A Parallel Perspective: EIU and Charleston

I (John Mies) also went to Eastern from 1964-68. I have a few comments on the places you've mentioned, plus a few that you didn't include. I remember many late night trips to Snappy's on the square for the Snappy's Special, two eggs, fried potatoes, sausage or bacon, and toast. I don't remember a Snappy's west of Old Main, but do remember a Burger King in that spot, six burgers or six hot dogs for a dollar, and when you had some money, a Double Dare, which was basically a huge banana split in a one quart cup for 75 cents. Another treat was DQ Dilly Bars for a dime at the store at Division and State. DQ didn't serve food at that time. Close by was another small diner, I don't recall the name, maybe the second Snappy's.

Adjacent to Sportsman's Club (or Sporty's as everyone called it), was Pizza Joe's, serving pizza, Italian beef, spaghetti, and other Italian-American menu items. Both Sporty's and Pizza Joe's burned in a fire years ago, can't remember what year. There's a place called Lefty's Holler where they were located. Joe's had excellent pizza, and I worked there as a delivery person using my own car, a 1962 Rambler American. Joe Aducci paid me $1/hr., I bought my own gas, and there were no tips...but there was free food. One night in 1966 I raised the buying my own gas issue with Joe, and he agreed to pay me $1.10/hr. That didn't last long, because one night the server and I decided to trade places and he used my car to deliver. He hit a tree and totaled it.

As I remember, Ike's, across from Old Main, always served both beer and food. Many good times there.

I ate at Green's on the square several times and remember their typewritten menus, but I gravitated toward Owl Drugstore on the east side of the square. It was a drugstore with a soda fountain and grill where for $1.25 you could get a decent albeit thin t-bone with fried onions, salad and potato for $1.25. 

We called Little Venice, "Little V's," and their Sunday night special was spaghetti with meat sauce, salad and bread for $1.00. I had my first Italian Beef there.

In 1967 I lived in an upstairs railroad apartment on the NE corner of the square. There was a hardware store below, as I remember, and next to it was a candy store. There's now a bar where the candy store used to be. The store below the apartment was formerly a grocery store, so we had to put up with cockroaches, descendants of generations before. One time my roommate and I were hard up for cash, so we packed up several six packs of empty pop bottles under each arm and carried them to Snyder's Donut Shop. We could get a quart of milk and a donut for thirty cents. The woman that ran the place knew us, and she jokingly said that she's better spray the bottles with insecticide. That was a mistake, as the hidden cockroaches in pop cartons scurried out all over the donut shop.

I tried to get part time jobs in food service just so I could eat, and for a year I worked as a short order cook at the Elks Lodge on Sixth St. The main cook there was an older lady who smoked Tareyton cork tipped cigarettes, and was cockeyed. Even now I can picture her peeling potatoes with that Tareyton dangling from her mouth, and it didn't matter where the ash fell. I had been promised a raise for several weeks, but none was given. One night I was cooking for a steak stag and had about twenty or so steaks on the grill, all different thicknesses and all done to different degrees. As I was cooking, the Exalted Ruler came into the kitchen and asked how it was going. I said everything wasn't fine since I hadn't received my raise, so he was in shock when I took off my apron and told him I quit. He was quite disturbed by the loss of a cook, and immediately promised my raise to $1.20 in my next paycheck. I finished my cooking.

I also worked as a fry cook at Dog 'N Suds for 85 cents/hour. It wasn't a bad job, but you were limited to a small fixed amount for a meal when you ate there. I learned to stuff a whole burger into my mouth because of that restriction.

In 1966, I managed a teen dance club called the Pego-A-GoGo, and I hired bands from Champaign-Urbana, a hotbed of music at that time. The club was on 7th St. directly across from the old police station.

There was a Sandy's on the NW corner of 4th and Lincoln, where Jimmy John's is now. That's was the only national fast food chain in town besides Dairy Queen, and was later to become Hardee's.

One year, I think around 1968, the largest grocery in town, Wilb Walker's, burned in a spectacular fire. I remember watching the fire and hearing the constant small explosions of aerosol cans blowing up.

If you were going out for a fancy meal, the place to go was the Coles County Airport on Rt. 16 between Charleston and Mattoon. That was about it unless you drove to Champaign-Urbana.

I remember Charleston Package Liquor on Jackson and 18th. It had a drive-thru window which made it handy to pick up a six or two of Wiedemann's in those squatty bottles on your way to the Charleston Drive-In.

My fraternity used to have many keg parties NE of Charleston in a timber area near Airtight. I don't know where the name came from, but we all thought it was because police wouldn't bother us there. Keg parties were the main form of entertainment in those days. There was also a gravel road just south of Lake Charleston that ran along the Embarrass at it's end. That was another good spot, but not as secure.

I and my roommate Dick Hutchens would hit Chink and Kate's frequently for a late night snack. Eighty-five cents would get you a Chinkburger and a quart of beer at the bar. The prices I've been mentioning don't take into account that $1 in 1964 costs $8 now. All in all, I enjoyed my years at EIU immensely.

BTW, I went to high school with Lyle Mowery, and he was a good and funny friend. Thanks for the blog.