The Four Seasons' song says: "Oh what a night. Late December back in
'63. What a very special time for me. I remember - what a night!"
It might have been '60, '61, '63 or '64. The beat and the theme belong to
'60, '61,'63 or
'64. We were so young and the world held nothing but promise.
All the doors were still open. Our lives lay, unexplored, before us. We
did not know where Vietnam was. In Asia
somewhere. We were going to beat the Russians to the moon. That was going to be
cool. But, of far greater importance was that Saturday night dance.
Especially if the Rockin Rebels were the band, and there were a lot of
slow dances. Slow dances with a strong beat were perfect for the Point
Caddie Shuffle. Remember? Remember the bitter-sweet last dance of the
night? The walks along the beach? Visit
Memories of the 60s or try
Images or
see if you can answer the questions in Memories.
Remember the words to
Try To Remember and
Forever Young? Or if you would like to hear it, try
Hear
Forever Young. See pictures of the new
Biloxi
High School opening in 2002. Seen BHS lately?
If you remember the old Saenger,
then
Visit
Our Biloxi Pictures Gallery.
1962
In 1962 the cost of a new home averaged $18,200. A
gallon of gas was 31 cents. The Dow hit a high of 767. Vaughn Meader's
First Family about JFK won the Grammy. The top money maker of the
year was Dr. No. The best actor of the year was Gregory Peck in
To Kill A Mockingbird. The top twenty TV programs included
Gunsmoke, Ben Casey and the Red Skelton, Danny Thomas, Jack
Benny, Jackie Gleason shows. Green Bay was the NFL Champ and
Mississippi beat Arkansas 17 to 13 in the Sugar Bowl. The Yankees beat
the Giants in the world series. Jack Nicholas beat Arnold Palmer to win
his first major tournament. The world came its closest to nuclear war
during the Cuban Missile crisis and Federal Troops were used to admit
James Meredith to Ol Miss. William Faulkner and Marylyn Monroe died.
John Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth. Adolph Eichman was
hung in Jerusalem. My Fair Lady closed after 2717 performances.
Helen Gurley Brown wrote Sex and The Single Girl.
Try to remember.
Here
are some pictures from the 1965 site. Or
just remember 1962 in About 1962. Or
revisit events of the 1960s.
Meet Impossible. You
will see him here and there throughout the site. The reason is simple.
Try to find a good Crab Po Boy outside Biloxi Mississippi. IMPOSSIBLE!Now the Biloxi we knew is gone. The loss is painful to the bone.
It hurts to think about it. Here ia an article from Newsweek about the
impact of Katrina:
Out of the Rubble... Condos
and Slots?
We will never re-create the Biloxi I loved as a child, but we must try
to build something just as unique.
By Annalyn Swan
Newsweek
Oct. 3, 2005 issue - I walk toward the beach, past the centuries-old
oak
that has overhung my family's cemetery lot for generations. Half is
still standing—the other half, broken away. Ahead of me is one of my
favorite historic houses in Biloxi, the Father Ryan House, named after
former resident Abram Ryan, the so-called poet-priest of the
Confederacy. Hurricane Katrina has reduced it to rubble. As far as I
can
see, nothing remains but the twisted shells of the stately, pillared
houses that date back a century or more. We survivors of 1969's
Hurricane Camille—with winds of more than 200 miles per hour—thought
we'd never see such devastation again. This is worse.
The heart of New Orleans—what makes New Orleans New Orleans—survived
Katrina. Biloxi's history has shattered. There's simply no going back.
The Dantzler House, the Brielmaier House, the Tullis-Toledano Manor:
the
list of vanished treasures goes on. The entire Point Cadet area on the
city's east end, the historic center of Biloxi's famous fishing
industry, has disappeared. When I was growing up, catching your own
seafood was a favorite pastime. I still remember visiting the man who
made our trawls in his dusty shop on the Point. Now that shop, along
with the wooden cottages that were built by boatmen and factory workers,
are pulverized.
Something more than the buildings themselves has vanished in the storm.
We have lost the fragile balance of past and present, the rich mix of
Old South, black community and Cajun, Yugoslav—and, more recently,
Vietnamese—shrimpers that made Biloxi so much more than an antebellum
postcard.
Without our past, how will we find our future?
In the early decades of the 20th century, when my father was growing
up
on the Gulf Coast, Biloxi was a favored resort of Midwesterners intent
on escaping the Northern winters. The winding road along the water—the
precursor to Highway 90—was a ribbon of oyster shells, overhung with
oaks. My father took the streetcar that ran down Howard Avenue and along
the beach to school each morning. His uncle had been the first boy to
graduate from Biloxi's new Central High School in 1900.
Years later, many of the grace notes remained in my own childhood. Each
Christmas we'd drive along the beach to admire the finely decorated
old
homes, their tree lights sparkling through the cut-glass doors. Out
in
the gulf, at the end of a long pier, rose the three-story Biloxi Yacht
Club, where we all went to see the sailboat races. With its rocking
chairs and breezy porches, it was a throwback to earlier times.
In 1941, the city donated 832 acres to entice Keesler Air Force Base
to
locate there. After World War II motels sprouted along the water. The
newly developed Strip along Highway 90 brought Florida-style ticky-tack
closer to historic homes.
Still, there was energy and charm to our slightly declasse dame. I went
to school with people named Demoruelle and Boudreaux, as well as with
Giliches and Vuyoviches, offspring of the Dalmatian Coast refugees who
had settled in Biloxi around the 1890s and become shrimpers. Food—the
fried-oyster po'boys that are still my favorite, Cajun jambalaya, the
delicious Yugoslav pastries called pusaratas—was essential. We were
home
to bars and booze, gumbo and gusto. Upstate Mississippi was appalled.
Then came Hurricane Camille. It leveled vast swaths along the gulf,
including Biloxi's seafood factories. The rebuilding was almost always
nondescript. Two decades later, Vegas-style casinos moved in, bringing
much-needed income, but also profoundly diluting the sense of who and
what Biloxi was.
Enough of the past remained, however. In his speech in New Orleans's
Jackson Square on Sept. 15, George W. Bush promised that the streets
of
Biloxi "will again be filled with lovely homes." I doubt it.
The mayor
of neighboring Gulfport, for one, has another vision: a vision of the
coast as a string of casinos and high-rise condominiums. "God has
come
in and wiped the slate clean for us," he said. "We have an
opportunity
now to make it an absolutely unique place."
Nothing but condos and slots: that doesn't sound unique to me. If the
coast truly wants to be unique, why not keep much of the low-lying area
along the beach an open green space? Why not erect some visionary new
public buildings, echoes of the pavilions that once drew crowds to the
seashore? Ironically, the city was just completing a Frank
Gehry-designed art museum when Katrina struck. Perhaps Biloxi could
become a smaller Bilbao—a monument to the future, if not the past.
As I walk back up from the destroyed beach, I can, at least, hope.
We have links to
humor on the web. We
have a room called New
Indian Echoes devoted to the memories
that people choose to share. Send me an e mail with the word
MEMORY in the subject and I will post it on the site as is without
editing or commentary.
Also visit our albums for pictures
from the old days and today.
If you would like to chat
with an old friend set a time and go to:
The BHS 1962 Site was created and was maintained
by Harry Mills of the Class
of 1962. I do not actively maintain it now so there may be some broken
links. I welcome e mail at fuzzymills@pipeline.com
Early
Sixties
1962