice car and bought an old 1924 "power-house" Hupmobile four
cylinder. My dad’s goal was to leave when school was out in June of 1934. I can
remember so very, very much, about building our overhead camper, (better known then as a
"house car"), on this 1924 Hupmobile.
First we removed the body, except for the two front doors and windshield section. Then
we built a "flat-bed" over the rear section with a "window seat" on
each side or storage, and a seat and a bed for the little ones at night. The outside was
constructed of "beaver board" which is now called Masonite. Dad built a sliding
wide drawer which slid above the rear azle to store our camping equipment. I had the job
of changing the old wood spoked wheels in the rear from the 32-inch of the Hupmobile to
the 34-inch of an old Studebaker. This gave us better distance on mile-per-gallon. My dad
was no dummy!
I remember the day before we left. It was the first yard sale, garage sale, or moving
sale I ever attended. Now, I’m hooked! I had a real Parker fountain pen and I think I
sold it for four cents. I just stood there in the old dirt driveway watching things go
out. Every time something nice went out the driveway I could see the tears in my
mom’s eyes. They didn’t get her old upright piano though. It was later shipped
out and is now owned by my sister in Rupert, Idaho.
We took along our faithful terrier dog, "Toppie" and one of her pups,
"Pal". One day when we stopped for a quick lunch, (my dad wanted to cover just
so many miles on "66" each day—he hated to waste time.) Anyway, there
happened to be a park area with a bandstand there. Well, when we started to leave, the pup
was missing. Everybody was searching. I was too! My grandfather had made a special sling
shot for me as a going away gift. It was called a "nikker-shooter" in those
days. Anyway, my big brother Bill caught me shooting at a frog in the little stream
nearby. He gave me heck for not helping to look for the dog and ripped that sling shot to
shreds. I never forgave him. Someone, not me, finally spotted the pup under the bandstand
which was only 12 or 14 inches off the ground. We tied a rope around my big brother
Bill’s foot to pull him out if he got stuck. He crawled out the other end with the
pup, the rope dragging behind.
The only other big problems we had were fighting the dust and pumping up the flat tires
caused by the washboard roads. Dad was good and he didn’t even mention booze. My
other big brother, Carl, (we called him Cotton ‘cause his hair was so white), was the
entertainer. He could never stop talking. (As I type this story tears come to my eyes just
thinking of the good times we all had together.) Anyway, Cotton would stand behind the
front seats where mom and dad sat and ask more questions than we ever heard on "20
Questions". One day, dad got so fed up with him that he told Cotton that if he would
shut up for five miles he’d give him a nickel. Cotton clammed up but he wouldn’t
take his eyes off that big old speedometer. At the end of five miles he wouldn’t let
dad alone until he got his nickel. (By the way, Cotton married his high school sweetheart
of Shelbyville, Indiana and is still back there on the farm.
When we slept outside at night on the ground, our faithful watch dog,
"Toppie" had her own way of going to bed. She would crawl in head first under
the covers, go down a couple feet, turn around, and stick her head out from underneath the
covers just enough to see that all was well around camp.
I remember coming through Kingman and Oatman. It was such a winding road that dad kept
saying, "It won’t be long now ‘til we hit
California." I remember that as soon as we hit Needles we started having
carburator problems. It was either the thin air or just plain dust, ‘cause the guy at
the gas station didn’t even charge us for our problems.
I don’t recall taking "66" through the foothills of Monrovia and
Pasadena. It seems to me my dad took a more southern route like Valley Blvd. Because we
came right through the southern part of Alhambra and my mom told me I was born about a
mile south of there in San Gabriel. Then we went straight on in to east LA, to City
Terrace, just west of Eastern Ave. The road was all torn up and dusty right where the Long
Beach freeway starts from the San Bernardino freeway. My dad stuck his head out the car
door window and yelled at a fellow driving east in an old 1926 Model T four-door sedan.
The guy and my dad both stopped and ran out to each other with a big hug. It was my step
grandfather. We were only a few blocks from out destination. A few weeks after we arrived
my mom gave birth to our last addition to the family, No. 9, David, born July 21st,
1934.
We finally settled in south Alhambra just north of the old Polo Grounds on Hellman Ave.
Most of us attended Alhambra High School. I could go on but Route 66 is the topic here, so
I quit.
MEMORIES — ON THE ROAD — AND WHAT WAS "THE THING" IN DAGGETT? by
Paul K. Taylor from Southern California Senior Life, May 1992
John Steinbeck called it "The Mother Road". It was a place to get your kicks.
It was America’s highway. It was a television show. It was Route 66.
I first traveled the Mother Road in 1953 as a 5-year-old heading east from Los Angeles
to Louisville, KY, to meet my father’s parents for the first time. It was my first
trip, but not my first knowledge of the highway. It was part of our family legend and
lore.
In 1941 just before Pearl Harbor, my mother’s parents traveled Route 66 from
California to Pine Bluff, AR, to operate a small farm. The farm failed in less than a year
and my grandparents spent the war years traveling the length and breadth of Route 66
moving from job to job in a circular migration that finally ended back in Los Angeles
where they started.
My mother, who came of age on the highway, told me bedtime stories of adventures on the
road. She told of broken axles, flat tires, motels shaped like Indian wigwams, snake
farms, diners, Indians selling jewelry by the side of the road and the
"Oakies"— refugees in their own country looking for the end of the rainbow
at the end of Route 66.
My own first journey on the Mother road was just as exciting as a 5-year-old could
want. We spent the night in the Wigwam Motel. It was a stucco teepee with a threadbare
rug, a broken-spring mattress and a heater that didn’t work, but that didn’t
matter. That night I was Hopalong Cassidy who had been captured by Chief Crazy Horse and
plotting a plan to save Custer at Little Big Horn.
In Tucumcari, NM, I really did get trapped in a motel called the Ox Bow Inn. In keeping
with the theme, the headboard on the bed was shaped like and ox bow and it would take a
child with more will power than I had to resist trying one on for size. I almost lost my
ears that night as my mother pulled my stuck head out from the makeshift pillory.
The old plaza in Santa Fe was exciting and frightening. There were hundreds of Indians,
many dressed in traditional clothes, selling their wares to the tourists. Here were the
fierce foes that fought across my television screen every Saturday. I expected to get
scalped, but instead I got a genuine Indian drum which a kindly Navajo taught me how to
beat in a genuine Indian rhythm. My parents swore the Navajo’s act of kindness was
actually revenge against the white men who stole his land because I pounded that drum for
the next 1000 miles. I don’t remember exactly, but I believe the drum disappeared
somewhere in Illinois.
There was more on the Mother Road, much more. It seemed there was a snake farm every 50
miles and I wanted to stop at every one to see the gila monsters, a reptile that I came to
love when I heard it had three different venoms that could kill a grown man in less than
30 minutes. The hundreds of tarantulas that crossed the road outside of Holbrook, AZ, were
also a fascinating experience for a blood thirsty child.
I didn’t get to see every attraction on that first trip, but I can still remember
the highlights whenever I look at a road map. Who could pass through Daggett, CA, and not
stop to see The Thing? I never learned what The Thing was, but billboards proclaimed the
attraction up and down Route 66.
And of course there were the caves—Meramec Caverns and Onadoga Caves in Missouri
and Grand Canyon Caverns in Arizona. Cars advertised these wonders with signs that were
tied to the bumpers with wire.
Legend has it the owner of Meramec Caverns came up with the idea of putting the signs
on all the cars in the parking lot. Other roadside attractions picked up on the rolling
advertising, so it wasn’t unusual to see cars on Route 66 decorated front and back
with these forerunners of the ubiquitous bumper sticker.
Route 66 was built on memories. When it was completed in 1926, many of the little towns
it passed through were already dying. Jerome, AZ, once a copper mining capital that was
played out and sliding down the hillside. Oatman, AZ, was nothing more than a dusty ghost
town inhabited by a few die-hard prospectors and a herd of wild burros. The town was so
isolated and quiet that Clark Gable and Carole Lombard chose the Oatman Hotel as their
honeymoon site.
I chose Route 66 as my own honeymoon destination and learned the Mother Road still had
a few surprises left. Little is left of the old route, but it’s there if you know
where to look. Outside Oatman, shot up, rusted hulks of 1930s and 1940s cars are grim
reminders of the Dust Bowl era. The Indians, or Native-Americans as they are called in
this more enlightened age, still sell their wares around the old Plaza in Santa Fe. Indian
drums can still be found in the dozens of roadside curio shops.
I married a girl from St. James, MO, a little Ozark town right on Route 66. On our
honeymoon, we took our own nostalgic journey along Route 66 and at our road’s end in
St. James awaiting us like a beacon on the street in front of her parents’ home was
an original black and white Route 66 road sign. We had come full circle. The Mother Road
welcomed us home.
A LETTER FROM A FRIEND
I am Oliver J. Myers. I am 86 years old. I worked on old 66 in 1922-23-24 and part of
1925.
We were about 20 miles west of Springfield, MO, at a small place called Halltown, or
Chesapeake Springs. Some of the small places. I do not remember, on West Carthage, Jopkin,
Galena Kansas, and Baxter Springs Kansas. That is where I left working 66 highway. 66 was
a highway that went through the towns, not around them. The road was built by horses and
mules. Moving hills, mountains, and grading was done by horse-drawn grader and moved by
slips—the handle bar type—2-wheel slips, dynamite to loosen the flint rock
boulders then side rails were laid and leveled then a board across from rail to rail. Then
the board was dragged by hand, the high spots dug out and the low spots were filled then
the road bed was rolled down by a steam roller.
[In the accompanying photos] I am standing on the concrete sheet from the mixer and
dumped out and spread by hand then two trail men followed and put the finish touches to
the cement. I have forgotten the widths but it was six inches thick.
These were the only motorized equipment. The cement was handed from a place on the
Frisco railroad, siding at Billings, MO. This was paid at $3.25 for a 10-hr day. We stayed
at campgrounds in tents. It cost us $1.50 a day for meals.
Here are some pictures for your collection. That is me in my ’24 model Chevy. We
drove the rest of 66 to LA, Calif. in 1927. I remain yours truly, Oliver J. Myers, San
Francisco, CA
CALIFORNIA NUGGETS, LOS ANGELES IN THE HEYDAY OF ROUTE 66 by Mary Bessent
Let’s travel back in time and take a glimpse at a Los Angeles the new settlers
arriving via Route 66 found in the years between 1926 and 1936.
Los Angeles was unique as it was a city without slums and the air was filled with the
scent of dreams. Throughout Los Angeles, well-kept, litter-free streets featured the
California bungalow, a one-story or one-and-a-half story house that personified the
American dream.
Adding to the lure of Los Angeles was the feeling of a freedom that old established mid
western and eastern cities did not have. Los Angeles offered people a chance to be
creative and adventuresome.
When the movie industry located here, Los Angeles became a mecca for people with
artistic talents, eager to find employment in the exciting movie studios. Famous people
associated with the movie industry lived in a number of beautiful residential areas. Busby
Berkeley, the creator of those marvelously choreographed movie sequences, built a home at
3500 West Adams Boulevard. To the north of the West Adams district, some of
Hollywood’s biggest stars lived in the Hancock Park, Windsor Square, or Fremont Place
neighborhoods.
Actor John Barrymore’s home was at 6th and Irving in Hancock Park.
Later, Barrymore moved with his wife Delores Costello to a Mediterranean-style mansion at
454 South Windsor Boulevard, Windsor Square. This house had been originally occupied by
Metropolitan opera star Laurence Tibbett. Mary Pickford, "America’s
Sweetheart", built a neoclassical house at 56 Fremont Place. Producer-director Cecil
B. DeMille and actor-comedian W. C. Fields had homes in the Laughlin Park section of Los
Feliz, just east of Hollywood.
Other very desirable areas with free-standing houses in the Mediterranean and Spanish
styles of architecture were Leimert Park, View Park and Windsor Hills. These areas are
bordered by Crenshaw Boulevard to the east and Stocker Street to the north.
Because the climate and the coastline of the Los Angeles were similar to that of the
Mediterranean, many architects designed houses and commercial buildings in the
Mediterranean or Spanish styles. When Alphonso Bell developed Bel Air, his wife named the
streets after areas on the Italian Riviera because of the similarity.
South Broadway in downtown Los Angeles was developing as theater row. The Palace
Theater was at 630 South Broadway; the Orpheum Theater at 842 South Broadway, and the
State Theater at 703 South Broadway. It was on the stage of the State Theater that Judy
Garland sang as one of the Gumm Sisters in 1929. The most elaborate of the movie theaters
was the Los Angeles Theater at 615 South Broadway. The theater was built with a grand
staircase and luxurious marble bathrooms. It opened in 1931 with the premiere of Charlie
Chaplin’s film "City Lights".
The main shopping center was in downtown Los Angeles. Three major department stores
were located on Broadway. The Broadway at 5th, Bullock’s at 7th
and the May Company at 8th. The May Company building was originally
Hamburger’s Department Store, and was sold to the May family in 1923, but retained
the Hamburger name until the May family added two additional floors to the building. It
officially opened as the May Company on March 2, 1925. The J. W. Robinson Department store
and Barker Bros. Furniture Store were on 7th Street. F. W. Woolworth, the five
and ten cent store, was at 719 South Broadway.
A well-known evangelist in the 1920s and 30s was Aimee Semple McPherson, founder of the
International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. She preached to large congregations at her
church, Angelus Temple, across from Echo Park, and to radio audiences. Sister Aimee built
the first church-owned radio station in the country which, incidentally, was the third
radio station to operate in Los Angeles. A Sunday ritual for large numbers of Angelenos
was to tune their radios at 7:30 p.m. to KFSG (Kall Foursquare Gospel) to hear Sister
Aimee preach in her dynamic manner.
One of the most popular parks for individual and group picnics was Sycamore Grove at
4702 Figueroa Street, which borders the Arroyo Seco, just east of downtown Los Angeles.
People who had come to live in Los Angeles from other states would gather by the thousands
for their annual state picnic, under the shade of the beautiful sycamore trees.
Los Angeles had one of the best public transportation systems in the world and it was
easy to travel around the area without driving an automobile. The Pacific Electric Railway
was the interurban system, while the city of Los Angeles had the interurban Los Angeles
Railway or "Yellow Cars". Large numbers of Angelenos rode the streetcars to
work, and on weekends boarded the "Big Red Cars" for trips to the beaches and
mountains.
The road dedicated as Route 66 in 1926 has changed, so has the city of Los Angeles. As
you remember the past, you may ponder the title of Thomas Wolfe’s book, "You
Can’t Go Home Again".
NUGGETS FROM NEEDLES by Maggie McShan
The MYSTIC MAZE
A quickie trip to the Mystic Maze archaeological site provides relaxation and fine
exercise.
To reach the Maze we drove I-40 for about nine miles south (down river) from Needles to
the Park Moabi exit. There we left the freeway and continued to the right on a side road
which has black top for a short distance then becomes a graded dirt road. Shortly after
leaving the pavement we came to a fine new graded road bearing to the left. We took this
road and continued on to the Maze, a distance of about one mile. Just before reaching the
Maze the newly graded road forks with an older road. One must be sure to go straight ahead
(the left hand fork) to the Maze. The newer road goes down into a canyon.
After taking the left hand fork we drove two tenths mile and then pulled into the
parking area to the left, where a cable and iron post fence can be seen, and through which
there is a walk-in gate. We made this trip with a standard auto with no trouble.
A sign beside the gate reads: "National Wildlife Refuge Systems Archaeological
Site. Please observe. Do not disturb. This site is part of your heritage of the living
past. It is protected by the Antiquities Act of 1906 in order that all visitors may enjoy
turning back the hands of time. Wheeled vehicles prohibited."
The stone alignments commence just inside the gate. We walked along an ancient trail
and found the "eye" figure that continues to grow more dim with time.
We discussed the old controversy on the origins of the Maze. Some years ago there were
people who contended that the rocks had been piled into rows by fresno scrapers,
preparatory to taking rock for concrete work in the Old Red Rock Bridge at Topcock, which
was constructed in the early 1890s. It was pointed out that horses or mules would have
needed wings to draw the scraper to the ends of some rows of stones which go right to the
edges of canyons. Besides, there is no sign of where such equipment would have made turns
at rows-end.
Many archaeologists have visited the site over the years and they agree that it was
built by ancient people by hand or with primitive tools for some mysterious purpose not
known to us now.
It was a lucky break when the National Wildlife people realized the Maze was within
their jurisdiction and with the aid of the Youth Corps fenced the interesting feature a
few summers back. The cable and pipe extends for only a short span at the parking area.
Majority of the fencing is of barbed wire and steel posts with some railroad ties as
bracing. It connects to the freeway fence on the east side.
I was very pleased to note that some vehicle tracks left by the Wildlife fence builders
are fast being obliterated by the desert elements. This marring of the site had upset some
of us considerably at the time. We realize now that the ancient work is much more enduring
than tire tracks of modern light trucks.
The rows are arranged very much like segments of fields that have been contour plowed
and terraced. This has led some people to believe that it was an ancient agricultural
project, but after on-site examination, experts in that field have said "no".
A scientist once came to see if it was the same water harvesting technique used in the
Negev Desert. After site investigation, "no" was again the answer. Yet drainage
from some of the alignments has concentrated silt in low areas to completely cover some of
the rows. Following many studies and some legend, the concensus seems to be that the
feature was for ceremonial purposes.
On our walk we noted the precision of the arrangements and that a field of parallel
rows often abuts against a field going in another direction. There are "short
rows" that fill out the pattern of the land exactly as they did on the hilly farms of
our childhood.
Occasionally there are figures that vary from the norm, such as a mound of stones
inside a triangle.
At the freeway fence we noted with dismay that the fence had gone through a portion of
the Maze and some alignments are outside the enclosure and between fence and freeway. Just
below, traffic roars by on Interstate 40 with most travelers unaware of their nearness to
antiquity.
At the southeast corner of the feature we came to the part that does have a link with
the early railroad bridge construction. Here we examined many acres where the construction
crews of that time scraped up the ancient alignments of stones and hauled them away. There
is an old very dim road that leads to this area from the direction of the bridge site. It
was to this that Postmaster Kelley of Needles was referring when he wired Washington, D.C.
to "stop the railroad from removing stones from the Indian Maze." Apparently his
appeal was heeded but not before much damage had been done. Where the alignments of stones
had been is still clearly visible and there are intact fragments of the rows here and
there in this area. Also relating to the railroad is a documented report that there was a
giant antrho figure, called an intaglio, near the Maze, that was destroyed by
construction.
The stones composing the Maze are mainly of gneiss, pronounced "nice", a
metamorphic rock prominent in the nearby mountains. The loose stones strewn on the surface
of the ground were placed in the rows. From the site there is a fabulous view of river and
mountains.
SAN BERNARDINO RENDEZVOUS
San Bernardino rocked with the sounds of classic cars and classic rock and roll on
September 19th and 20th.
The Rendezvous, now in its third year, focused on the 66th anniversary of
the Mother Road. Special guests included Martin Milner, star of the television series Route
66 which aired in the 60s. Also appearing were Elinor Donahue of Father Knows Best;
Greg Morris and Phillip Morris of Mission Impossible.
Festivities Saturday concluded with a concert and dance featuring Jan & Dean. More
than 500 classic cars and custom roadsters took part in Sunday’s competition.
Spectators also enjoyed historic exhibits displayed by The California Historic Route 66
Association, Caltrans, and the California Highway Patrol.
PUSHING 90 AND GETTING UP AT 2:00 A.M. by John Jopes, Inland Valley Daily
Bulletin
Mrs. Bono is well into her 80s but she gets up every day at 2:00 a.m. to go to work.
She’s been around so long that many people believe she’s more than 100.
"Do you come in every day?" I asked. "I’d better. If things
aren’t going right, I holler at them. Sometimes they don’t like it." But
it’s OK. She’s the boss.
When I asked her why she wakes up so early, she answered me as if I should already know
the answer: "Because I have to cook the spaghetti sauce. I’ve always cooked it.
Later on in the morning I need help lifting the kettle. Can’t lift the kettle the way
I used to."
I learned of her sauce-making the other day as we visited at a table covered with
checkered cloth in her Italian restaurant on Route 66 in Fontana.
She is so short and petite that when she sat down at my table she seemed to lose very
little of her height. :I used to be five feet," she said, "but I’m not that
much anymore."
One might think, at first glance, that there is a squint in her bright eyes, but it is
a subtle smile instead. Her grey hair is pulled straight back and into a tidy fix exposing
delicate facial features that match the rest of her small structure. The spotless, print
cotton dress is partly covered with a light white sweater that helps her tolerate the
restaurant’s air conditioning.
Mrs. Bono, of course, has a first name, but no one except her husband, Jim called her
by that name after she became Jim’s 15-year-old bride. And that was around 67 years
ago. Mrs. Bono’s three children call her Mom.
Bono’s Deli and Restaurant on Foothill Boulevard, about a mile east of Cherry
Avenue, has been there since the 1930s. That’s when Mrs. Bono began selling fresh
orange juice to travelers moving along Route 66. The highway was becoming famous about
that time, and soon Bono’s place shared the light of that fame. It still does. Mrs.
Bono has not quit working that roadside spot since the first squeezed juice was sold from
stop lug boxes 60 years ago. Bono’s began as a few stacked boxes then evolved into a
roadside shack, then to a more sophisticated fruit stand, to offering travelers Italian
meals at 50 cents a plate and finally to the full-size restaurant and deli it is today.
Before Jim died, he farmed vineyards, leaving the operation of the restaurant to his
wife. She was born in Montana when the West was still raucous and where the plains sloped
upward to be consumed by giant and cathedral rocky mountains whose crazy horizon made a
jagged cut in Montana’s big sky.
It was a stark life, and Mrs. Bono’s father, who immigrated from Italy, worked the
mines in that hard world.
Then along came Jim from Sicily and took his young wife. They moved to Fontana when
Mrs. Bono was no more than 16. Jim helped his father work his vineyards, which soon
covered 100 acres.
"Grapes from the Bono vineyards were so popular in the East that people used to
wait for our shipments," said Joe, Mrs. Bono’s son and only member of the family
who works in the restaurant with her.
But now all the vineyards are gone, leaving only memories of when leaves were really
green and the sky was really blue.
Mrs. Bono, not only prepares the spaghetti sauce, but the restaurant’s lasagna and
dressings as well. Her health is good, but Joe said she had an appointment with the doctor
following my visit. "She’s a little anemic," he said.
As Mrs. Bono left to visit her doctor, she said, "They’ve got to build me up.
They’ve done it before, they can do it again." In November, Mrs. Bono will
celebrate her birthday. She’s closing in on 90.
DEATH IN THE ROUTE 66 FAMILY by JoAnne Willis
We all know the stories, it was nonetheless shocking to hear of the closing of the CLUB
CAFÉ, Santa Rosa, New Mexico. After 58 years of serving hungry travelers with what owner
Ron Chavez calls "real food", the CLUB CAFÉ closed on August 17, 1992. Roger
O’Neil on NBC Nightly News poignantly ended the broadcast with the news the
next evening.
It was just a few months back that Kathryn Cave of the Orange County Register
who did a four-day series about her Route 66 travels, came back saying, "Club Café
– Killer Burritos". Chavez was not only known for his Mexican delights but for
making the sourdough biscuits and gravy still advertised on the famous relics, the
"fat man" billboards that have been there for so many years.
Chavez had tried to diversify. He had a homemade salsa called Santa Fe, to which you
just add water.
The Pig Hip Restaurant, near Springfield, Illinois, is having an auction October 10th,
clearing out 1937 tables and all.
