Register Volume 10

I found your website a few weeks ago and have enjoyed looking back at Alexandria's history. The pictures are wonderful. I was born and raised in Alex and graduated from Bolton High School in 1972. I go back a few times a year to visit family and friends. It is always amazing to me how Alexandria has changed, yet it stays the same.

The only big thing missing in this website is Hokus Pokus Liquor Store. NOW, who can still sing that jingle (besides me of course). In case you don't remember - here it goes: Hokus Pokus Liquor Store leads the march on high prices, forces prices down again, nobody sells for less, Hokus Pokus Liquor Store 2130 Lee Street, Stop By and Save. My grandchildren all know this song! What a legacy to leave them :)
Jana Norman Buss
Seattle, WA USA - Wednesday, April 30, 2003 at 04:39:56 (GMT)

As a Glenmora native, I recall so well driving in on the Lake Charles Highway and seeing many lovely homes, Horseshoe Drive Baptist, the Masonic Home and it's herd of black angus cattle, the Corner Cities Service Station, Ogden Allen's grocery, the Pic-N-Pac, the Greenbrier Motel (still going strong), Billups - there were several of those, Bill Fuller's Esso, the Amoco station where you could get white gas, Mr. & Mrs. Gregg's menagerie, and the Luthern Church.

That drive in from the south now is not greatly different; things haven't built up in that direction as in others. Would love to see you enhance this with help from your newly-formed friends. Dianne
Dianne Gill McDonald
Mancos, CO USA - Wednesday, April 23, 2003 at 15:45:43 (GMT)

A warm, if somewhat bttersweet, website! You view it and are amazed at the passage of time. Wasn't it was just yesterday when you could go down to the train station on 3rd Street and watch the afternoon train, with its red, yellow and black cars, back into the station after coming off the river bridge?

Do you remember when the Town Talk didn't have a Sunday paper? Didn't you get a kick listening to Dr. Ward-Steinman's radio commentaries every day at noon? Do you remember when MacArthur Drive traffic had to stop for a traffic signal at Jackson Street (as it may have to in the future at Masonic Drive)?

I still go back to Alexandria several times each year, but it isn't the same. With the interstate and the internet and 60 cable channels, Alexandria seems more like "Anytown, USA." It doesn't seem as distinctive as it used to be, but I guess people were saying the same thing in the 1960s, and 30 or 40 years from now, someone will look with bittersweet nostalgia on the Alexandria of 2003. Mike Robbins Bolton, 1972
Mike Robbins
San Antonio, TX USA - Sunday, April 20, 2003 at 01:45:38 (GMT)

thanks for the wonderful pictures of the town i was born in but i never got to know.. i was raised there till i was 10 and we moved to baton rouge.. i lived in the projects on sunset drive. i am just learning of my family and i can remember vaguely child hood friends. my mother doesnt talk much about those times because of the divorce between her and my father (charles beaubouef).. i am desperately trying to fill the emptiness of those years. with little success and much frustration.. i remember the merry go round in the front of the zoo.

i went to a school in alexandria that was located by the Alexandria Jr High. the ball park for the Jr High backed up to the projects where i lived.. i remember the bread company doing a big easter egg hunt at the AJH field one year.... i remember indian creek and the valentine lake.. i remember brick streets and the church buss that used to come get us as kids.. Hope Baptist church or Air Base Baptist church... i remember that life was simple for us as kids but hard for my mom.. she worked at Howard Johnsons and went to school at the votech....

i remember more about alexandria then i thought i did.... i think that there was a movie theater there that you could cash your rc caps in at and go to the movies.. (but dont quote me on that one) i want my children to know about their heritage and the town where i am 1 of my siblings were born. I dont remember granddad as he dies when i was young.. Ezra Odell Beaubouef.. i remember my grandmother but only as an adult when i found her at the age of 21... Ruby Beaubouef... thanks again for this wonderful trip down memory lane.... one question though... Where is the HOKUS POKUS LIQUOR STORE.... LOL
Pat Johnson (Beaubouef)
USA - Friday, April 18, 2003 at 18:58:28 (GMT)

My family was from Alexandria originally and I lived there until we moved to Natchitoches before my junior year of high school. I went to Prompt Succor from 1952-59 and still remember all of my teachers vividly and fondly (oh, well there was one psycho nun in the 6th grade, but she doesn't count) and could today walk to each classroom if I were there.

My father was Edward J. Barrett, who was in home construction and real estate and later manager of Hot Wells under Gov. Earl K. Long. We had a house at Fishville where we spent most of our time during the summers. I have not been back to Alexandria since 1983, at which time I found the downtown area I had loved to wander as a kid to be depressingly run-down. My hope is that Alexandria will find the key to revitalization, and once again be the great city that I enjoyed as a child. Your website reminds me of many things I had long ago pushed to the back of my mind. Thank you.
Ed Barrett
Pratt, KS USA - Wednesday, April 16, 2003 at 03:59:47 (GMT)

Very enjoyable site. It has been "bookmarked," along with many other fine memories, and forwarded to friends who, like me, recognize the pictures, places and names. My own memories also include cars bought from (Merrick)Turpin Pontiac's lot under the Chieftain sign; Reed and Bell hamburgers and Lazarone's curly-ques; Cherry Nectar sodas at Gravel's Drugs; K-Dixie; Mr. Pate

Red Cross swimming lessons at the City Park Pool; bicycling to Johnny and Jim's for a chopped beef sandwich with mayo and mustard and no sauce (Kathy Hart owns it now, and if you are very lucky, as it is no longer on the menu, you can get this sandwich by asking for the "Blue Haired Special").

Leon and Bootsy; The "Lucky 13 Club" Saturday mornings at the Don Theater; The Paramount; The Thunderbird cafe on MacArthur at the North Circle; Red Hall Field (Coach Bill Lewis long before Bill Lewis Lures); Jiffy Pak at Jackson and Texas; Golf at "The Brink," (Does Bugs still say "birds singing?" ); that damn ape in the zoo that used to spit at you; Fishville in summer; Mary Margaret...geez

Bolton vs. LaGrange; Castle Village in those corn fields; and perhaps the greatest single memory of all, or at least the one that I would take a second mortgage to re-live...Mrs. Villard's banana pudding Wednesday at the Double V. If you didn't get any, it was probably because I got there before you.

Could memories contain a fonder relic, than childhood's spent at home in Alex.? Thank you again for this site.
Stader Richardson, Jr.
Brentwood, TN USA - Thursday, April 10, 2003 at 23:37:16 (GMT)

My wife, Lila Vicknair Glankler, and I grew up in Alex and attended OLPS, Menard and Providence, Class of '59. My brother and two of his sons still live there. I very much have enjoyed going thru your site reliving memories like cruising from A&W to Borden's to the Lake and back on Sunday afternoons, and eating Curly-Q's at Lazarone's on Saturday nights, Methodist Teen Town, and (much earlier) Sat mornings at the Don Pack-of-Fun Club. (Loved the Superman and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle serials.) Missed seeing Baptist Hospital on Bolton where I was born. If you have a picture of it, I would cherish having a copy.

If any old friends would like to contact us, our e-mail is dglankler@carolina.rr.com. Thank you for your effort to put this together.
Darrel Glankler
Charlotte, NC USA - Thursday, April 10, 2003 at 16:20:24 (GMT)

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