MORE MEMORIES: Dan Good of York, S.C., sends us his
recollection about the staying power of a great meal: “After a
night at the YMCA dance on Fridays, we would stop at the Broaster
on Kennedy Street.

“They had the best pressure-cooked chicken, which they would put
between two cardboard paper plates and staple together. This was
great on those cold Bradford winter nights for that walk back
home.”

Gemma Galati, now of Hawaii, forever links Carroll’s fast-food
restaurant (where Burger King now stands) with a personal memory:
“When Carroll’s was first opening, my daughter, Jai, was hired as
hostess because they said she had a beautiful smile. That was in
1971.

“The reason I remember it so well is that we had a surprise 16th
birthday party for Jai (Jeanne) and when she walked in, she was
wearing her brown and white Carroll’s uniform. It was a good
surprise.”

ON PATROL: Barb Smith brought in her safety patrol photo from
1954 when she was in the 5th grade at Lee Driver Elementary School.
Front row and center in the photo are two Indian girls from the
Salamanca reservation – the first time children from the
reservation had gone on the trip, she said.

“We took a train to Washington, D.C., that left out of Port
Allegany,” she said. “It was a rough trip. I had never been away
from home. I remember we saw the Washington Monument and Jefferson
Memorial.”

Barb remembers the girls bought their white blouses, but had to
make or buy their white skirts.

SPECIAL FLAG: Lorraine Thornton of Mount Jewett called to tell
us her grandson, Daniel Barker, gave her the American flag that had
flown over his Air Force base in Iraq during his service there.
Accompanying the flag was a certificate signed by Air Force Lt.
Col. Michael Cannon.

“I keep the flag in its case, folded,” Lorraine said. “My
grandson is now back from Iraq and stationed in Alaska, but the
flag means that someday, when there’s freedom over there, our boys
will be back home again.”

Speaking of flags, the recent flag flap on East Main Street
prompted Jim Flynn of Erie and Jim Quattrone of Ridgway to remember
a time when both Bradford and Ridgway had holes drilled in the
sidewalks outside their Main Street business establishments where
flags were placed on patriotic holidays.