sunny interview

The podcast "Sneakin' in the Bar" is branching out and starting to make waves. They interview Sonny and Mary, who have lived in Topeka for a long time and discuss the history of the city. They talk about growing up in different neighborhoods and the segregation of schools. Sonny shares his experiences of being one of the first black students to integrate into the white schools and the challenges they faced. They also talk about the black businesses and clubs on 4th Street in Topeka. Yes, welcome to Sneakin' in the Bar, the podcast that has like revolutionized podcasting. Not yet, but we will soon. We will really, really, really soon. Our last podcast, of course, well first of all, I am Ed Davis, the host of Sneakin' into the Bar. We can't sneak into any bar unless we know the owner of the bar, so please welcome the owner of the bar, Mike Bass. Mike, just between me and you, last week's episode, we actually hit Russia, okay, Frankfurt, Germany, and this other country that I have no idea how to pronounce. They're cool little countries, like right near Germany, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so we're starting to branch out. We're starting to make ways. Our last podcast was with Lamont. Unfortunately, Lamont did not know how to sneak out at a bar, so he's with us again this week. We got a very special guest today. A local Topekan grew up, been here, I'll let you introduce him. I'm excited about this, man, because I've been sitting around, I've been forced enough to listen to these stories in the house. Very good friend of the family, him and Mary, they've been around for a long time over here, man, and I just knew that there's a lot of history that we don't know about in Topeka that's going on over there, through all, from the neighborhoods, from the culture. The only thing they talk about here in Topeka most of the time is Brown vs. Board, which is history, but there's a whole lot more that has gone on over there, so that's why I thought it'd be a great time to have, you know, invite Sonny and Mary over there, so let's give Sonny, Martin, and Mary a round of applause. So, I'll ask the first question, so give me a little history, Sonny, you were born here in Topeka, 49 years ago you said, but that's just numbers got scrambled around, they got drunk, just had a birthday, 94, so there's a lot of history there, so give me a little more about growing up here in Topeka. Well, we had neighborhoods, I lived in South Topeka, we had Midtown, or East Topeka, and North Topeka, and Tennessee Town, and mostly, like Tennessee Town was named because all the people came from Tennessee. Oh, okay. Well, a lot of them did, a majority of them did. Okay. That was Buchanan, Lincoln, and Lane, from Devon Street to, what's the one on 8th Street again? 12th. 12th. Hunt Hill. Yeah, Hunt Hill. Can you tell me the name of the school again? Was that Hartnell? No, that was White. Hartnell was? Mm-hmm. I went to Hartnell for a while. What about Belmont? No, no, Washington. How long were the schools integrated, how long were they segregated? I went to the first integrate, from Monroe to Crane, from the 6th grade to the 7th grade, and at Monroe we had Professor Turner and Professor Bergman, my son's name was Crump. They couldn't get jobs in the colleges, so they ended up there. They couldn't get you out of college jobs? No, I don't come to college. College, yeah. Man. Was it scary to, were you scared the first time they integrated the schools? I went away ready to fight. We fought then. Now, what years are we talking about? Okay, 6th grade, what would I be, 6th? 12. 11 or 12 probably. 11 or 12. Yeah, 11 or 12. 10 and a 15. 10 and a 15. Okay. And, no. No, I've been there. No, I've been there. Yeah, I got married when I was 17. So when the schools were integrated? Yeah, when the schools were integrated, it had to be, no, it had to be in the parties. Brown was in 54. What? Brown was in 54. When I went from the 6th grade to the 7th grade, y'all made it. We'll figure out the time. Yeah. So it wasn't really scary to go into? No, no. Just when you were just going to be the first one? Well, they were really ready for us. Okay. So. Oh, I guess I understand. Actually, when we went to the junior high and all, that was always where the white schools were. Okay, great. So you went into the white schools, but then the integration still continued. That's right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And, so you know how they felt. Right. The teachers and things, but we just had to figure it out for ourselves. Because they have separate basketball teams and all of that, right? Yeah. When you were. Yeah, when I went to, from the big high school, we could play, we could be on the track team, football team, but not on the basketball team. Hmm. So we became, we had the Ramblers. Okay. And it was a basketball team. And we played all black schools in Kansas and Missouri. Okay. Kansas City, yeah, Kansas City, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri. And, and some good players. My dang good players. And then, well, they closed the foreign school. We couldn't go in there. They closed it because you had blacks in there? Mm-hmm. Okay. And we had. Wow. Our only number was 202, I think, the music room. Huh. And then when they had the, what do you call it, end of the year. Graduation? Yeah, something like that. Okay. Prom. Prom. Okay. The whites would be down in the cafeteria and the blacks would be up in this. Wow. Music room. Yeah. 202. And we had, oh, hell, we had black bands up there. Chris Turner, all the black bands. Right. And hell, you look around, shit, here come the whites up to the. Where the party was? Yeah. I mean, that's just the way it was. And you take, now today, you take the second floor at the center of Baker High School. So you go in your front door. Mm-hmm. That's, we dominated the second floor. Mm-hmm. So the whites would come up, go to class. They go, come up to the, go downstairs, go over, come up and go around. Go around where you wanted to go. So that's the way it was. Man, that's it. And I applied for, I wanted to be an accountant. So I applied for business and they wouldn't accept us. So we went, I can't recall their name now. Went to the principal and told him what was what. So they set it up on the first floor. On the west side was, go to business class. That's the way it was. So when you had like your first recess in the integrated school, did the black and white kids play together or was that separate as well? What was that? Did the black and white kids play together at recess? No. Or was it separate? No. When he went to elementary school, they were segregated. Okay. The blacks. And then what he was talking about, after they left, the sixth grader went and transferred to junior high and high school. You know, then the whites were in those schools, but still segregation existed within the building. In the building. Wow. Okay. Wow. We didn't have any black teachers in junior high or up to that. At all? None. Nope. They wouldn't accept them? No, they wouldn't. Couldn't get in? No. I wasn't back there. Not there. That's what he was talking about. The teachers that they had in elementary school were pretty much professors. You know, they had the doctors. Mm-hmm. Black teachers. Absolutely. And they flunked it. They used to call it flunking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So then you get through your school, once you get to senior high, so when did all of the stuff that we've kind of talked about start integrating? Yeah. Oh, okay. After Brown. After Brown. After Brown, yeah. Mm-hmm. What's her name just left? Eric? Eric. Eric? Maybe. Well, they lived there on 18th and Van Buren. Corner house. It was a weekly playground or building across the street. Bowler's mortuary was two doors down from them. Okay. Yeah. And he was one of the first kids to go to the white school. Okay. Grade school. And let's see, Blacks lived on 17th Street, from Kansas Avenue over to the people of Illinois to go south. That was all Blacks crossing the Fairgrounds. Okay. And back to Kansas Avenue, yeah, out to 21st Street. No, 20th Street. Kansas Avenue. That one house is still out there now. There's 21st right behind the building. That was child care or something. Family guidance center. Yeah, something like that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You're saying all that was Black. Black. Black people. Black people. Oh, yeah. Stump Powers, he was on 17th. Kansas Avenue. Corner house and stuff. It's a car lot there now. So when you ride around town, you just see, you go back and, oh, I just look at it and I say, shit. No, you say shit. You say shit. They have a bouncer funeral home. That's there, but I mean, they've been closed down for a long time. Oh, yeah. But it's still there. So when did all the stuff down, we were talking earlier about 4th Street. Okay. Is that where all the clubs, even back then? I mean, was that going on before you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. 4th Street was going on. 4th Street. Oh, that's where the Black business started. And you take, we had the Ritz Theater. They're on the northwest corner of Quincy and 4th Street. Then we had a white grocery store next to it. Coming west. Were you allowed to go in there? Yeah, we went in there. You can go in the store. And then we had the Pizza Restaurant. Pizza Restaurant. Was that the actual name or did y'all call it? I can't call it. We had a name for it, but I'm going to call it all the way around. The Pizza Restaurant. And they had clubs downstairs. That's the one I couldn't, finally one of them would come up with the name of it. Okay. Then, upstairs we had the Jockey Club. Okay. The gambling in the back and the club in the front. Okay. And then, let's see, we had Ligel's Jock Store. He was one of the first black detectives. Okay. And Ligel's home place is there at Chippendale. And that's where the American Legion eventually ended up at. They called it Ligel's Hill. Ligel's Hill. Okay. We had two black detectives. I think we ended up with about five of them. Wasn't there a black newspaper? There was a black newspaper that was on 7th. It was right off 7th where the Energy Plaza is now. There's an old building over there that a friend of mine actually bought it. And that's where some historian here actually told me that. And I don't know the guy. He was the editor of that newspaper. Yes. Yep. But the black newspaper. Was that where we were going? Down on 4th Street. And then, let's see, next to Bowser's, there's a train track. Bowser's. Yeah. Who? Bowser's where? Down on Van Buren. 18th and Van Buren. Oh, okay. You're not talking about 4th Street then. No. Well, I was speaking of where the black neighborhood was. Right. Right. I'm not hurting your feelings that much. No. You're excusing me. I'm not doing that. You're going around. You know what's happening. When did you go to work for the railroad? Fifty-two. Okay. You had a choice between the railroad and VA hospital. That's right. And I said, well, hell, I don't want no food. No food. I want to work at the railroad. And I started off as a janitor. And window washer. And then they said, well, I think I got up to the seventh floor washing windows. Wooden frames, I say. And then I was on the other way on the weekend. And they said, well, you can be a cocoa porter on the business part. I said, no, whatever. Doesn't seem about it. I said, because he called me one name. I done killed him before we got there. No, no, no. Well, I guess not. And then that's just the way it was. We came up fighting. Well, you had to fight. Oh, they called you names. Now, one, no problem. But it would be about two or three of them would jump you. So we'd fight them off. Stephen Passos, you take care of them and we take care of them. That's what we fought. Fish fighting. Yeah. And then, but anyway, when I got down to the shops going in the elevator on the weekend, I met the general manager of mechanics. And we became friends. And so I asked him, I said, how come I can't get on down to the shops? He said, what? I said, well, I go down there at the motor car business. Black. They had a black janitor in there, Mr. Brown. He was preaching over North Peekin. And he saw me one time. I was going out. He said, Tony, in fact, he's the one that married me. My first marriage. Is there? He said, every time you come down and apply for a apprenticeship, that's usually they throw you in the waste bin. I said, what? He said, well, yeah. And I said, hm. So I met the chief of mechanics. I told him about it. He said, well, I'll get you on. So that was that 51 flood. So I was working at the packing house down the rails. T-boy and all them. And I was there about three years till the flood. And I cleaned up and all that stuff. And we got about two engines in the Coal River now. They got part of a mouth on the flood. OK. To keep it from taking the bridge down, but it wasn't down. But he got me on the shop. So we went around. And as I was going around, he said, hi, son. I said, hi, Mr. So-and-so. Everybody was Mr. Well, I found this out when I got back to the office. They said that when they called me, they said, well, why are you calling all these people Mr.? I said, that's the way I was raised. Right. Armstrong was the superintendent there. That's the way I got on. And became a welder. Well, I had plumbing, meal work, welding. I had every trait to build a boxcar. And I finally, when they got the 88, I mean, the 88-foot long cars out, a master jig, I was on it. And I had to make my own rig. Put the camber in the frame. You know what the camber is. It's probably the old clamp when it's loaded. I had two charges, and I had to make the rig. Put the frame in the camphouse. I was getting down, you know, over there. Right. But I got pretty good at it. And then the superintendent came through. And he used to talk to me all the time. And I said, I talked to him. I said, I can't call his name now. I'm a little sure of things. I said, I got my black suit. Can't go up to a supervisor. He said, oh, I ain't got nothing to do with that. I said, well, shit. That was the superintendent. He stopped talking to me. Then I filed charges. I went around to all the black young ones I knew. And they wasn't hiring black principals. So I finally got an offer. And I was in the class. And I think it was about 10 of us. Then I got the, he told me, well, they're not educated. I said, I know a whole lot of educated ones. And the Bates brought steel out there. And see, they started that back in World War II. And they used to train the B-17s, bombers. And they'd fly rooftops. Scared the crap out of these. But they became stash sergeants and all this kind of stuff. I named off a whole bunch of them. Well, some of them got on. And that's fantasy. And even I had the older black men, mechanics. They joined my push to get blacks in there. But then the rest of them said when I filed charges, they said, well, hell. You cutting off the big ears? I said, no. I said, I'm handing out one by the board. But I filed it. So I was sitting in the office down there. I happened to look out. I was on the right up there. There was about a half a dozen white guys out there in suits. I asked this guy, I said, who the hell they looking at? He said, they looking at you. Well, they want to know who is it. I said, I don't know. Excuse me. I'm just telling you who it was. Sure. And they want to know who filed charges against fantasy. So I said, hmm. And the threads I had, the white ones, they wouldn't fool with me. They wouldn't mess with me. And I had a black lawyer. He was a Washburn. He was going to graduate from Washburn Law School. Who was his name? He was out of wedlock. And I had about three white foreman back then. And they still took chances. It took us five years. I forgot how much it cost us. It was amazing. But we finally won. Wow. You won the case. Won the case. And I participated. Huh? I did not participate. Yeah. But I didn't win the back page. Yeah, of course. You had to go to, what do you call it? Supreme Court. We were going to have to file another. A charge. Okay. That old guy, he said he was. He lived there. I said, well, shit. I didn't go in for the money. I went in for the job. And all the guys would ask me how much we were going to get. I said, we ain't going to get shit. I'm just being honest with you. Right now. And then when I won the case. It was time to see the lawyer. The lawyer. He said, Sonny. Well. I'm getting my head right there. I won the case, but I couldn't stay in Topeka. So they sent me down to the airport. But I would live in Topeka and not have to move to the airport. So I went down with the ground psych. And shot him in the trunk. Oh. No, don't do that. You can cuss and do everything. Don't touch me. Right. That's the end of it. I like that. Big dog guts like you ain't never seen. Just a little thing. One time, I was out doing monthly inventory. Out in the yards, out in the west yards where they kept bad artists and things. By the turnpike. And I came over to the radio. Sonny Stines wants to speak. I said, what? For what? He wants you to come to the office now. So I had to park over here and walk through the hall. And we were speaking. Yep. So I got back to the car and went up to the office. And I said, what is it that Coop and Wick y'all got to do? He said, well, in your, what was it? Oh. In your farm, you feel about, you know, we had carbon copies. Mm-hmm. Was it? Oh, that's what it was. That's what it was, carbon copies. Yeah, yeah. He said, you didn't write hard enough for it to go through. I said, you got to be kidding. That's shit. Well, shit was my word. Well, that's all right. And that's the reason I started chewing skull. Because they, they tried to make a fool out of me before the men. They'd be up there talking. But I was clean. That's when we had the Janja belts. You remember those trousers? Yeah. They were gold. And I was clean. You were clean? And they were all clean. And they'd get to talking to me. Trying to make a ass out of me. I'd get right up close to them and start talking and spitting. And he'd back off. And he'd say, well, we'll, we'll, we'll do better. I'd say, oh, yeah, no problem. And they started the evaluation. The supervisors, they called me in down to the rip track. See, I was over the rip track in the yard. But I was out in the yard. He said, I'm going to evaluate you. I went down. He said, well, I think I'll give you a three. Now, below four, you're supposed to be five. So he filled it out. He said, here it is. I said, I ain't signing that damn thing. He said, okay. So I went back out to the yard. I got so mad, I called him up. And I said, just so you evaluate me, I'll come back and evaluate you. And he said, well, okay. So I went, I drove back down there. And he said, okay, how are you doing? I said, I'm going to give you a six. Zero. Zero. He said, oh, okay. So he left me alone. Then I looked up. He came out to the office. He had a gold Zan in the belt. A white shirt and a white cap. He said, sir, can I have some hand lotion? I said, yeah. He got it. I looked in the mirror, and they were all black. I said, I'll be damned. His head was all cut. But anyway, that's the way they done me. And then one Saturday, I had to work all holidays and all that. Anything. One Sunday, Sands called me. He said, Sonny, the, what was it, the mechanic, general manager of mechanics, wanted me to bring you in. He wants to talk to you. I said, okay. I'll meet you up at the office building. He said, no, no, they wanted me to bring you in. He said, I got the draft in for you. Get out of my car and get in your car, and you bring me back. Yep. I said, I think that's fine. I said, okay. So I went down there. They brought me back up to the third floor. And the general manager told me, well, Sonny, we've got to report this and that. And I said, well, I'll try to do whatever they ask me to do. He said, well, we've got a whole lot of bad orders out there. I said, I'll go according to the book. Well, I said, in those days, the Russians were in control of the railroad. And they overwitnessed. And the, what was the jerk? What's another name? What? First Lieutenant? Yeah. But anyway, he went through all of this on us. And I said, well, wait a minute. You don't like me, and I don't like you. And we all purchased this. He said, well, yeah. And he said, well, anyway, we'll try to do better. I said, okay. So Stan took me, got in the car, and he took me back. And we got about 15 miles out. I said, Stan, how long is it before you retire? And he said, what, three years or something like that. I said, oh, shit, I can make that. And I didn't say another word to him, but he kept messing with me. And then when I got back home, Stan's attorney said, now, you're living here. You don't have to move. They can't make you move. He said, but if you have any problems, would you call me? I said, well, I'll call you if I can't handle it before I call my attorney. He said, oh, you'll do that for me? I said, yeah. He said, well, how should I handle it? I said, well, go in the back door. He said, what you mean about the back door? I said, well, go upstairs and see if I'll come up to see how Sonny was doing. Oh, that's what you meant. I said, yeah. I said, hell, they're on the low to you. Because they don't know we're talking. And he went up there, and he ate their ass out. Did he? But they still mess with him. And it went my ass. Oh, then we, I came down with, what was it? The new superintendent, when he came in, he helped you. He put you all the way back up. Oh, yeah, a new foreman. Where you should be. Yeah. He said, Sonny, I was all sick. And with a prostate cancer or something. But anyway, they told me, first I went to the Sanford office. Well, you can go back to work in about a week or two. I said, I can stay out the whole damn month. Huh? I said, well, it's my budget. You got time. I got time. I stayed off. I stayed off a month. They got the new general foreman in there. He's the one that told me to bring you up to page seven. You should be here. The only way I can do it is if you fill in for the other supervisors, and you'll draw their page. And I only spent one day on my own job. That's when my page came up. But I'm way behind on page. And that's the same thing that happened to Mr. Ross, the teacher. Same thing happened to them. And under, what was his name? So those are the blacks that went up to the supervisor after you won your job. Oh, yeah. They hired others. Yeah, they did. So how long total were you with the grandmother? 36 years. So I retired down there in Washington. It had a big old thing. Families went down with me. Everybody get up and said, well, I hate to be something that came around to me. They said, son, you got anything to say? I said, I got to say, hell, they're dead. Oh, okay, okay. So that was it. I retired in 87. Was it 87? Yeah. 87, because I know they had a lot of layoffs in the 80s. Well, I was never laid off. Yeah. The whole time I worked. See, summertime, they would lay off. But I got never laid off. And yeah, 36 years. Well, I'm going on 37 now. Retired. I was retired. I was retired. How is retirement? It's been real good. It's been real nice. It's good up until I stopped driving. Now I got a chauffeur. Uh-oh. You know how that goes. You have to take it home. I retired my chauffeur driving. So I got tired of driving. There's nothing around there. And I didn't feel like driving anymore. But I can drive if I have to. Yeah. I enjoy it. Everyone is gone. There's a lot of people that are around. All of them are gone. Yeah. Well, you're 94, man. That's a... Well, oh, let me tell you. Okay. I was down with colon cancer. I was down to... You beat colon cancer? Prostate and colon. Wow. It happened back in... 30, almost 30 years ago. Yeah. And I haven't had that problem. And I've been blessed. But the way I did mine, see, a lot of the black young men, I tell them. I had cancer and so on and so on. I said, you better go in and get your check. Oh, man, I don't need to go in. I walked so many miles or run so many miles. I said, all right. All right. I said, you'll find out. Now, when I went in, they gave me, they found cancer. It's just a prostate. And it's still within the prostate. I can give you pills. I can remove this and that. Or I can cut it out. I said, if you know where it is, cut the damn thing out. Yeah. Same thing as a wood. How many years was it that I came with that cord? Prostate was in 95. Yeah, 95. And then you got a cord. That was about 10 years. In 2005, 10 years later. And the same thing happened. I said, cut it out. Black men didn't want to cut it out. Because it would affect their sex life. I said, the hell with that. I'm just going to take it long enough. How long y'all been together? Are y'all together? Okay, yeah. How long y'all been married? 59 years or something. Wow. How'd y'all meet? Down at the dance floor. Dance floor? I'm down at the Lincoln on 4th Street. I was here visiting with my family. And it was Christmas time. Uh-oh. You put the moves on, didn't you? No, I was a dancer. I started off tap dancing. Quick move to switch. So, this one comes down to recess. And that's where I started dancing. And I loved to dance. That was it. And, well, you were still dancing when you came down to my place in Dallas. You were still dancing. You were still getting that. I'm butt-grabbing now. I don't know. I don't know. But all those I tried, my friends and things. I tried to go in and have the test every year. You know, when I had my first colonoscopy, they found seven polyps. No signs or no clue. But my doctor was like, if you didn't come in and take care of this, it wouldn't turn into cancer. That's right. So then I got the, we call it the three-year plan, the five-year plan, whatever they give you. He said, you'll never do a ten-year plan. But you don't have cancer. But we're taking it out before it turns into cancer. It's the most curable cancer if you catch it in time. So when people are scared to go, it's like, go and they'll take care of it. You don't have to worry about it. And you're asleep. You don't even know it's going on. Well, all my, Harvey Bradley, that was my best friend, one of them, I got on to him. He said, boy, I didn't know you were sick. You ain't never been sick. I said, it's going to have to be you. I said, go in to get your finger on it. He was the one that was telling me he was running. His son plays with the band. Yeah, yeah. Howard. Yeah, Howard Bradley. And we came up together. That's right. And, hey, Harvey do that. That's when there was, the last I seen him was out in Gay Park a few years back when they were playing. That's all over. Next thing I know, Harvey was dead. And all of them gone. But I was getting at the hospital. I was in the hospital with cancer, getting treatment. And they told, I walked down to see a neighbor. She was in the hospital. I can't tell them that she was white. They didn't believe her. Right down the street from me. And around the corner from David. And I happened to go by this room. There was Stan. Oh, from the railroad? Yeah. I backed up and went in. I said, hi, Mr. Stan. Oh, shit. He was dead about a month later. Oh, really? Hey. Mm-hmm. So life has been good to me. Yeah. And like I said, now we'll get back to Fort Street. You got time still? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got about 10. Okay. Huh? How much? About 10. 10 minutes. Oh, that's all you got? You just keep going then. Hey, we got some more Fort Street. Come on with it. It's good information. But I'm glad we got you bringing that part up. You know about the medical health stuff. Yeah. Because that is something that most black men. Thank you. You know, I went and got my own personal checkup. I had type 2 diabetes. Didn't even know. I feel good. I'm all the time with symptoms. You know, whereas my brother, I try to get him to, hey, man, you got some of those symptoms you've been telling me about. Yeah. So, I'm glad we didn't touch on that. Yeah. Because we've all gone through a little bit of stuff like that. So, we're back to Fort Street. Back to Fort Street. Okay. Now, we're going down from Kansas Avenue, going east down Fort Street there. Okay. I gave you the clue that we had on the north side. I gave you the jockey club. Jockey club. Jockey club. Okay. We go through the. Oh, the wrist field turned into wrist test. It was a good time for the thing. Okay. And Mr. Price, he was in the back. He was a dentist. Was it theater first and then a club? Yeah. Okay. Well, now the seats were still in there, but what do you call it? Jigging. Jigging. Okay. But on the south side of Fort Street, Kansas Avenue, we had the barber shop. And what was his name? He was on. Cut the hair for the whites. They were on 9th, Kansas Avenue on the west. Yeah. On the west side. Well, he moved down there. You know where I'm talking about. Go to that church. Go to it. Oh, back over. Barbershop. And then we had the, back on the barbershop, then we had the ice cream place. And up over here, Dr. Ransom. These are all black owners. Yeah, these are all black owners. And then across the alley was Mr. Jenkins. How many doctors were there? Ransom, Price, Johnson, and I think it was about four down there. Oh, I forgot to say. On the Kansas Avenue law firm. Scott's. Brown's versus Peekaboo. They had a club upstairs over there. Beer, I mean whiskey, was going next door. Was there supposed to be live music down there? Was it jukebox? What was it? Oh, no, it was a lot of jukebox. But then the question house. That's Max Tavis. There on Quincy, 4th and Quincy on the southeast corner. Streets Hotel upstairs. And Stump's. And that was black owned. Yeah, this is all black owned. Stump's Barbershop, Poole Hall. And then the American Legion. Yeah. Stump had the film station across the street. Jenkins had the pool hall. The restaurant. And then they had the Mexican pool hall. Then you get on, that was all the Mexican one. Then we had Price, what do you call it? What do you get your hamburgers at? Harold's Price Package. Harold's Price Package. It was on the corner. Across from the, Alexa. Yeah, Beer Hall. And then straight on down we had other black business. What was the name? Okay, we had a couple of restaurants down to the Jefferson. We had some black business there. When the Chipman circuit came through Topeka, where did they play at? Who? The Chipman circuit. Oh, you're talking about the black band? Yeah. When they came to Topeka, where did they perform at before they took off? First, we'd be at the City Auditorium. Okay. I can't recall his name now. At Carpenter. He was there, but you had a lot of Italian guys. Then we did two streets in Melvin Jones. I know James Brown came through here, right? All the black bands. Nat King Cole. The hotel business. That's a hotel. His brother, Scooter, actually played. He was talking to me about it. He was a police officer. Scooter was in a band. They used to open for Aretha, James Brown. The band that he was in, he was talking about Meadow Acres. When James Brown came into town, he was at one of my relatives' houses. They were practicing. He was all sleeping in the house. That's right. My mom and dad told me about him being here. When they get to it, they'd say, Oh, we'd go down to Portia. All of them would come down to Portia. They'd have a concert. Wow. All of them. Wow. Isn't that crazy? I was in my area. I'm originally from Joplin, Missouri. We had a little kick town called Colbert. That's where all of you came to dance. The Chicken Run. Wow. That's what it was called. Yeah. The Chicken Run. Uh-huh. The reason they called it that, going back to Chicago, all coming from this one, they'd get out and grab a chicken and cook it. Was that right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was Chicken Run, yeah. Well, they didn't know it was that. It was the music part of it. Really? There was a lot of big gospel. Yes. You know, there was a lot of gospel. They played it at East Topeka. You know, back in the day, the Highway QC, the Blind Boys, all the big gospel. Like I said, Topeka was that spot back over there. It was just something as a little kid. I remember that part of it. I remember going down around, but when Pratt's back, he's moving. Oh, right. Well, I see. The way I met your dad, it was down to Dale Shaw. Uh-huh. And, let's see. I think I had a 6-3 Grand Prix. Oh, I never would have guessed it. But I got it that day. Man, I went to pick you up. And at the White Lake, we went to Kansas City down to the 20-man club. Down across from the bus bar, I knew people, brothers that were there. And we came out, somebody was sideways. A brand new car. Oh, no. Whoa. But it was, but anyway, we came back to Metal Acres. Yeah. I went back there and I talked to Duke. After he got through playing, he went back to Washington, D.C. He died a month later. Really? But you take, all of them came to Metal Acres, to Topeka. And it was the largest dance hall in Kansas. Really? And on Wednesday, we have, what do they call it? Seniors or something like that. Beer was 20 cents a bottle. That's the rule there. That's the rule there. I had the whole top terrace. And there were so many, I just loaded up. I passed this one table. And they had a booth. Like these, what they were, just about like that. I said, well, hell, he ain't gonna stop here. He called me, he said something, he called me some kind of name. I said, what did you say? I stopped. I'm going back to get a refill. And he said it again. I reached over and I punched him. I didn't weigh 110 pounds. And he was big. But he couldn't get out. So I punched him again. And I disturbed him. And here comes the bouncer. Suddenly, what's the matter? He was about 300 pounds. I grabbed that guy and took him outside and beat him almost to death. And you come out, okay, when they change, man, you come out at nighttime, you know, one, two o'clock. They go to 4th Street. Then when, what's his name, who went out there and they had like six or something. The one that, the hooch. What was his name? He was a singer. And, oh, what was his young name was? Chubby Checker. Yeah. Yeah. We came out. Twist. Yeah, the Twist. Yeah, that's Chubby Checker. We came out there with sunlight. Yay. We didn't know what to do. I mean, people, they were lost. Oh, really? Well, it was a lot of history there. Yeah. And, oh, the bottom. Luke Oaks. He had the girls. That was from 4th Street down to Crane. For the bridge? Yeah. That's Crane, then the railroad track, then 1st Street. Then, we had, Bill Johnson down there. Bill Johnson down there, and the girls were down there. And, the bottom ran from 4th Street, I mean, from Quincy over to Jefferson. So, right now, that's about all I can tell you right now. This has been really good. Yes. No, no, this is very educational, man. Wow. It's getting lost. It is. And, the reason why we decided to do this, so that we would have a record, and that people can go back and listen. I got you, because they don't know a thing about it. Thank you. Oh, one other thing. Oh, I got a whole lot of stuff. I've done every job you can think of. Right. Management, medical school, hospitals, and all this stuff. But, I work for Doughnuts. You know, at the facility I work for, Doughnuts, Lexington. They are over here on 8th Street. And, Jackson. And, they have a black attorney there, Johnson. Joe Johnson. And, oh, he was my lawyer, too. But, anyway, yeah. They had, I was looking for a job, and they had advertised in the paper, help one white man to do janitor work at the Masonic building there on 8th and Harrison. I don't know where that is. So, I went in there, they said, oh, can we help you out? I said, well, I came in to apply for the white man janitor job. He said, huh? Just a second. He said, get back to the manager. He said, come on. He said, well, can I help you? I said, yeah, I came in to apply for the white man janitor job. And, who's going to do the job? The man, not the fella. He said, you got it. I'm going to leave it at that. There you go. Yeah. I can tell you, hold on. Yeah,