A Canal Romance—the Hamburger Girl

A Canal Romance—the Hamburger Girl

Moving Jumpin’ Jim’s Barber Shop, with Rio Theater at left - 1962

The Gotham Ferry preparing to unload - 1944

Back in the mid-forties, when our big ferry carried people and cars across the canal, I was just as active as any 13-year-old could be. We didn’t have TV or computers, but we had a great variety of built-in recreation and entertainment. We rode the ferry just for fun, and boys and girls on the North Side rode it back and forth to school. Just up the street from the ferry slip, where George Street ran to the canal, were three of the most memorable buildings in town: the Rio Theater, Jumpin’ Jim’s Barber Shop, and Walter Coleman’s Pool Hall.

Most of us kids saw our first movie at the Rio. My favorite ones were the Saturday afternoon shows, especially Tom Mix and the Durango Kid. I recall when Gone with the Wind played there, also. I remember Mrs. Nichols, whose husband had a shoe repair shop next to the Rio—very close to the lift bridge that preceded the ferry. On the morning when a ship rammed into the bridge, she said she heard the awful crash and screamed, and she was so excited that she ran into the street still clutching her hot iron.

On the other side of the theater was a small, square shack where Jumping Jim, the barber, gave me my first haircut. The building still exists, having been moved to the corner of Biddle and Hemphill streets on the North Side. I can still feel the buzzing and snipping, and when it ended he would always shake a gallon of smelly hair lotion onto the top of my head, massage it vigorously into my scalp with a force that rocked my whole body back and forth. Then he'd comb my wet hair with deft strokes, leaving a nice part that lasted until I ran out of there.

But Walt’s Pool Hall (now called The Shipwatch Inn) was something special. Walt Coleman had two or three pool tables set up, and a rack on the wall for the pool cues. My buddy and I would each choose a cue stick, always checking to make sure it was not bowed by rolling it across the table's surface. Then we would rack the balls and sometimes argue over who would break. Breaking was such fun because you could smash that cue ball as hard as you could by thrusting all your weight into it. Sometimes, when I broke, the ball would go flying off the table and bounce around the floor until you tracked it down as it bounced haphazardly with diminishing height about the floor. We would play several games of eight ball, and when Walt came up to us we would dig into our pockets for enough nickels to pay him.

Walt was a tall, thin man but sort of bent over. He had a good-sized nose and always wore a khaki shirt with khaki trousers. He was always calm and friendly and spoke in a soft, friendly voice. Many years later I found out that he had been a doughboy in World War I. Walt's wife, Alma, was in charge of the lunchroom, which had been converted from a porch and faced George Street, the main run through town. Alma was all business, and when you looked at her and she looked at you, you knew not to mess with her; there was no humor there, for sure.

Oh, I just remembered, alert reader; this is supposed to be a love story. So . . . I’d better get on with the romancing. One Saturday at about noon, before the movie started at the Rio, and after I had finished a few games of eight ball, I slid up onto a stool at the lunch room counter and waited for my turn to order. Well, Alma was busy at the grill, but there, messing with the napkins and pouring some drinks, was a gal with big, fuzzy, light brown hair and a busy look on her face. She glanced at me and came over to take my order, and I got a good look at that hair sort of fluffed up and framing her face. Then she went over and cooked my hamburger. And when I bit into it, it was so good that I thought to myself, "Wow! That girl can really cook!"

Now, it must have been a few months later that another strange thing happened. Classes had just ended in the school day, and I was strolling through the halls, thinking about what kind of trouble I could get into before I walked on home to hunt some squirrels until dark. Anyway, as I walked past the door to the gym, I heard a weird rumbling noise—pretty loud—coming from in there. "Geez," I thought, "What in the world could that be?" The door was closed so I yanked it open and stuck my head in. Students and a teacher or two were lined up blocking my view, so I had to wiggle through to see what the racket was.

And then, my eyes must have bulged out, because I saw the strangest sight you could imagine. There, whirling and spinning around the entire gym floor, was the hamburger girl who had served me at the pool hall lunch counter. She had the entire floor to herself and was, believe it or not folks, on roller skates, which were attached to some kind of high-topped shoes. Not only that, but she was dressed—or maybe I should say "undressed"—in a getup that made my unblinking eyes widen and my mouth drop open.

The same fluffy hair was there, now fluttering in the breeze, but she was wearing a fancy, frilled blouse, which was connected to a mini skirt that stuck out all around the sides. I guess somebody had sown the two together somehow. It was an unforgettable sight for sure. Believe me, my friends, you need to squint and grit your teeth to imagine what I was experiencing. The gal—on calf-high roller skates, in that costume, with arms held way out to her sides, bare, white legs aflashin’, and frizzled hair aflowin’—was skating in circles all around our basketball floor. She was going fast, too, as if wanting to get it over with. She was even rolling backwards at times, spinning around to some kind of organ music in the background. She zipped just as fast backward as she did forward and never had to stop and start over either, just kept moving at a frenzied pace the whole while. I'll tell you, she made the whole floor shake to the beat of the music.

Well, I was impressed for sure, just stood there gawking at the sight, torn between wanting to see her fall and not wanting to. But she didn't even lose her balance, just kept it up until the music stopped, and then zipped out of view into the coach's office. Everybody clapped except me. I was sort of dumbstruck thinking about what just happened. "Wow!" I remember thinking; "Anybody who would do what she just did—in front of all those people, including a pack of snickering boys—was really something." And I said to myself, "A gal who had that much nerve besides being able to cook delicious hamburgers . . . well, man, she's the girl for me."

          And so, discerning reader, I'll bet that by now you've figured out who that girl turned out to be. That's right; she became my high school sweetheart. And when we grew up she was even bold enough to become my life-long girlfriend. And I've been enjoying the world's best hamburgers for the last 60 years.