A forty-three-year-old memory was triggered recently as I looked around the internet for Christmas music to include in a trip journal post. The memory involves a pair of trips to the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia. The second was from my home near Cincinnati but the first originated in Eufaula, Alabama.
It was fairly early in my Bruce Springsteen addiction, The Boss was booked into the Fox, and I was visiting friends in Eufaula. Although it’s possible that the timing of my visit to Eufaula was affected by the concert, that wasn’t its purpose. My friends had only recently moved to Alabama and for several years I visited them at least once each year. Regardless of whether the overlap was by design or happenstance, it became a key aspect of the trip when my friends obtained tickets — very good tickets — to the show.
Arrangements were made for a neighbor to watch my two sons, who were with me, while the three of us made the approximately 150-mile drive to Atlanta. As I recall, we arrived well ahead of showtime and ate dinner near the theater. We then walked to the theater and noted the lack of a crowd as we approached. At the theater, we found the doors locked and finally looked up at the marquee. The show was canceled. Bruce was sick and both this show and one the previous night in Birmingham were affected. We would have known this if we had just listened to the radio on the drive up or paid attention to any number of news sources, but…
That was July 23, 1978. The show eventually gets rescheduled for September 30, but my friends are unable to attend so I had all three tickets. My girlfriend and I drive down the day of the show with a spare ticket that I ended up trading for a Beatles teeshirt at one of the vendors set up near the theater. It is a very different scene at the Fox than the deserted one of two months earlier.
Our seats were near the front at stage left. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to the band in the twenty-five or so times I’ve seen Springsteen perform. In those days, Bruce often left the stage and mingled with the crowd with mic in hand. Tonight he worked the aisle at stage right while Clarence walked and played in the aisle near us. I believe the last time I ever saw him do this was at a show in Oxford, Ohio, a couple of months later. The Springsteen rocket was taking off and audiences were becoming more boisterous. In Oxford, he made it just a few feet into the crowd before retreating to the stage for safety. I was nowhere close.
In Atlanta. the band took a break after ten songs then started the second set with the song that prompted this memory. During a legal battle with his manager, Bruce had wrangled some airplay by recording “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and supplying it to radio stations. Set two in Atlanta opened with the song. Bruce frequently led into “The E Street Shuffle” with a story about meeting Clarence at night on a dark street told over sparse accompaniment. He now started a similar story over some familiar-sounding piano and drums. The approaching figure again turns out to be Clarence but now it’s Clarance as Santa Claus. And he’s coming to town.
During my memory triggering search, I learned something about the performance that was totally new to me. Plastic snow had fallen during “Santa Clause is Coming to Town” and was something of a slippery hazard that had to be dealt with. While stagehands swept away the fake flakes, the band filled the time with an instrumental version of “Night Train”. Apparently, that was completely spontaneous. It’s the only time they ever performed the song on stage.
It was not the only time “Santa Claus…” was performed although it might be the only performance that included snow. Here’s a performance in Houston that preceded the Atlanta show by about ten weeks:
The show at the Fox was on a Saturday. The plan had been to drive home on Sunday in order to go to work on Monday. But the weather was great and we decided to spend Sunday at Six Flags Over Georgia and do the driving on Monday. Before hitting the road early Monday morning, I literally called in well.
It’s been said you should write what you know. Brian Butko may or may not believe that but there is reason to think he might believe even more in the corollary: Write what you want to know. I frequently get the impression that Butko enjoys the hunt as much as the kill, research as much as publishing, learning as much as teaching. Isaly’s Chipped Ham, Klondikes, and Other Tales from Behind the Counter gives me that impression in spades. This is Butko’s second run at the subject having published Klondikes, Chipped Ham, & Skyscraper Cones: The Story of Isaly’s in 2001. I’m not familiar with the earlier book but know that there is some unavoidable overlap. No surprise there. There is no doubt a multitude of reasons for the redo but I’ll suggest — and this is pure conjecture — that not only was it tackled in order to improve the story with knowledge learned in the intervening twenty years but as an excuse to learn even more.
In the middle half of the twentieth century, Isaly’s was a major regional presence whose farms, factories, and stores helped feed a whole lot of people in northeast Ohio and northwest Pennsylvania. The arc of that presence is not unique. It was a family business that saw the success and growth of the first few generations eventually fade away in corporate buyouts. I’ve lived in Ohio my entire life but we missed each other. My neighborhood has been the state’s southwest corner, and the closest Isaly’s ever came to my home was Columbus. Although a few Columbus stores remained in the late 1960s and it’s possible that I saw one, I have no memory of it. The company entered Columbus in 1935, peaked there in the 1940s, and officially began its exit in 1954. Everything I know about Isaly’s I learned from Brian Butko. Brian Butko learned from family members, former employees, company records, newspapers, and libraries. 
There were other innovations such as Skyscraper Cones, Party Slices, and Klondike Bars. Klondike Bars were the biggie. The only Isaly’s product to have success nationally, they are still available today although they are made by Unilever and no longer bear the Isaly’s name. They do, however, still bear the Isaly’s bear.
Unlike me, Brian has plenty of personal Isaly’s memories. He says that his earliest was of their macaroni and cheese. His excitement is evident when given access to a 3-ring binder of company recipes. He finds the sought-after Baked Macroni then writes, “I have yet to try the official recipe…”. The fact that the recipe yields 60 servings might be one deterrent but I think I also detect a little fear that today’s result might not live up to yesterday’s memories. I, for one, encourage Brian to face his fear and look that macaroni right in the elbow. Finding 59 mac & cheese eaters should be easy.
This History Press publication, as is their standard formula, is built around lots of photos both old and new. In this case, a few of those photos are mine. I won’t pretend that isn’t what made me aware of the book and triggered this review but will point out that the book does fit handily into the local-author-local-subject category that I’m fond of talking about. The local author, Wendy Hart Beckman, isn’t a native Cincinnatian but has spent much of her adult life here. I’m thinking that her New England background might actually help in recognizing what is unique or even just a little different about Christmas in Cincinnati.
“Things to Do” in Cincinnati around Christmas time include skiing, sledding, and ice skating on Fountain Square. Shopping and visiting Santa in the numerous downtown stores was once a major draw in the days leading up to the holiday but the stores and the shoppers slipped away to the suburbs some time back. In 2020, COVID-19 nearly put a stop to in-person shopping anywhere and only time will tell if it ever fully returns. The same is true of sitting on jolly men’s laps. Beckman includes “Donating” among things to do and writes about several Cincinnati signature campaigns like the Ruth Lyons Children’s Fund and Neediest Kids of All.
There are indeed plenty of things to do and hear in Cincinnati but there are even more “Things to See”. Beckman lists many Nativity scenes and light displays including some at private residences that have become must-sees over the years. The Cincinnati Zoo’s “Festival of Lights” and the tree on Fountain Square are in that must-see category. What might be considered the big three of Cincinnati Christmas events are on Beckman’s “Things to See” list. The oldest is Boar’s Head and Yuletide Festival which has been celebrated in Cincinnati since 1939. That’s clearly long enough ago to qualify as a true tradition but the festival’s history goes back another 600 years in England. Number two is The Nutcracker which the Cincinnati Ballet Company has been doing since 1974. The newest of the three is Playhouse in the Park’s production of A Christmas Carol which dates to 1991.
