Editor didn’t like juke box in Stanton

Bernie Wickstrom was the long-time editor of a newspaper he named The Stanton Viking. 

In the 1950s, Wickstrom,  always active in community affairs, promoted the building of a state park, placed himself in the middle of school re-organization battles and tried to talk the city into water fluoridation.  

He also witnessed the coming of the juke box, and liked it not at all 

In the March 19, 1959, edition of his paper, he wrote:

A new item of torture has been added to the White City Café. We drink a lot of coffee there, but while we formerly drank “Swedish Gasoline” in quiet, we are now treated to the dominating beat of rock and roll.

The juke box is a dilly, complete with high fidelity sound and a response in bass that will rattle your stomach walls.  It lists four classifications: Popular Hits, Old Favorites, Western and Hillbilly tunes. 

The “Old Favorites” includes Elvis Presley and “Hound Dog.” Western tunes are things like “Just You and Me Baby.” In other words, this is a juke box with a one-theme program.  

Maybe we could get a Congressional investigating committee to confiscate the thing.

The café isn’t to be criticized. It has answered a demand from our younger generation to install a juke box. The owners fill it with records that will glean nickels from teenager’s jeans and purses. Can we claim that if the music was classical we’d waste a nickel?  Nope, can’t go that far.  

It has been noted that we live in a time when teen-age taste is predominant.  Listen and you will hear the Banshee Sisters, dissonantly wailing like off-key train whistles. Crooners blur their notes, slur their words. There are the incessant yelps and howls of Elvis and his imitators.  

None of this is for mature minds. Modern music is, instead, infantile.  

At the Stanton High School, Music Director Wayne LaRue should be saluted for introducing this year a course in music appreciation. 

This is a step in the right direction. We don’t expect to see the juke box pass from the American scene, nor do we expect the caliber of records to change in the near future. But if teen-age taste under supervision such as that provided by Mr. LaRue improves, record makers will be forced to “grow up” musically.

Right, Bernie, they “grew up” to rap.

You wouldn’t believe the stuff they play before football games.

Noteworthy is the fact that a few days after the above article appeared, Music Director Wayne LaRue submitted his resignation.