Mama was always worried about me running the streets and perhaps becoming a juvinile delequent(?) . If she had not worried so much and looked after me so much I may have done just that.  

For two or three years or so Mama  worked at Gainey's Drug Store on the corner of 11th Ave and 7th Street. At that time that was prime location. That particular building was the first brick building in Cordele. It was built in 1889 originally housing the First Nation Bank Mutual Loan and Trust. Today the numbers 1889 are still on the building but the 1 is hanging upside down and  one of the 8s is missing. That ought to be fixed.

I hung out there a pretty good bit when I was around 9 or 10. Some Saturday's I got paid a little for washing dishes.

Maybe I was 11or 12. It's hard to recall just how old I was but I do remember Mama feeding me there sometimes. She would give me a hot dog with mustard and ketchup with  a milkshake. She would put in a raw egg and some powdered stuff, oh yeah, malt, in the milkshake. That was suppose to help me gain weight. I was a skinny little twerp. I would eat the hotdog while reading a comic book. Sometimes I would read a comic book without anything to eat or drink. Occasionally Mama would fix me a float. That's a couple of scoops of icecream in a glass of Coke. I still fix one for myself everynow and then.

I never thought much about Mama being strict but she always had a way about her that made me  want to please her.  On her birthday or Mother's Day she would give me a dollar or two and send me down to  MCoreys or McLellan's 5 and 10 Cents Store to buy her a slip or a bra or something else she needed.

Mama would always write down the size and stuff to give to the lady so that I would get the right thing.

Thinking back, the whole thing was a plot. She gave me a little money, gave me a purpose, then satisfaction of a mission accomplished. I was so happy to see Mama's eyes light up when she got my "gift".

Anyway, there was a poolroom between Gainey's and the dime stores and you could hear the balls hitting together as you walked or ran by. The smell of  POOL ROOM CHILI filled the air of Elventh Ave.  The name was Cordele Recreation Parlor but everybody called it THE POOL ROOM. It' still there. Go get a hot dog, bowl of chili or some Irish Stew. If you can hold one, get a scrambled dog.

Saturday was the day everybody, I mean EVERYbody, came to town. A lot of times I would be with my Grandaddy and Grandmama. Cars  would be circling  from Seventh, down Eleventh, South on Eighth, up Twelfth and around again. Looking for a parking place. Drivers would toot the horn to say howdy to a friend or neighbor that had found a space and was walking up the street. Or to cuss  somebody because they got "his" parking place.

Saturday was the hustle and bustle day! The sidewalks were crowded with shoppers and everybody was moving from store to store. Youngins would be lined up at the Wood's Theater.

The old farmers (I say old because I was a youngin) would gather on the corner in front of Gainey's and chew the fat, smoke cigars, spit and brag about how the crops were doing. Some times when a pretty lady walked by they would be very quiet for a few seconds, then somebody would snicker, then everybody would laugh. Then they would talk about the weather, something about how the wind should blow real hard.

I remember this one farmer that sat on the steps. He never had much to say except "how do like this?" refering to the tool that he had just whittled out of wood. 

He did hammers, screwdrivers, and I'm not kidding, a working pair of pliers made of wood. To this day I can't comprehend whittling a pair of pliers that would work. But he did it. I saw it. With my own two eyes.

I would escort my Grandma through B.C.Moore and Sons' to look at stuff there and then through the dime stores. I think some times there was not one thing in those dime stores Grandma didn't pick up, hum a little, say how pretty it was, and put it back. 

Grandaddy was a hardworking man. He ploughed with a mule pulling the plow and treated his mules like they were God's gift. And I spect they were.

In my mind's eye I can still see him, with his hat, the straps around his arms, the mules  pulling the plow and him trying to keep up. Heading toward the lime sink.

I wasn't around then , but they say, one evening, a farmer parked his plow, took his mule to the barn and when he got back the next morning there was a big hole in the ground a filling up with water.That's what is called a lime sink. Good thing he didn't leave a tractor there....Oh! What's a tractor?

There was a jewery store close to the POOL ROOM. We couldn't afford to shop there but once on a late Saturday night I went in  just to see what was in there. They ran me out pretty quick. Guess they thought I was going to get me a diamond ring without paying for it. There was some talk around town about a snake bite connected to that jewelry store. If you want to know more about that you'll just have to ask somebody else. If you do, ask about the log. Don't ask me 'cause I don't know and I'm not prone to gossip.

Going on down the street past the Wood's Theater, where I got my first kiss, and B.C. Moore & Sons you could still smell the POOL ROOM.  When you started to get close to Eighth St. another smell would make your stomach growl.

The POOL ROOM sold hotdogs!  Well ,..who sold hamburgers? ....The HOLE IN THE WALL! That's who.

Round the corner on Eighth Street, across from the  fish house and just aways from Dewey Dorminey's Drug Store was the HOLE IN THE WALL( no relation to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid).

When I was by there the other day I remembered that they could make the hamburgers and get them out to the customers real fast. They had McDonalds and those others beat by a longshot.

The whole place was not wider than six feet . The door was about 3 feet wide and the top of the bottom half was used as the counter.

I remember standing in line for a few minutes to get a couple of 5 cents hamburgers made up of 50% grease,40% bread and 10% meat, moulded into a bun with mustard, ketchup and onions. Now that was eatin!    The HOLE IN THE WALL!    Eighth Street. Cordele, Ga.  Can't get'em anymore.

At the other end of the block, past McConnells dime store, was the Fair Store. And on across Twelfth Ave. was Dewey Dorminey's Drug Store. I can't remember if that was the name of it or if it was something else. Anyway when I was 11or 12 or so I used to go there to browse the magazines. He had magazines that  Gainey's and Edd Jones didn't carry. "Girlie magazines". I liked looking at the pictures of the pretty girls. I went in there a lot and so did a lot of others. I'm surprised Dewey didn't run me out but he never did. He was the father of a Biology and Math teacher and would later become my step uncle.

On day I noticed way up on a high shelf there were two gituars. A red one and a blue one.I can't remember for sure but I think he wanted $19.95 for one of 'em. I decided to start saving up for the blue one. Before I could save it all, that was a lot of money to me, Daddy came to the house one day and brought me the red one. I was so excited and all that it didn't matter that I wanted the blue one.

My Uncle Earl taught me a few chords but I never learned to play very good. When I was listening to Elvis' songs on my record player I would try to strum along.

Going back the other way, across Eleventh Ave, past the Record Shop and the Cordele Theater and across from Union Station was the Greek Stand. I don't remember much about that place except I was there  with my Daddy once or twice when I was really little.

If you turned on Wall St  back towards 7th St. there used to be a barber shop on the left. I got my hair messed up there a lot. They were cheaper than the other places. In all fairness, every time I got a haircut, no matter where, my hair was messed up.

Next to Nipper's Cafe, there was a barber shop that I went to occasionally. Once there was a new barber there. He was tall, had nice hair and sideburns. I told him I wanted my hair cut like his and he did the best job on my hair than anyone ever had before. I decided that he was going to be my barber from then on...... He was killed in a car wreck the next weekend.

Going on up Wall St and across 7th St. you would pass Revell's Service Station on the corner. Behind the service station was The fire station, police station and city hall. Across from the fire station and behind the library there was a good sized pool with a fountain. In that fountain was a lot of BIG goldfish. The firemen would feed the fish bisquits every day. One time the pool froze solid and when it thawed out the fish were swimming again.

Going on to the end of Wall St. you run into 6th St. Turn right and you come to Homer Harris' Gulf Service Station. After I graduated and I got my car I bought my gas and tires from Homer. He let me get it all on credit and I would pay him what I could on payday. Once I got to charging more than I was paying and Homer got on to me. Well, I caught up real fast because I had a good thing going there, being able to get what I needed when I needed it and all.

In later years Homer moved the business out to US-280 and I-75 where he stayed for the rest of his life.

Across from Homer's was and is the U.S. Post Office on the corner of Sixth St. and Eleventh Ave.

Just a little ways down Sixth the old Southern Bell building still stands. This building housed the operators that used to say "number pulease" when you picked up the phone. Gainey's Drug Store was "12". My aunt's number was "1422" and our number was "1763". Aint my memory  amazing? I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday or even if I had breakfast.

When Southern Bell outgrew this little building a business known as Retail Credit Co. occupied the 2nd story space. This was a consumer reporting agency that would, later,  become known as Equifax.

 I applied for employment with Retail Credit Co. and was accepted but we couldn't work out  details that would be satisfactory to all. I left Cordele in Dec 1966 to go to work with their competitor Hooper Holmes Bureau, Inc. in Albany, Ga. 

After RCC became Equifax and I was no longer affiliated with HHB I worked part time for that outfit.
                          Starting to sound like a resume'.

From Homer's, if you turn right the Carnagie Library is on the right. Back then there were palm trees between the sidewalk and the street and I always thought that was a real cool looking street. 

Across the street from the Library and next to the Post Office there was the Cordelia Hotel, no doubt named for Cordele's namesake. I'll bet a lot of folks have forgotten about that hotel. In my later teen years I frequently would go  to the coffee shop there and drink a couple of cups of coffee. It was real quite there. It was my "get away from it all" place where I did my thinking. 

 Just past the Cordelia Hotel was the renowned Suwanee Hotel which  had several "faces" over the years before it burned. This was the location of the "Dooly Place" of Gov. Joseph E. Brown described on the "History" page.

There was several businesses on the Seventh St. side of the Suwanee Hotel. I can't remember them all. Poss's Jewelry store, Ferguson's Men's Store, and a restuarant. I'm having trouble with the name of the restuarant. Seems like it had "Southern" in the name.  I'll edit it in when and if I find out.

The rear of Poss's Jewelry was the place the Atlanta Journal and Constitution was delivered from. Several boys, including me, would meet there every day after school to roll our papers, then go deliver them. On Sundays we met about 5AM. Still dark in the winter time.

The Sunday paper was real big and we could only deliver a few at the time. We had what was called a "relay". We would take as many papers as we could and Mr. or Mrs. Poss would drop off a batch near the "run out" place. Oh well that's boring. 

We would always have a couple of "extras". I would always take one home to Mama and I would trade one to the guy that ran the restuarant for 2 cups of hot chocolate. To me that was a deal on a cold winter morning. I guess he thought he got a good deal too. Barter barter.

After I started working at the Crisp Theater I would visit Fergusons Men's Store a lot and started buying my clothes there. Mr. Ferguson was a real nice guy and always acted like he was so glad I came in. If I liked something and was short on cash he would sell to me on credit. I even went back, occasionally, just to visit, after I  left Cordele. One time, even then, I wound up buying something on credit.