Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Flint Artifacts: Kings Armor Matchbook




16 comments:

  1. uh hello, I'd like to order a coupla those beef patsies... with extra gravy

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    1. I think you're thinking of Art Bowden's pastie place called King Arthur's near Atwood Stadium.

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  2. Wow! I can't believe someone had kept this for all these years! Is it still around? Myself and my long-time boyfriend, Shane Kelly, spent way too much time in that place. We would go to the movies and then go to the bar. When the bar closed, we drove to some Italian restaurant in that area and had some great pasta, or pizza. Gosh, that was back in the mid 70's. He had lived and went to school around there. James Lord and a bunch of Central High School guys drank all night there.

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  3. Central High guys drinkin' at King's Armor?!?! Ballenger and Sloan- that's Viking country, baby.

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    1. When I hung out there from Barth St it was still Central (CHS 62) territory
      Ross

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  4. In the mid-60s, the Central-Northern dividing line was Mackin Road, I think. Dunno about in the mid-70s.

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  5. Mackin Rd.? No way. Maybe Mackin west of Dupont but I doubt it, especially in the mid-60s- maybe in the 1950s... Southwestern and Northwestern were built in the early 60s.

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    1. I went to Central in 64-65 and 65-66. I lived south of Flushing Road, but I'm pretty sure I had friends that lived south of Mackin Road and north of Flushing Road that went to Central, and north of Mackin that went to Northern.

      In 63-64 the south-of-Mackin territory went to Southwestern, where I spent a year. I walked home from Southwestern a couple of times that year (across the westernmost Chevy-in-the-Hole railroad bridge, through the Hasselbring Farm jungle) with a guy who lived in the behind-Longfellow area. Central had fewer west-side-of-town kids that year. But those lines resulted in pretty unequal racial and socioeconomic profiles, especially at Southwestern, so they were changed for the next year.

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  6. In the early 70's, we never had a problem ordering pitchers of beer all night at K.A., while being well under the age of 18. Fun times.

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    1. Flint had to be the capital of fake I.D.'s or no I.D.'s. This could be exaggerated, but I've heard tales of bars accepting library cards. The Copa would accept anything with a fake date on it.

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    2. Keep in mind that the legal drinking age at that time WAS 18......which naturally drove the "fudge factor" at the bar down at least a couple of years to say 16 or 17. One could (and did) grab a burger and a beer for lunch at a a downtown bar, and be back in class at Central for the afternoon- all legit.

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  7. They changed again after that. Everyone in the Longfellow area went to Central from at least 66 to 72. In 72 you had your choice to go to the new Northern, or graduate from Central. Kings Armor was a great place to go on the night before Thanksgiving day throughout the 1970's,when everyone who had moved away from home would show up there. It was like a huge reunion. The guy in the first post is highly confused, no pasties at the Armor,and gravy........please.

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  8. I sadly remember that I never saw a lot of my friends at Longfellow again when we completed 9th grade. Half went to Northern,the other half to Central. They say the high-water marks in our memories of school are 3rd,6th,9th,and 12th. I can't argue with that.

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  9. spent so many nights in the booths of kings armour in the mid 70's.....lots of laughs there....you would always meet up with someone and we would usually close the place down....miss those days...annie (timock) claymore

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  10. I ordered and was served my first beer, at the KA, when I was fifteen. We used to go up, play pool and drink beer there. The waitress wouldn't hassle you for being underage, back then, if you'd give her a hit off your joint, whenever she came to your table. Place was pretty dead, back then. It was before GMI discovered it and turned it into one of their watering holes.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.