On our way up to Vista, we stopped off at Jack White’s train & hobby store located on University Avenue in San Diego. (Jack was a local TV newsman who always gave Ringling’s annual appearances in San Diego extensive news coverage.) Jack’s store had a nice selection of toy steam engines as well as a rather sizable collection of antique toys. Smokey was suitably impressed. |
Sunday, September 01, 2013
1992 Vista Steam Fair #16
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4 comments:
Nice set of interesting photos and info on Smokey. Thanks for sharing, Eric.
Jack White is somehow related to Karl Kae Knecht and is a long-time circus fan. Back in 1968, while interviewing Irvin Feld in San Diego, he was introduced by Feld to Gunther, who had just flown in from Germany to look over the show prior to signing a contract to come to American in 1969. At the time Gunther didn’t speak any English and Jack didn’t speak any German, but they managed to get on. It was Gunther’s first American media interview! (Jack later interviewed Gunther many times when the Red Unit was appearing in San Diego and they would often laugh at the memory of that first “interview.”) For many years, Jack would fly to Phoenix or Tucson in advance of Ringling’s San Diego appearance to tape interviews with the performers. These later aired while Ringling was in San Diego. He also covered the train being unloaded and the many other circus activities that took place while the show was in town. (His cameraman was at the Sports Arena’s backdoor the time that one of Charly Baumann’s tigers escaped while the cages were being brought down the ramp. The cameraman caught most of the tiger’s recapture on film.) One year, Ringling was playing San Diego on the anniversary of the under canvas show’s closing in 1956. Jack did a news story on the “folding of the Ringling big top” which, after it aired, caused the Sports Arena switchboard to light up. Many viewers thought that it was the current Ringling show that had folded!
As he was leaving for home, Smokey commented that he was going in for an operation on his foot. I jokingly remarked that he should be careful about putting himself into the hands of the “croakers.” Not long afterwards, we heard that he had suffered a stroke and that he was in a convalescence facility. His sister took over handling his correspondence, and we were able to stay in touch with him through her.
This is a Manley Popcorn machine
from the late 40s after Manley
bought the Burch Popcorn company
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