Blast From The Past

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Ahhh, 1977. The year I graduated from high school. This video really took me back. I really don't recall Oakley Ralph wearing a cowboy hat much. Had his son as a classmate at St. Mary of the Plains College but never got to know him very well, because he didn't live on campus. I competed in a speech contest put on by the Optimist Club with Nancy Jo Trauer's daughter. As I recall, she won the thing - mostly because she gave a far better speech than I!

And at the Longbranch Saloon you can get a soda, but what you really really want is a sarsaparilla. Good for what ails ya. The sales barn hasn't changed much, compared to many of the other shots. The mall shown was nearly brand spankin' new back then, and that area has been built up considerably. The "new" Civic Center mentioned was actually built in 1954 - heh. Downtown looks a lot different as well - some streets have been closed off and parking put in, plus an old mill across the tracks from Front Street has been demolished and is now parking for the Dodge dealer. Most of the downtown streets are still brick, but the theater is kaput these days. Cattle are still fed from "feed trucks" just like the one dumping feed into the concrete bunk in the film.

Oh, and the video cuts to a Black History moment about Harvard's "new" Afro-American Studies at about the 5:15 mark. Interesting for sure, but I am puzzled why they were lumped together.