MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1996
Like Peter Pan, J. C. Levy never wanted to grow up. For 44 years he surrounded himself with children by operating the kiddie rides, first at the Mid-south Fairgrounds and later at the Memphis Zoo. Then he wrote poems and humorous stories for the kid in everyone. But now, at 90, Levy, the author and the voice behind thousands of animal yarns, is slowing down. And after almost 25 years and 20 million calls, Levy’s “Dial An’ Smile” is undergoing a transition. It’s expected to change locations, from a Midtown office to the back room of Levy’s East Memphis house. For now, though, the down-home, pun-packed poems will remain the same. With the help of a hearing aid and sometimes a cane, Levy still puts in a few hours each day in his office, though neither he nor his wife of 65 years, Hazel Levy, 86, drives. Levy is unwilling to give up what’s become a hobby of making people smile.
50 years ago — 1971
EL PASO, Texas – Joseph Valachi, who disclosed the inner workings of the Cosa Nosta, or Mafia, to a Senate rackets subcommittee in a sensational series of televised hearings in 1963, died Saturday at the La Tuna Federal Correctional Institution where he was serving a life sentence for murder, the prison announced. He was 66. A prison spokesman said Valachi died of a heart attack.
75 years ago — 1946
The question of Daylight or Standard Time for Memphis this Summer remained officially a question mark last night as the City Commission failed to give further consideration to the issue which was brought to its attention in the regular meeting Tuesday. “We haven’t found time to talk about it,” Mayor Chandler said. “We will take it up in a day or so.”
100 years ago — 1921
CHICAGO – That sturdy old friend, the American dollar, is coming back and displacing the miserable 32-cent imitation that has been posing as a dollar for the past three or four years.
That dependable old friend, the nickel, is also staging a comeback. During the war the nickel was rarely heard of. It would buy nothing, but now many articles that formerly sold for a nickel are back at the old stand and doing a thriving business.