Tuesday, November 14, 2017

A letter from Wally





                                          



From: Walter Ruzek
Rodge: I'm honored to be working with this group. If you have 5 minutes take a look.

Pro Life
Wally was from Long Island, me from Chicago.  We wound up in Maryland and became fast friends throughout HS and into college.   Wally was not just a great friend-- he had unlimited access to his family's Studebaker! That  gave us the mobility to cruise Ameche's and the  Peacock.  We met lots of new and interesting, erm, people that way. Especially at the Peacock.
the Studethe Hicky
We  often went to confession at Immaculate Conception on Saturday nights ... before moving on to the business at hand.  Which in retrospect was maybe putting the cart before the horse.

We both share a revulsion over the abortion industry; the difference being that he actually does something about it.  So he wins the Major Award.

  Ameches

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I lived just a little way down Loch Raven from Ameche's and remember it well. Before that, there was an ice cream store there in an old farmhouse - it was Knox's, owned by a guy named Lou Knox. The other ice cream store - Murray's, was across Taylor Avenue on the Northwest corner of the intersection and owned by dairyman Walter Murray. We went to Knox's, the one that became Ameche's, every Sunday afternoon before our family ride out Loch Raven and beyond for a tour of the gorgeous farm country to the north. There was a Sunoco station on the Northeast corner, and a house and a farm on the Southeast corner.

We used to go to the Peacock after a swim at the small abandoned quarry near Texas. The little quarry, maybe an acre or two in size, had water so clear you could see the model T Ford sunk on the bottom ~25 feet down. It has been swallowed up by the big quarry next to it,and so has the little Irish quarrymen town of Texas, which once had many, many quaint little houses with their front doors and porches right on Church Road off York Rd. I believe the marble for Baltimore City Hall, the House and Senate wings of the Capitol, and part of the Washington Monument came out of this quarry.
The Peacock in Timonium survived until not too long ago; I think the site is a Wells Fargo bank now.

Travel anywhere now in the Baltimore-Annapolis-DC triangle is not only a nightmare, but utterly boring. All the old, colorful character of the various communities has been destroyed by franchises, high rises, former farms filled up with cheaply built, beigeville Mcmansions and multi lane highways. Rodge, I sent you a pic of Loch Raven & Taylor ca 1947-48
Lt. Col. Gen. Tailgunner dick

Rodger the Real King of France said...

That quarry was prolly either Beaver Springs,or Beaver Dam. Owned by Josh Cockey, the Beaver Springs (maybe both) entrance sign said "Gentiles Only." Beaver Dam was bigger, and had a rope swing into the water. A classmate drowned there while scuba diving one winter. The Peacock in Timonium was a GENOS for awhile. A decent likelihood we were in one or the other at the same time. I was the guy in the black 1950 Ford with all the girls around.

Right.

Anonymous said...

I remember Beaver Dam. Seemed somebody drowned there every year. Beaver Dam was a public swimming hole up north of the Texas quarry, probably 20-30 acres with some shore facilities, dive platform, rope swing and it was paid entrance. Beaver Springs I don't know, but the little quarry we snuck into in the late 50's was a gravel road off the end of the little village of Texas on Church Lane, and near as I can tell looking at Google Earth, is now well into the much expanded quarry. We went to the end of Church Lane and turned north to get to it. It was roughly kidney shaped, with a big smooth rock in the cusp of the kidney, about an acre in size, had 20 - 30' high stone walls around the outside edges opposite the cusp. Even the village of Texas is gone now except for a couple modern buildings and the old Catholic Church the Irish quarry men attended.
A decent likelihood we were in one or the other at the same time. Could be
I was the guy in best friend's MG TD or TR3 with too many people in it, and probably before 1961. I don't think I've ever been back to the quarry since finishing high school, but I was back to the Peacock a number of times during college.
Sighhh...
Happy daze
Lt. Col. Gen. Tailgunner dick

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