With Hat on Head, He Hops to It

You have to take your hat off to Flossie Mae, an 80-year-old carhop at The Varsity drive-in in Atlanta. His hat would get all the attention anyway. John W. Raiford, who nicknamed himself Flossie Mae, began working at the downtown restaurant in October, 1937, and 50 years later he still greets customers with a handshake and a smile, wearing one of his trademark hats. “Everybody knows me, and I have a chance to serve anyone on the lot,” he said. Flossie Mae takes four hats to work, each sporting objects such as a paint brush, a pair of ladies’ slippers, a can of insect spray, bows, ribbons and lace. “The former manager advised me when I first came here to get a gimmick to entertain the customers,” Raiford said. “The next day I made a hat.” The carhop has reduced his schedule to three days a week, usually during lunch hours, but he has no plans to retire. “I’ll be here, unless something happens to my health or this place,” he said.

--After 44 years, Ralph Meeker says high insurance costs, government interference and declining profits have spoiled his fun, so he auctioned off Meeker’s Shows, the oldest and largest carnival in the Northwest. He had set up his midway rides at fairs and shopping centers, and since 1947 had brought them to the Central Washington State Fair in Yakima, where the carnival was sold. “You’ve got to be a businessman now,” he said. “You’ve got to fight for the dollars.” The auction attracted carnival people from Canada, Mexico, Alaska, New York and most of the Western states. A ferris wheel went for $10,000, the haunted house for $3,750, a giant slide for $33,000. An antique merry-go-round was called a bargain at $22,000. Meeker says he hopes to stay in the business as a manager but does not want the hassles of ownership. “It’s become work,” he said. “I’m not a computer brain.”

--An inmate serving 30 days for disorderly conduct in Springfield, Ohio, said he meant no disrespect when he used a jail pay phone to tell a radio talk show that the judge who sentenced him was a nitwit. Municipal Judge Eugene S. Nevius did not agree. Nor was he swayed by the inmate’s argument that “nitwit” is a non-word. He found Walter Myers Jr., 53, in contempt of court and added 10 days to the term Myers was serving for an incident in which he spat on a police officer. Nevius said Myers showed “disrespect toward the dignity and authority of the court” by calling him a nitwit on WBLY’s Smilin’ Bob show. He also accused Myers of lying when he said he did not know he was on the air.