Monday, August 25, 2008
Readers recall 'Saturday Session'
Tom Angleberger
The New River Valley-based reporter answers your questions Mondays in his column, What's on Your Mind?
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Readers, we survived a few glitches -- more on those later -- and got answers to most, but not all, of the questions I asked last week.
And we did strike gold again ... golden memories of "Saturday Session," the 1950s teen dance program that ran on WDBJ-7. It sounds like it was a real swell time.
"It has been over 40 years, but I can still remember the excitement when I went on the show with my own high school group, Floyd County High," recalled Clonnie Yearout.
"My best friend Calvin Cooper and I were there every Saturday for several years until we got out of high school," said Jay Hamblett.
"I remember going to 'Saturday Session' at Channel 7 studio," said Rosemary Abshire Davis. "It was taped and we would go home and watch ourself dance on TV."
When Jeri Dickinson danced on the show, which she did every weekend, the show was live.
"We could not watch ourselves," she wrote. "Just relied on people who watched it." They told her that the feet of her and her partner got a lot of airtime. That's because they practiced together off the show to keep their feet in sync, she explained.
"We danced mainly to slow dances and what was then called the jitterbug. The music was from that era. Mainly rock 'n' roll and the slow music. I remember: Bill Haley, Elvis, Little Richard ... "
Quite a few readers recalled that the host was WDBJ personality Dudley Townsend.
But Joe Mannon's memory lay elsewhere: "I think one of the news guys was the host, but my favorite dancer -- and most other guys that watched it -- was a girl named Sandra Shropshire. She was something else. ... I wonder what ever happened to her."
Apparently, Donald Mayberry was not old enough to appreciate Shropshire's charms.
"I was young and thought WDBJ was wasting good cartoon time," he wrote.
And Marty Philpott, who actually attended the show, had his mind somewhere else, too -- free sodas given away by the show's sponsor, Dr Pepper.
Some readers also recalled WSLS's similar dance show: "Top Ten Dance Party."
No one has offered videos of either show yet, but some readers pointed me to pictures of Saturday Session on Twig Gravely's Old Roanoke Web site. (If you've never visited his Web site, you're missing out. He has hundreds of photos at members.cox.net/oldroanoke.)
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As I said, we had a number of glitches last week, but one of them actually sparked an interesting memory.
When asking about dance shows, we mentioned Channel 4 instead of Channel 7. Just a typo, really, but Beverly Vaden Porter remembered good old Channel 4.
"Channel 4 was probably the Greensboro channel. That was the only channel we could receive on our first TV set in 1951 and was mostly 'snow.' We thought it was wonderful when Roanoke finally added a channel and then a second one!"
It was quite a leap of faith to buy a TV when there was only one snowy station, but at least they didn't have to flip around the dial to find out what was on.
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The other glitches were more of a nuisance.
One frustrated caller told me that she had sent me an e-mail and received a reply stating that it had been deleted without being read. I'm not sure how many others got the same message, but I apologize. It wasn't personal, just an aggressive spam filter.
If you'll try sending your message to tomangleberger@yahoo.com, it should go through.
Meanwhile, some phone messages were unusable because I either couldn't hear the name properly or couldn't figure out how to spell it. Please speak clearly and spell your names for me.
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I'm still hoping to hear from folks who know about the old Chick-A-Sea restaurant's special recipes or the name of the stream at Green Hill Park or a store that actually carries the Mary B. Open Kettle Chicken and Dumpling Dinner Kit.
Nor have we heard from any organization that is legitimately collecting bottle caps for medical expenses.
But we've got quite a few answers lined up for next week, including a trip back in time to The Magic Ballroom.
Got a question? Got an answer? Call Tom Angleberger at 777-6476 or send an e-mail to tomangleberger@yahoo.com. Don't forget to provide your full name, its proper spelling and your hometown.
