The Third Man 1950

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Man

This movie made a big impression on me in 1950 when I was ten years old.
It would have been the first time I ever heard a foreign language spoken.
The first time I ever saw European architecture(Vienna Austria).
First time I ever saw such great photography.
A very adult story which I did not understand but was very interested in because of the great music and great visuals.

Over the years I have seen it again and again and enjoy it more each time.
Do you know who the Third Man was?
Carol Reed(the Director)was a genius in the making of this movie.
Graham Greene wrote the screen play and then later the novella of the same name.
The zither music was unforgetable.

I am not sure but I think I must have seen this in the Temple Theater in Meridian Mississippi. Most likely in the summer of 1950.

Super Good Radio Interview With Meridian Mississippi's Own Chris Ethridge A Founding Member Of The Flying Burrito Brothers.

Link below is to a super good radio interview in Mississippi with Chris Ethridge aired on October 31, 2010.
He is from Meridian Mississippi and was one of the founders of The Flying Burrito Brothers. And he also toured with Willie Nelson for over 5 years. He passed away recently. He was a highly regarded bass player and studio musician on many famous albums of the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s.
His memories of those times and the musicians he played with is well worth the time to listen to.
Mississippi Arts Hour has many more Mississippi Artists on radio shows in their archives. Check them out.
http://www.arts.state.ms.us/podcast/mp3/2010/miss_arts_hour_10312010.mp3


Below is a link to the Mississippi Arts Hour. There you will see an archive of all their past programs.
http://mpbonline.org/mississippiartshour/

Jimmie Rodgers Born In Meridian Mississippi Sings Waiting For A Train

Click on Youtube to go to Youtube and watch full screen and see many more Jimmie Rodgers songs. And others from this fine old film of him singing.  Also see posts below this one for more on Jimmie Rodgers including a trip to the Jimmie Rodgers Museum in Meridian, Mississippi.

J. Cash - Ride This Train Story 07 [Meridian, Mississippi RR 'Jimmie Ro...

Rosenbaum Residence 26th Avenue and 7th Street Meridian Mississippi Now Long Gone But Why Not Remembered?

I took the picture above sometime in the 1970s. The house is now long gone. I think it was torn down in the late 1970s.

 But finally I found an old postcard on Ebay that identified it as the Rosenbaum Residence at 26th Avenue and 7th Street in Meridian Mississippi in 1907.
    I can not understand why there is not more in the history of Meridian about this impressive house. It is not mentioned anywhere on the web except in that old postcard on Ebay.
Below is the way the house looked in 1907. Click on the postcard to enlarge it.

The link below is some history on the first Jewish families in Meridian,Ms.

http://www.isjl.org/history/archive/ms/meridian.htm

According the the above it was most likely the home of either Isaac or Leopold Rosenbaum.

Click on the name Meridian Mississippi in the Labels box below to see more of my posts about Meridian Mississippi.

Meridian Mississippi 1909 And 1930 Old Meridian Mississippi Postcards Real Photos

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

The two postcards above were post marked 1909.

The two pictures above are of a Barnum and Bailey Circus train in Meridian Mississippi 1930.

Pictures Of The Old Weidmann's Restaurant In Meridian Mississippi Taken In March Of 1996

Click to enlarge these pictures. This is the old Weidmann's Restaurant in Meridian, Mississippi. These pictures were taken in March 1996. We sat at the counter and had breakfast.
Below is a link to the history of this famous restaurant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weidmanns_Restaurant
  Below is a link to the new Weidmann's.
http://weidmanns1870.com/

P.J. Krouse Architect Of Many Of Meridian Mississippi's Finest Buildings

First Presbyterian Church Meridian, Mississippi

Click on the link below to read about P.J. Krouse and some of the other buildings in Meridian,Ms. that he designed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.J._Krouse

Meridian,Mississippi City Hall. Looks like some renovation was going on when this picture was taken.     
    
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_City_Hall

The New Weidmann's Restaurant In Meridian Mississippi Is Open And Is Bringing Back The Good Times Again

The above picture is the old Weidmann's Restaurant counter.
Click on the link below to read about the new Weidmann's Restaurant and see more pictures and also you can see their new menu.
http://www.weidmanns1870.com/photo-wall/
   And the link below is good on the opening of the new new Weidmann's.
http://www.wtok.com/home/headlines/99271219.html
And for those who don't know the history of the restaurant(open since 1870)here is the story of this fine restaurant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weidmann%27s_Restaurant

August 20th 1962 Yucca Flats 153rd Tac Recon Squadron Meridian Mississippi Key Field Mississippi Air National Guard

Click on the picture above to enlarge it. This is not Tommy Harvey's version of Yucca Flats. The picture above is of the drink recipe as made in the link at the bottom of this post.

More on my time in the Mississippi Air National Guard in Meridian, Mississippi.
The day we were released from active duty after the Berlin Crisis(see post below)was the happiest day of my life. That was 48 years ago on August 20th,1962.
Now to prepare for this momentous occasion my friend Tommy Harvey who also was being released from active duty that day made a gallon jug of what he called "Yucca Flats". Yucca Flats according to Tommy Harvey is made this way: One quart of good vodka, 7 lemons, 7 Seven Ups,combined in a glass gallon jug with a top on it. Leave alone for 7 days and then take the top off. Boom! Yucca Flats. That is what we had to drink that night after we were released from active duty. I remember after it was all gone sucking the last of the juice out of the lemons left inside the bottle. Maybe I even ate the lemons.

I know I slept real well that night and the next morning woke up a free man. I got my stuff together and got out of Meridian as fast as I could.

Here is another good way of making Yucca Flats. And if you search the name Yucca Flats on Google or Yahoo you will find many more ways of making this drink.
http://www.food.com/recipe/Yucca-Flats-313684

The Happiest Day Of My Life August 20th 1962 Released From Active Duty In The United States Air Force

Photo above from The Meridian Star newspaper October 1961 at the 153rd Tac Recon Squadron at Key Field, Meridian, Mississippi.
The picture above was taken in October 1961. We were practicing for deployment. We were told we were going to be sent to an Air Force base outside of Paris,France. We practiced this deployment several times. We never went anywhere. They sent the Air National Guard unit from Montgomery,Alabama instead. We stayed stuck in Meridian,Ms. for 10 months and 20 days. When were were released from active duty on August 20th,1962 it was the happiest day of my life.
Click on the above picture to enlarge it.

On October 1, 1961 my National Guard Unit was called up to active duty for the Berlin Crisis. It would have been my senior year in college. Instead I spent 10 months and 20 days stuck in a small southern town and on an Air Force military base. I would call those the most wasted days of my life. My idea of what prison must feel like. Having never served time in a jail I can't say for sure how it would feel to be released from prison but the day of my discharge from active duty was the happiest day of my life. That was August 20th, 1962. Free at Last! Free at Last! Thank God Almighty I am Free At Last!
Here are those song lyrics in full.
http://www.answers.com/topic/free-at-last-performed-by-dc-talk

Now I could go back to college and finish my senior year. I had my life back. In all of those 10 months and 20 days stuck in that small town all I did beside work at the military base was read books. So all my time was not wasted.
And we did have one extended TDY(temporary duty)when we were sent to Tacoma,Washington to take part in a joint military exercise at the Yakima
Firing Range in Yakima,Washington. My group never left that base in Tacoma but we lucked out in that April 1962 when we went out there it was when the Worlds Fair in Seattle,Washington opened and we were able to go to that almost every day of the three weeks or more that we were out there. So all was not lost.

I found out later the Robert McNamara wanted President Kennedy to extend all the National Guards to a full 4 years. Kennedy turned him down. I feel sure McNamara wanted to get them ready for Vietnam which he must have seen was coming.

Here is some more information on August 1962.

August 4 – Marilyn Monroe accidentally overdoses on a mix of sedatives and Champagne a few hours before midnight.
August 5 – The South African government arrests Nelson Mandela in Howick, and charges him with incitement to rebellion.
August 6 – Jamaica becomes independent.
August 10 – Marvel Comics publishes Amazing Fantasy#15, which features the superhero character of Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.
August 15 – The New York Agreement is signed trading the West New Guinea colony to Indonesia.
August 16
Beatles drummer Pete Best is fired and replaced by Ringo Starr.
Algeria joins the Arab League.
August 17 – East German border guards kill 18-year-old Peter Fechter, as he attempts to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin.
August 22 – A failed assassination attempt is made against French President Charles De Gaulle.
August 23 – John Lennon secretly marries Cynthia Powell.
August 24 – A group of armed Cuban exile terrorists fire at a hotel in Havana from a speedboat.
August 27 – NASA launches the Mariner 2 space probe.

This Property Is Condemned Natalie Wood Robert Redford New Orleans and Bay Saint Louis Mississippi 1966

These photographs were made by Rachel in 1966 in New Orleans on the set of THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED. The man in the top photo is cinematographer James Wong Howe.
Click on the pictures to enlarge them. Photos copyright Rachel Stewart.


















Click on the photos to enlarge them.
More clips like the one at the top are on YouTube. In the one above you can see the railcar named MISS ALVA. More on this railcar is below.
Here is a link to good information on this film.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061089/

Here is information about this railroad car used in the film. It is called Miss Alva.
http://www.meridian-railroad-museum.org/miss_alva.html

My wife Rachel took some pictures of the filming of the movie This Property Is Condemned in New Orleans in 1966. I went with her down to the set in the French Quarter and there sitting on a doorstep all alone was Natalie Wood. We smiled at her and she smiled at us. It was obvious she was killing time with nothing to do at that moment. She gave us a very inviting smile but for some reason I didn't go over to talk to her. Maybe because I was with my wife or maybe I was uncharacteristically shy that day. All I know is I often think of that and wish I(or we) had spoken to her. If nothing else I could have told her like so many others must have how much I liked Rebel Without A Cause and her role in it. We could have talked with her about James Dean and Sal Mineo.
While driving between Mobile, Alabama and New Orleans later that year or next I saw the old train car they had painted that was used in the movie sitting abandoned on a track in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi.
Now many years passed and lo and behold I see that train car is now in Meridian,Mississippi parked on the tracks near the new train station. Someone tried to use it as a restaurant but that idea failed. Now it is just a tourist curiosity.
Here is a link about the movie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Property_Is_Condemned

Weidmann's Restaurant Meridian Mississippi R.I.P.

Click on all these pictures to enlarge them. Double click for further enlargement if necessary. Further down is a brochure about Meridian and Weidmann's from around 1965. Included below is a menu from that time and also a few recipes.









Thanks for the memories. Weidmann's is now closed. It was in operation from 1870 until recently. Click below on the link to read an article about the closing from The Meridian Star newspaper. May 2, 2010.
http://meridianstar.com/local/x1164471743/Weidmann-s-restaurant-closes-unexpectedly

Croquettes- Recipes From A 102 Year Old Cookbook

Click on the above to enlarge it.

1902 Meridian Mississippi Cookbook

Click on these pages to enlarge them.










This Cookbook is very long so I will post three or four or five pages a day until it is complete.
Be sure and read the one about how to make turtle soup.
I found this cookbook in my grandmother's pantry hanging by a string on a hook. It was the last thing left in the house after she had moved years before and the house was empty and would be torn down some years later. This cookbook had hung in that pantry for over 70 years. It is now 108 years old.