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About Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current | View Entire Issue (April 29, 2016)
4A • April 29, 2016 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com SignalViewpoints How death of a bandleader refl ected upon a long-ago era Centennial celebration at Seaside High I A n the 1940s, Seaside was Lunceford, a teetotaler, witness to a curious and was “a perfectly healthy man disturbing incident. who had boxed, run track, and Despite an abun- played softball,” according to dance of musical clubs trumpeter Joe Wilder. “It was and dance halls — Club one of the saddest days of my Monterey, the Lodge, and the life.” Bungalow — race relations At the request of his wife, were tense. Crystal, Lunceford’s body was Oregon’s Democratic Sen. fl own to New York City on July Wayne Morse, a champion of 14 for the funeral service. civil and labor rights, joined The leader was buried in progressive politicians in call- Memphis, his hometown. ing for equal rights for all races A memorial service with with the passage of a national remaining band members took Civil Rights Act. place that week at Rockaway Many Oregonians — in- Beach, the last concert before cluding the editor of the Signal the Lunceford Orchestra per- in a 1948 editorial — feared manently disbanded. Morse’s stance would create But before long, Determeyer a backlash and lead to “even wrote, “the myth surrounding more terrible persecution in Lunceford’s death was in full America.” swing.” In the ’40s, Sandy Winnett The Clatsop County Coro- worked as a waitress at the ner declared Lunceford died ice cream shop adjacent to the of “coronary occlusion, due to Bungalow. Today she is a vol- thrombosis of anterior coro- unteer at the Seaside Museum nary artery due to arterioscle- SUBMITTED PHOTO and Historical Society. rosis” — in other words a heart Jimmie Lunceford Winnett remembers an attack caused by a blockage. “open-minded attitude” among Determeyer’s telling casts most Seaside residents, a time when people of all backgrounds doubt on the coroner’s report. “came to dance” in Seaside. “Simple, plain racism is really the key word here,” “Dancing in those days was a much bigger social event than Determeyer said via email last week. it is today,” added longtime Seaside resident and author Gloria Controversy lingers Stiger Linkey. “We But Seaside residents and even a jazz musicologist, disagree. danced every Friday Seaside’s Linkey thinks it’s not plausible Lunceford and his night at the high SEEN FROM SEASIDE bandmates were sickened or worse, or even asked to be turned school. After the bas- R.J. MARX away. ketball and football “Oh, he was served,” Linkey said. “There was no animosity. games, we had a No racism at all. At least growing up in Seaside, I didn’t feel it.” dance. We danced all As a tourist town, the goal was to sell as many tickets as the time.” Linkey remembered a time when teens would drive their cars possible, she said. “Because if you can serve tourists, you can — or their parents’ cars — to Seaside’s Cove, turn their radios serve an African-American.” on and dance through the night by the beach. Linkey added the biographer “takes giant leaps” in suggest- ing a racial incident was a factor in Lunceford’s death. A mysterious death Linkey said while there “weren’t many blacks in the area,” It was into this environment that bandleader and alto sax- there were no segregated dances. “We did have African-Amer- ophonist Jimmie Lunceford arrived in July 1947 to play the icans in the summer from Portland. There was an infl ux during Bungalow, the city’s preeminent dance hall. World War II. They worked in the shipyards.” It wasn’t just white bands like Glenn Miller and Tex Beneke Seaside’s Mary Cornell, who attended dances since she was that headlined Seaside’s top club, but groups like Lionel Hamp- in eighth grade in the war years, said people of all ages were ton, Cab Calloway and Fats Waller. welcome at the Bungalow. She said she never saw anyone “To the local teenagers, the Bungalow was heaven,” Lunce- turned away. ford’s biographer Eddy Determeyer wrote. Lunceford was considered to be on an equal with Count Basie and Duke Ellington, Linkey said. “He had a master’s degree in music. He was a very educated man.” But Lunceford’s arrival was said to be anything but civil. Lunceford and his band were an all-black ensemble, although Lunceford had in the past led integrated bands. Rumors have circulated throughout the years that a racist restaurant owner poisoned Lunceford. According to accounts presented in his biography of Lunc- eford, 2009 “Music is Our Business,” Lunceford’s musicians learned the Bungalow dance was to be played for a segregated crowd — whites only. Management asked Lunceford’s black valet to stand out front R.J. MARX PHOTO and discourage black couples who came to purchase tickets Gloria Stiger Linkey and Mary Cornell both remember the from buying: “They don’t want to sell to people like us.” halcyon days of big bands in Seaside. Lunceford band bass player Truck Parham remembered that band members walked into a restaurant on Downing, not far from the Bungalow. African-Americans also On scanning the group, the waitress is said to have told the came to Gearhart and Seaside musicians: “Can’t serve you. We don’t have no food.” as domestics for wealthy fami- Determeyer writes that Lunceford, normally even-tempered, lies, Cornell said. even restrained, pounded the table with his fi sts. Sandy Winnett said Deter- “What the hell do you mean, you can’t serve us?!” Lunce- meyer’s account was “extreme- ford demanded. “Call the manager!” ly unlikely.” The waitress panicked and hurried back to the kitchen. Even a jazz musicologist, After a minute or two, Determeyer wrote, she came back and Lewis Porter, pianist, Rutgers said the men could order after all. University professor and au- SUBMITTED PHOTO The guys ordered hamburgers. thor of “Jazz: From Its Origins Interior of the Bungalow “No, I’m sorry,” the waitress said. “We don’t have nothing to the Present,” doubts the dance hall. but beef sandwiches, hot beef sandwiches.” poisoning rumor. The grumbling musicians ordered the sandwiches, with the “It was probably not a good exception of bassist Truck Parham. idea for Determeyer to throw in at the very last sentence of the “The rest of the band ate it,” Parham said. “Lunceford had it.” chapter that Jimmie may have been poisoned for being black,” Parham left without eating. Porter said via email. According to Determeyer’s account, after the meal, the band Botulism is not a poison and cannot be “manufactured” members returned to the Bungalow, except for Lunceford, who or “planted,” Porter said. “It’s simply a severe form of food complained he was tired and wasn’t feeling well. poisoning that can occur in, for example, rotten meal. But he He headed across the street to Callahan’s Radio and Record (Lunceford) died from a heart attack — nothing to do with Shop at 411 Broadway, next to the Broadway Café, to autograph the food! He’s not the fi rst guy to die suddenly at a relatively albums for fans. young age from unsuspected heart trouble, especially in those There Lunceford collapsed and died. He was 46 years old. days.” Poisoning is not the only rumor to survive surrounding the End of an era cause of Lunceford’s death, which range from “Lunceford ate According to the news story in the July 1947 Signal, Lunc- a double portion of chili con carne while on tour and died al- eford was about to autograph Callahan’s record store wall, most immediately” to a theory he was shot by a gangster while reserved for musical celebrities who came to Seaside, when signing records at Callahan’s. owners Edward and Walter Hill noticed the bandleader looking Lunceford band member Truck Parham died in 2002. weak and ill. Trumpeter Joe Wilder died in 2014. With them go their eye- A moment later Lunceford collapsed and was seized by witness accounts. severe convulsions, according to the report in the Signal. Are the still lingering suspicions about the Lunceford death The owners called the police and an ambulance, but Lunce- akin to the mistrust so many black Americans still feel about ford died before reaching Seaside hospital. the police and other authorities? The show, despite Lunceford’s death, went on that night, Maybe the best way to refl ect upon this incident is by Determeyer wrote, but one musician after the other left the stressing the goal of diversity that Lunceford, progressive bandstand and headed to the restroom. politicians like Sen. Wayne Morse and Seaside’s young music “I’m the only one that didn’t get sick,” Parham said. “Botu- lovers of the 1940s — in love with the bands, the swing and lism, you know.” the dance — were so desperately attempting to foster. PUBLISHER EDITOR Steve Forrester R.J. Marx ADVERTISING MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Claire Lovell Jon Rahl Esther Moberg Katherine Lacaze Eve Marx Betty Smith John D. Bruijn CIRCULATION MANAGER SYSTEMS MANAGER Heather Ramsdell Carl Earl ADVERTISING SALES Laura Kaim Brandy Stewart lie Zagata had a good idea about a centennial cele- bration for Seaside High. Most of my siblings went there — at least fi ve of them and I remember my own years fondly. The old restroom library sounds interest- ing. I always wondered where it was and am surprised that Miss Gillman was its fi rst librari- an. She was also SCENE & HEARD librarian at the CLAIRE LOVELL high school in its early days and lived across the street from us. Her house has been replaced with a more modern type, but memories linger. All of the local papers do a fantastic job of sports report- ing. Their terrifi c pictures add so much to the stories they have to tell. It’s so vastly different from what my generation likes to call “the good old days.” I was in high school during depression times when some of us couldn’t afford the price of a season ticket to sports events. Today it seems that sports are the “be all end all” of school. Even for it to exist. Parents are often driving their athletes to various venues for games. It’s perhaps more than once a week and could be a real hard- ship. It may even be that these excursions have nothing to do with the school. If the kids manage to get in some readin’, writin’ and arithmetic during their school days, it’s a miracle. Will we have a workforce of jocks or do they have time to learn something? We little-bit-South County folk are maybe just as interested in the goings on in Gearhart as are its residents. While we understand profi t and loss as well as the next guy, it will be hard to think of Gearhart without a grocery store. (Perhaps if the owners had had more sales once in awhile, people would be more inclined to shop there.) Maybe they do. In my familiar territory, “the good old days,” there were two groceries in Gearhart. Regrettably, N.E. Willis and Son’s corner grocery, which the Gearhart Grocery was once called, was less thriving than Cutler’s across the street where the restaurant now holds sway. The proprietor there was younger and more affl uent, while Mr. and Mrs. Willis (my sister Alta Mae’s in-laws) was an older couple, pretty much worn out from the battle. They had a delivery truck that doubled as a school bus and would never pass today. My sister picked up the kids, delivered them to school and took them home later. I rode with her on one of those occasions. The truck was equipped with a bench along either side of the back where the kids sat. Most of them lived in the McCormack Gardens area and I remember the route — in at the north entrance and out at G St. I forgot if the school was the artists red building by the restaurant or if that was the gym. It was in the 30s when I lived with Al for a while. She had a house on the ridge path about 3rd or 4th. Gearhart, like Seaside, has changed so much since then. Every town has its metamor- phoses — not for the better always, but different. And, we usually appreciate the familiar and the reliable. As to the brewpub, certainly one element of the population will be pleased. If we can’t always have our way, we learn to adjust. Laugh lines: Q. Why do some party givers like to invite ghosts? A. They bring the boos. (Courtesy of Dana Perino.) When you put “the” with “IRS” it becomes “theirs.” (Courtesy of Leila Vernor.) LETTERS No more An open letter to the Gearhart Planning Commission re- garding transient lodging dwellings proposal(s): First, the quiet opportunists lent out their single family homes in Gear- hart for short term use by friends. Then they realized it was so easy, they started charging rent to friends, relatives and acquaintances. Next came the small investors, who realized that they could buy single family homes and capitalize their invest- ments by renting them out regularly. More recently came the barbarians, who solicited single family home after single family home in Gearhart with promises of riches by manag- ing their rental. Amazing, fi nally came the city government who saw they could augment the general fund by imposing a tax on rents. They all have one thing in common: Money. There is no question the city government has been too slow to react to this growing onslaught of commercial use in residential neighborhoods. Now, the matter is being re- solved. Frankly, I was initially ambivalent on the matter. After sincere effort and research, I am convinced the allowance or use of transient lodging rentals violates the letter and spirit of the Gearhart Comprehensive Plan and should be denied. The city is required to “limit commercial activity in the City,” “prevent the City from becoming a tourist destina- tion,” and “maintain the predominately residential character of Gearhart through appropriate zoning and land use devel- opment regulations.” Allowance of transient lodging fl ies in the face of these policies. When revising the plan, “The broad community interest must be served by the change and not for just any private interest.” Well, changing the plan, etc., as proposed, other than providing more money to the government coffers, only serves to allow commercial “private” interests to prosper. Frankly, the use doesn’t even qualify for allowance under the 1994 Gearhart Comprehensive Plan and should be de- nied now. This is a concise description of some of my objections to the proposals. Just because many have been getting away with this commercial activity in residential zones doesn’t mean it should be allowed to continue at all. To be more than kind to See Letters, Page 5A Seaside Signal Letter policy The Seaside Signal is published every other week by EO Media Group, 1555 N. Roosevelt, Seaside, OR 97138. 503-738-5561 seasidesignal.com The Seaside Signal welcomes letters to the editor. The deadline is noon Monday prior to publication. Letters must be 400 words or less and must be signed by the author and include a phone number for verifi cation. We also request that submissions be limited to one letter per month. Send to 1555 N. Roosevelt Drive, Seaside, OR 97138, drop them off at 1555 N. Roosevelt Drive or fax to 503-738-9285. Or email rmarx@seasidesignal.com SUBSCRIPTIONS Annually: $40.50 in county • $58.00 in and out of county • e-Edition: only $30.00 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Seaside Signal, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103. Postage Paid at Seaside, OR 97138 and at additional mailing offi ces. Copyright 2015 © by the Seaside Signal. 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