Kissimmee Old Town and a Wild West Dinner Show

Friday 9 July 1993. We have booked to go to a cabaret dinner this evening so decide to have a lazy day. We visit the Mercado shopping mall and have breakfast at a cafe with a huge signboard describing all the different ways they fry eggs. Apparently we like them easy over and a little bit more...

After breakfast we had a look round the shopping mall and bought a couple of CDs of music that we were getting used to on the car radio whilst in America. I bought one by a hillbilly-looking outfit called The Cactus Brothers and it turned out to be excellent and a real foot-stomper. Then after a humble milkshake which made us stare in disbelief at a pint each plus a huge jug as top-up, we made our way to Kissimmee Old Town for a look round.

There was an Elvis Presley museum at Kissimmee and that had certainly made Fran excited about visiting. I like a lot of his stuff, but think it slightly weird the way he has been almost deified to be honest. He was however one of the originals and it's only right he should be remembered with love and respect. So we went round the museum that had a couple of cars, a large collection of gold discs, his pinball machine and some memorabilia of army days etc.

There was a large memorabilia shop themed around Coca Cola. I bought several postcards showing older advertisements and we bought some of the old original crimp-topped bottles of coke which at the time had disappeared entirely from UK shops. The place was fascinating to walk round and it was quiet enough for me to fall into a conversation with the guy serving behind the counter.

Then an afternoon of relaxing at the hotel before we headed for our dinner and cabaret at Fort Liberty, the home of Wild Bill's Wild West Dinner Show. We were seated at tables for around eight people and at each table one person was chosen to dish out the vittels. It fell to Fran to play the server for our table!

We were each given a cowboy hat adding to the atmosphere. They were made of straw... so it took a little imagination and suspension of belief (or disbelief) for this to work, but we were all looking forward to the proceedings so we went along with it!

The show had lots of music and a lasso-twirling rootin', tootin', ropin' cowboy! As the dancing girlies did the can-can you could see from her bandaged ankle that she had done it before!

Then a Native American Chief in full dress did a war dance and chucked a few tomahawks and knives around to great applause. When he finished he came down to our table to talk to us after hearing our accents. He was from Liverpool...

As the night came to an end Fran was presented with an Ornery Discharge from her duties as table monitor!

Return to Florida 1993 Index

Jukebox Show, 26 April 1998

Currently I've been going through lots of enprint wallets, finding negatives from the 1990s that have either never been scanned before, or sometimes where the prints were scanned before I had a scanner that would do negatives. The enprint wallets themselves will probably make a blog post sooner or later as there are a few different sorts! For now though, this post covers a trip down to Copthorne near Gatwick airport for the Copthorne Jukebox and Collectables Show on 26 April 1998.

Whilst you have a look at the jukes I'll just fill you in on the previous day... We decided to travel down part of the way and stay overnight at a Travel Inn or something. However there was nowhere to be found and we realised too late that it was the London Marathon on the Sunday so tens of thousands of people had descended on London and the surrounding area looking for accommodation. In fact we ended up having to drive all the way down to the south coast and managed to find a guest house in Bognor Regis at 10:00pm that hadn't shut its doors for the night.

Jukeboxes started out in shops and bars in the 1930s and 40s, when records had to be played at 78 revolutions per minute (RPM) and the needles were usually made of steel and fitted into playing heads that were measured in pounds weight rather than fractions of a gram... The records were 10 inches in diameter and the early jukeboxes generally had wooden cabinets. These were the Golden Age jukeboxes.

The Silver Age jukeboxes were those from the late 1950s through to the mid 1960s which played 7 inch 45 rpm vinyl records and had a visible mechanism so that you could watch the records being selected and played. At some point after that some boring moron said "I've got a good idea! Why don't we take away all the windows and just sell a box with a record player inside?"

A chap called Bob Thompson at the time ran a business selling old pinball machines and had a working display of over 20 machines all on free play. The machine shown is Gottlieb's 1969 College Queens, a four-player version of the company's 2-player Airport which had been released a month before College Queens. This was an electro-mechanical game (i.e. before computer chips appeared in games) and had chime bars for sound - a bit like the Avon Calling doorbell.

The Wurlitzer 1015 towards the right is the ultimate collectable jukebox with bubbles running up glass tubes and coloured plastics rotating behind the clear plastic behind the tubes so that they change colour repeatedly. They came out in the 78 rpm record era in 1945 and remained in production through 45 rpm and into the CD era. Reproduction machines can still be bought brand new.

Other collectables were on sale too. Various stands had old telephones and neon signs for sale.

A Silver Age Wurlitzer jukebox.

The jukeboxes holding 78s have a special fascination for me. The price of these though is well out of reach as working examples started at around 4,500 pounds in 1998! Note that I said "working" and not "immaculate"...

This 1950s record player was on the stall run by the chap from whom I bought a number of record players at another jukebox event - Jukebox Madness - one year. Most jukebox events have Dansette and other vintage record players for sale. In 1998 they were quite affordable, but not long after people cottoned onto the fact that they were becoming collectable and the price went up accordingly.

Ami went through a number of partnerships with BAL-AMI and Rowe-Ami being names that can be found on Silver Age and later machines. I have a Rowe-Ami RI-2 jukebox that is currently in need of a little TLC as it tries to select from the space between two records instead of plucking one out of the carousel... It's these little details that can make a big difference...

In the 1950s it became possible to produce curved glass and both car windscreens and jukeboxes were quick to take advantage of this. Here the hinged glass of the Ami jukebox has been swung up to allow access to the turntable.

The standard Wurlitzer jukebox 78 rpm mechanism stored the 78s horizontally. The holder swung out and the turntable rose, lifting the record out of the holder up to the play arm that was up at the top of the cabinet. This meant that only one side of each record could be played. Somewhere is a load of 78s that are knackered but with immaculate B sides...

Diner-style furniture and an Ami Continental jukebox, as seen in the film Ghost on the right. Next to the Wurlitzer 1015, this is the second most collectable jukebox.

The Wurlitzer 45 rpm mechanism was a carousel that stored the records which were played against a vertically spinning small hub turntable. The playing arm has a stylus fitted on both front and back to allow both sides of the record to be selected. On the small blue arm near the playing head is a small brush which brushes the stylus free of any dust or debris between each play.

I'm not sure what this jukebox is - possible a Rock-Ola which was another of the "Big Four" of Wurlitzer, Ami, Seeburg and Rock-Ola.

Another late Silver Age Wurlitzer from the 1960s.

And finally a couple of classic cars which were parked outside the main entrance. This is the first Ford Capri, a 1964 coupe model based on the company's Consul Classic, which was the first British car with double headlamps at the front.

Anyone turning up in an American vehicle could get in free. A nifty way of ensuring that some would turn up for people to look at!

Coin Slot Machines Index

Classic Car Rally at Fairhaven Lake

The other day Fran noticed an announcement in the local paper about a classic vehicle rally at Fairhaven Lake, Lytham St Annes. I love any chance to wallow in a bit of nostalgia, so we shrugged at the weather and ignored the threatening low clouds and made our way in my own somewhat less than vintage Mazda to find a large display of cars, motorbikes and dolls prams. I'll concentrate on the cars...

The lovely Ford MkII Zephyr was amongst the first to catch my eye. I have a strong liking for Zephyrs as my Dad had three MkIVs and both my Grandad and I had a MkIII at various times. The Mk II was one of the Three Graces of Consul (basic model), Zephyr (mid range) and Zodiac (executive model). The name Consul got dropped from the MkIII and MkIV ranges, being instead applied to the MkI Cortina and the stylish Ford Consul Classic, the first British car I remember having twin headlamps. The name then disappeared until the Zephyr and Zodiacs were replaced by the first Ford Granada, which had a Consul as the basic model.

Oh and these are just lovely! The second half of the 1940s saw the Bentley MkVI in production as the first luxury car of the post-war period. I've never had one sadly, though I have driven one on very rare occasions as I spent six months in the early 1970s working in a photographic studio that had one for wedding work. The gear lever sat in the door well on the driver's right side and the steering wheel included levers for advancing or retarding the carburettor timing and also an early form of cruise control. A real head turner. A real pocket emptier... the one at the studio only did 8 miles per gallon!

Late 1950s or early 60s Ford Anglia. This was the two-door version of the Ford Prefect. There were few other external differences between the two cars, the rear light cluster was the only way of telling them apart, other than counting the doors! One of the first Fords to have flashing indicators fitted. They were worked from the tiny wing-like thumb switch on top of the steering wheel hub, which you pushed to either side to confuse fellow drivers, who up until then had been used to drivers either sticking their arms out of the window or using the semaphore-like trafficators which popped up from the side of the car between the front and rear doors of most cars.

This is an interior view of a Standard. The company became part of the Triumph company but this late 1950s car is unusual for having no clutch. Despite the standard (sorry!) gear lever, it had a semi-automatic gear system. In common with all cars of the time, the headlight dip switch is a toggle foot switch high up on the left of the driver's foot well under the instrument display. To the left of the single dial is the heater control - a single knob moving from top (hot) to bottom (cold).

The Riley 1.5 touring saloon has a mascot depicting a skier which would definitely do damage to any unfortunate who might be hit and thrown over the bonnet... Lots of older cars had these mascots. You could even buy other designs to fit your car. Later, laws came out that any mascots fitted by manufacturers had to be safe from causing injury. Rolls Royce have a mechanism that causes their mascots to fall away, Mercedes ring mascots with the three spokes are sprung so they would fold flat (but are handy as a sighting device...) but mascots such as the famous leaping jaguar on... er... Jaguars, have just about died out altogether. However the legislation (Type Approval) seems to be now defunct and I've seen advice that owners can retrospectively fit mascots, but in so doing lay themselves open to legal action if the mascots subsequently cause injury. Don't take my word for it - if you fancy fitting a mascot, check out the current law!

A trio of Morris Minors. These sold in huge numbers and are a much-loved car even now. The forerunner of the Mini, the dashboard arrangement and interior trim is instantly familiar to anyone who had an early Mini, the single large dial for the speedometer, open shelving to the side of it, leather straps rather than solid handles to close the door. Though this open-topped example does have door handles on the inside rather than the early Mini's "bit of string". (They had a chord that hung over the side map pockets in the doors and the door was opened by grabbing and pulling the chord.) The second example is a Morris Minor Traveller - commonly used by company representatives, who as a body were called commercial travellers in the 1950s and 60s. The woodwork suggests the old shooting brakes of earlier decades and are part of the transformation of that type of car to the more modern estate car.

A Triumph Herald. I used to like these cars as they were uniquely shaped. The bonnet and wings are a single piece - opening the bonnet is a matter of swinging the entire front of the car upwards. It is hinged at the front, not the rear, so when it is raised, it forms a wall at the extreme front of the car and you can lean in over the wheels because the wings are not in the way. The suspension is such that when the car was jacked up the wheels didn't remain vertical but sort of droop...

The Vauxhall Victor F, made from 1957 replacing the chunkier Wyvern model with a car that leaned heavily on America for its styling, yet was designed in-house in Gt Britain. It had a 3-speed gearbox with steering column mounted gear lever and front bench seat. Compare the rake of the windscreen with more modern cars!

The Ford Cortina Club had a collection of mainly MkV Cortinas. There was one MkI, one MkII and a MkIV. Elsewhere amongst the cars was a MkIII. Dad had had a couple of MkIs and I had one of each of the MkIII, MkIV and MkV. My favourite had to be the MkIII of the early 1970s, a beautiful car.