Minglin' places

To help fill the gap between childhood and full-fledged adult status, youngsters feel compelled to find a place to mix and mingle with others in the same limbo.

Through the years, Odessa has had hangouts of all sizes and shapes. It's a little more challenging without lakes and a lot of trees, so the logical gathering spots have tended to be drive-ins, with a pool hall thrown in occasionally. Call it the "Happy Days" phase, minus the Fonz, of course.

Thanks to Mike Moore, a retired insurance agent who lives in Round Rock, one of the most remembered drive-ins in Odessa history is Tommy's. Moore, waxing nostalgic about his teenage years in the late 1950s and early 1960s, commissioned a painting of Tommy's. The original is on loan to the Parker House Museum and prints can be seen in some local businesses. He also has devoted a website, www.michaellewismoore.com, to those days.

Tommy's existed from 1958 to 1965, when Tommy Lombardi sold it. And as Nicky's (owned by Nicky Bean), it became a hangout for a set of younger Odessans. Today, the building houses Endless Horizons.

As it turns out, Moore also has a connection to another old-time gathering spot. When Golden Cue opened in 1963 as the town's first co-ed billiard parlor, Moore was in college and became the first part-time employee. The original location was on East 27th Street (now University Boulevard) just east of where the new CVS Pharmacy is being built.

As it turns out, Moore got a chance to relive old times. "I recently paid a visit to Odessa at the request of Mike Martin, who owns a business called the Golden Cue, which is located in the old Grove's Drug Store at 14th and Grant."

It brought back memories of yet another hangout, Day's Drive-In that was just west of where Grove's was and the Golden Cue now resides.

Moore was moved to prose as he recalled other Odessa memories:

" ... I can still see the groups clustered together, hands in football jacket pockets, laughing, looking, hanging out, soaking up the times, gossiping, and they have many different looks on their faces that they get and give with those around them. I see couples in cars with metal trays hooked onto the driver's side door with mugs, plastic or paper baskets of burgers and fries, glasses of Cokes and cups of the times. I see cars I still love, people whose names now escape me, I even see faces of people who have passed on as well as people I still know. I still associate people with the cars they drove in those days. I see cars coming off Grant to circle behind the building or turn on 14th Street to search for a parking spot. I recognize car after car parked on the streets and in the lots of nearby buildings, because it is a Saturday night and the place is hopping with people ... There are couples, groups, cliques, you name it, everywhere, and they are all young teens of the '50s and '60s. I close my eyes and that is what I can see.

"Today, while looking at the old building I realize how much smaller the space is than what Tommy's was. Maybe that was one of the many reasons Tommy's was more attended. Then I remember the years after high school in the early '60s when those of us who stayed in town seemed to frequent Day's Drive-In way more than Tommy's. It was a smaller crowd to be sure, and I think we missed the old high school bunch, and I realize now that maybe it was a way for us to preserve our past, to let our old friends and crowd who went away to school to know that the high schoolers may still be at Tommy's but us college guys and gals will be easy to find for you because we were waiting at Day's. And, those out-of-town college students did come home for the holidays and for the summer vacations, and we met them there in informal reunions and for a few brief periods. I remember thinking it was nice when we were all together again.

"That's the way it was, but most of us today don't talk about that part of the drive-in scene. In some ways it was a bit sad, because the old days were definitely over and even those of us who stuck around and went to OC were running out of time and classes and there were colleges elsewhere on our immediate horizons. So, eventually all of us left the drive-ins of Odessa and our youth for other places, be it jobs or colleges, or marriages, or whatever, and it seems that without us, it all died a slow painful death in just a few short years.

"Ah, but our time was the full bloom and blush of maturity for that scene; we had the best of it all, the best cars, the best music, the best future and the best place in history. Now we can acknowledge the truth, and in our mind's eye we can look at it again and give it a toast and a wink because we were a lucky bunch to be born when we were born. It was fun."

Collecting memories

At various times, Odessa was home to a lot of other hangouts for teens from other eras. There were the Dart Drive-Ins, No. 1 and No. 2, on the Andrews Highway across the street from one another. There was the Frost-Top on the south side. And the root beer place on East Eighth Street and the hamburger-shaped Jo Jo's just off Grandview Avenue.

But lots more hangouts have come and gone. So let's see how many we can exhume. If you've got a special memory of such a place, feel free to send it to Ken Brodnax. P.O. Box 2952, Odessa, TX, 79760 or e-mail the information to kbrodnax@oaoa.com. Photos would be nice, too. Perhaps we can share some of those bygone thoughts and images if we get enough participation.