News Letter December 20, 2008  

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Alumni Basketball Tourney – More Details
The alumni basketball tourney is at 5:30 on Friday 26-Dec and at 4:30 on Saturday 27-Dec. Following the championship game on Saturday, the alumni holiday party will be held at Javalina’s Cantina (aka Sardo’s; aka Copper Kettle) across from the new bus garage.

CCS is calling this the 48^th anniversary of the tourney, which means the first one was held at Christmas 1960. Does anyone recall an earlier date? Does anyone recall playing in that first alumni game? Does anyone recall how the event came into being? 

Where’d You Eat in Cambridge?
Dining out was a rarity when I was growing up, however I do recall several places to eat in Cambridge and the surrounding area. Here’s my list. Send me yours and we’ll post the final list on the website.

1. Jack Weller’s Restaurant
2. Phoenix Restaurant – before Jack’s
3. Cambridge Diner
4. Bill’s at the corner of West Main and North Union
5. Lamplighter (just west of Cooper’s Pharmacy)
6. The Seversons (Fred & Ann?) had a place in the back of the building just west of Charlie Ackley’s store
7. Log Cabin
8. Oasis
9. Burger Den – was that around in 1968?
10. King’s Dairy Bar – was that called Tom Thumb?
11. Fiesta – now Benson’s on the corner of Rt 22 and Rt 67
12. Dunham’s Dairy Bar – at the junction of Turnpike Road and Rt 67 – what can I say, I dated and married an Eagle Bridge girl
13. Legrys Drug Store (milk shakes count as food, don’t they ;-)
14. King Bakery
15. Cambridge Hotel
16. Eagle Bridge Inn – Kyer’s
17. Jim Bassett’s family had a lunch place across from CCS
18. Red Brick Hotel
19. Innisfail
20. Club 22
    ThankBob Wright for the next
21. Friendly Restaurant
22. Santerre's Grill
    Thank Ted Bell for the next 2
23. Lake Lauderdale Pavilion
24. Lake Hedges Pavilion
     

Did you march in the Parade?
I’m looking for some history on the parades in Cambridge. I have a postcard from the 1920-1940’s that shows the parade on Main Street marching from east to west. When the parade marched in that direction where did it start? Where did it end? When did the parade shift to march west to east on Main Street? Was it right after the new CCS was opened in 1950, making it a logical new termination point?

I have another postcard showing the fire trucks in a parade moving west to east on East Main … and turning NORTH onto North Park Street. Someone told me there used to be a Veteran’s Day parade that traveled that route, ending up at the cemetery. Can anyone confirm? Veteran’s Day seems rather late to have a parade. Did CCS band march in a Veteran’s Day parade?

I seem to recall a Reviewing Stand on the elevated lawn of the Rice Mansion. Does anyone from the CCS band recall stopping there to perform?  Maybe what I recall was the huge Fireman’s Parade in 1966 to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the incorporation of the Village of Cambridge and with it the creation of the Cambridge Fire Department.

Any and all band/parade stories are welcome.

Corrections to my last newsletter:
I knew I should have referred to my notes rather than trying to write it all from memory.

The NY 123^rd Infantry was in the Civil War not the Revolutionary War. Also, I mixed up the two lecture halls: Mark Twain spoke at Ackley Hall on the West End not at Hubbard Hall on the East End.

As I continually tell people, I am a raconteur not a historian. I try to have accurate facts but I like to weave a story among the facts to make it feel as though you’re reading a current account of the history in the local newspaper.

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