Open during construction, Americas smartest Drive-In
Herman Shooster Woodcarving made from Shooster’s sign. 1952
We were very pleased with the new place; our ticket to wealth, or so we thought. Jack, was given an engraved watch for a job well done. In 2014, his family sent us a photo of that watch; it is still cherished by his kids. Things were OK at first, even exciting. Shooster’s Drive-In was the talk of the town. It was my job to keep it that way. We ran news- paper and radio ads daily touting the ‘World’s Best Hamburger’ and ‘The World’s Biggest Sundae.’ SHOOSTER’S NIGHT WATCH One of the highlights was a radio broadcast studio built inside the restaurant. Radio was a big deal back then. Having a radio station in our own backyard gave us welcome exposure. Shooster’s was a happening, and that’s the way I wanted to keep it. One of those radio shows was called The Friday-Niters Club. It was produced by station WPWA, 8-9 PM every Friday. The announcer was Jock Lawrence, known for doing a morning show called Industry’s Wake Up. Friday nights,
he would come up the street from the main radio station and wrap up the evening at Shooster’s. Steve Fullerton was another announcer. His show was called Shooster’s Night Watch. A third was Cris Harwood and his wife. Their show was called, The Man of a Thousand Voices. 1950-51, Wiener’s Nightwatch originat- ed from Shooster’s. A patron, Carole Gelnack Mullen, said she would call up to request a song, but because the lines were set up as party-lines there would end up being 4-5 people all talking to the radio jockey. [a party line is a shared telephone circuit common in the early days of telephony. A party line has no privacy. These lines disappeared with the advent of push-button phones and associated computer switching] The most popular show was Joe Pyne’s, a local radio personality. He did a three-hour broadcast direct from Shooster’s. His program started as a combination of chit-chat and music that gained popularity quickly when Joe turned to talk radio. I went to school with Joe and considered
350
Made with FlippingBook. PDF to flipbook with ease