Eagles story: details of the day

Yes, I know, this blog is turning into "Abilene Eagle Week." It is also, I am sure, Abilene Eagle Week in far-flung parts of the globe, wherever live Abilenians who were there in the 1950s, following their team into state championship games, and, 53 years after Abilene's 1956 championship, the last of three consecutive, are enjoying the hell out of being there again.

But I wonder, 53 years from now (I hope it is not that long), if the Eagles are in a state championship game again, if the young Abilenians of today will attach to it in the same way I and my peers are feeling today. I wonder if it is culturally possible.

I keep going back to my book, "Warbirds," as these questions arise, because the book is a history of that 1950s era, gleaned from information compiled in long hours of research. I wrote the book because most (all but about six, actually) of the details of the Eagles' 49-game winning streak had been forgotten. Of course, as I did the work, I found that not only details of the games had been forgotten, but details of living in Abilene, Texas, in the 1950s. Example (from the book):

"To people with only a general attentiveness to history, the 1950s have receded into memory as a quiet time, a period of Eisenhower-era tranquility. The tumultuous 1960s by contrast certainly did what they could to enhance that memory.

"In fact, the 1950s were themselves tumultuous with change. The media and consumer driven world of the late 20th century could trace its roots directly to events of the 1950s. The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author David Halberstam saw so much happening in the 1950s that he wrote a complete book, titled, simply, 'The ‘50s.'

"It is true that at the time, in Abilene, much of that change occurred with the force of a pebble dropping unheard into a distant pond, such as the unanimous Supreme Court decision of May 17, 1954, that ended the 'separate but equal' doctrine of educational facilities for whites and blacks. That ripple would not reach Abilene for another decade.

"Other changes, like television, advertising, and longer, sleeker cars, were more apparent. But there was one change that more or less blew the others away. It occurred on a Friday night in April, at the Paramount Theater downtown. Friday night was the traditional movie night for high school and junior high students. Admission was a quarter, Milk Duds were a nickel, cokes and popcorn a dime. Each teen group had its chosen area, its turf, in which to sit in the large theater, built in the popular fashion that suggested an ornate outdoor playhouse under a dark blue sky. In the sky were 'stars,' and across it moved floodlight-generated 'clouds.' It could get noisy, and ushers with their flashlights were on constant patrol.

"The movie this Friday night was 'Blackboard Jungle,' starring Glenn Ford and Anne Francis. Also in the cast were two young actors, Vic Morrow and Sidney Poitier. None of the kids in the theater knew anything about the movie; they were there because it was Friday night. First there was the black-and-white newsreel, then the cartoon, then the curtain fell in preamble to the feature. The effect was to set up anticipation, and in fact the crowd became quiet. There were two or three moments of relative calm. Then:

'One two three o’clock four o’clock ROCK!
'Five six seven o’clock eight o’clock ROCK!
'Nine ten eleven o’clock twelve o’clock ROCK!
'We’re gonna ROCK around the CLOCK tonight!'

"It was music, very loud and urgent, and it thundered on into its first verse – 'When the clock strikes one, join me hon' – but the kids in the Paramount Theater sat rock-still, stunned, staring at the rising curtain, transfixed by the energy blasting at them from Bill Haley and the Comets.

"These young people knew there was something happening to music out there somewhere. They could catch snatches of it on local stations KRBC and KWKC, but they had better luck if they searched for stations in New Orleans, Oklahoma City and Nashville, that came in sometimes with remarkable clarity through a still-uncluttered sky. This was high-energy music that came from people with exotic names like Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley, and it didn’t sound at all like what they were accustomed to hearing from Gisele MacKenzie, Mitch Miller, Les Baxter, Perry Como, Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney.

"They were intrigued by the new music, but it had come from somewhere else far away across the sky. Now they sat in their very own Paramount, with its big speakers and this high-speed music rocketing at them, and for several seconds they were frozen by it. Then they reacted. They jumped up and yelled and the cooler ones got into the aisles and danced in frenzy. It was a before-and-after moment that no one there would ever forget.

"The title of the song was 'Rock Around the Clock,' and it came to Abilene and all the other cities as a nice example of cross-media marketing. The recording industry’s principal marketing outlet was radio. Listeners who heard a song on the radio might then go buy it at a record store.

"But there were only 24 hours available in a day, and not many radio stations. In 1955, Abilene had only two, meaning there were only 48 music marketing hours available in any given day. Worse, the stations used much of their time to broadcast soap operas, news, and shows like 'Farm Roundup,' 'Mixing Bowl,' and 'Arthur Godfrey.' Their music playlists leaned to proven artists and songs like 'Hard to Get,' 'The Yellow Rose of Texas,' and 'Love is a Many Splendored Thing.' It would be years before enough radio stations existed to develop what came to be called 'narrowcasting.' In 1955, on KRBC and KWKC, you took what you got, in a very mixed bag.

"So 'Rock Around the Clock' rode a movie into town, and the results were instructive to future students of cross-media marketing. 'Rock Around the Clock' became the first example of this new music to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Magazine rating charts, and it did so very quickly, reaching No. 1 in June.

"The movie was electrifying, too, about gangs in schools not only challenging, but intimidating and literally attacking authority. The teacher, Richard Dadier, played by Glenn Ford, wins in the end, the punk Vic Morrow is hauled away, and Sidney Poitier (a black kid!) leaves the bad guys and becomes a good one. The movie was so controversial that many communities would not allow it to be shown, including, of all places, Memphis, Tennessee.

"But Abilene did, and kids who came out of the Paramount that night weren’t the same kids who went in. They came out in possession of a new kind of music, and they knew a new word: 'daddio.' It was the first night in Abilene of a new extension of culture that would become a culture unto itself. It can only be imagined what the parents thought on Saturday morning, encountering this change for the first time. Parents were one thing. Chuck Moser was something else. Daddio? Not in a hundred years would the Eagle players have uttered this word within earshot of their coach. But it was out there. Many new things were out there."

Many new things were out there. Hmpf. How little we knew. And that's where we will continue this story tomorrow night . . .