JACK DAVIS
At Continental Inn
By JOHN HOINSKI
Staff Writer
For a five-year period of time during the early
1950’s, the Continental Inn on the Luzerne-Dallas
Highway was the place to be every Thursday night.
Crowds of three to four hundred people would pack
inside the building while cars overflowing from the
parking lot would spill out onto the highway and
stretch as far back as the hillside section, causing
major traffic jams. But it was worth it to see probably
the most popular band of its era — The Continental
Dixieland Jazz Band.
“We would cause a “jam” inside and outside the
building,” said Dick Davis, who played the drums for
the group.
Davis, 68, is now a retired First Eastern Bank
employee who operates a piano tuning and repair
business from his Nanticoke home. But, for eight
years, he played with the band that included some of
the most talented musicians in the area.
“We were the first real good Dixieland group that I
can remember,”’Davis reminisced. ‘“The bar in the
place was in a circular shape and there were a lot of
times when people would line up six and seven deep
around it. Then in the back there was a dining room
where they could watch and dance. There wasn’t
really much room for dancing, though. Most people
came just to listen.
“But the thing that made us so special was that
everyone cold read music,” Davis added. ‘“That was
important. There wasn’t a dixieland band we couldn’t
imitate. We played all over locally at different
and Stroudsburg.”
The band formed shortly after Bernie Grieshaber
purchased the building from Tom Fogarty, who had
been operating it under the name‘‘Fogarty’s.”
Up until that time, the club had booked such top
notch acts as Tony Bennett, Rudy Vallee and Adrian
Rollini among others, but still had trouble making it
as a successful business.
“That’s when Bernie asked Jerry Strum, our pianist
who was already working there at the time, along with
myself, if he could assemble five more sidemen and
form a dixieland band. And it was really a choice
group.
“We brought in Gene Morris from Scranton. Frank
Casty was called for Clarinet. Bobby Baird, who was
just out of the Navy, was called for trumpet duty.
Then we had Andy Marko on bass, myself on the
drums and Jerry on the piano.”
The Continental Dixieland Jazz Band was a smash
right from opening night. The group played in the
center of the club and quickly became the center of
attention over the next few years.
But, gradually the group began to depreciate during
the latter part of Davis’ time with the band.
“We started losing some of the members of the
group,” Davis explained. ‘Sometimes they would be
replaced and sometimes they wouldn’t. Gene Morris,
went out west and was playing near Disneyland. But it
was a combination of things. The club was tired of
getting complaints about the traffic and the State
Police were getting on them about it. We were just
going downhill.”
Educating young children through
simple stories has always proved to
be an effective means of teaching.
And now a local Back Mountain
doctor has taken that method one
step further to help them under-
stand a particular health problem.
Dr. Charlotte L. Casterline, M.D.,
a Board-certified Allergist-Immu-
nologist whose office is located on
Wyoming Avenue in Forty Fort,
recently authored a brilliantly illus-
trated book entitled, “My Friend
Has Asthma.”
The book, ‘which has been on the
market since early January, is the
product of approximately one year’s
work and is designed to help youths
with the disease understand and
cope with their problem.
With the help of Patricia
Zabroski, who created the illustra-
tions and whose child inspired the
book, the two collaborated on the 24-
page story. The book depicts the
everyday struggles of an asthmatic
child through simple words and
related pictures and how the illness
can be dealt with.
“Kids learn from books,’’ Caster-
line said. ‘Look how many stories
are written for children. There are
bed-time stories, fairy tales, nur-
sery rhymes. And kids learn from
these stories. It is a very effective
tool of teaching.”
The book is published by the Info-
All Book Company of Dallas, Pa.,
and is currently being sold at
Walden’s book store in the Wyoming
Valley Mall, Paperback Books at
the Viewmont Mall in Scranton and
at Tudor’s Book Shop on Wyoming
Avenue.
So far, Casterline has received
letters of praise from fellow allerg-
ists, local school officials and politi-
cians and has plans to go on a
national level with it in the near
future.
But she has done it neither for
fame nor money. In fact, she
doesn’t even know how many copies
have been sold.
“The idea came about when a
friend of mine, Patty Zabroski,
asked me if I could help her daugh-
ter who has asthma understand her
problem,” Casterline explained. ‘I
said, ‘well you're an artist and I'm
put something together.’”’
After a tremendous amount of
work that took about a year to
complete, they did. And now the
book is currently being used in six
schools in the Wilkes-Barre area
and has been getting a lot of posi-
tive feedback.
“Teachers read the story to the
kids,”” Casterline said. ‘‘Then you
find that some of them are raising
their hands and saying, ‘yeah I have
that problem too sometimes.’
‘“‘Asthma is the number one
reason for school absenteeisms.
Twenty million people suffer from
it. But it is a problem that is very
neglected and is not nearly as publi-
cized as other diseases.
“So I thought, ‘how can I get to
these people?” How -can I reach
Author-doctor
Asthma.’’
them?’”’ Do you know what it’s like
every day for an asthmatic? They
wonder what kind of day it’s going
to be. Is it going to be muggy or
damp or cold? They have to worry
about smoke and perfumes that
people wear, if there is a lot of
pollen in the air. They have to be
careful of what they eat. There are
a lot of variables involved.”
According to Casterline, even the
simple everyday routine most
people take for granted can be a
threat to an asthmatic, and it can
sometimes be fueled by the publics
ignorance to the problem.
“Something as simple as walking
into a diner for a cup of coffee can
be a bad experience for an asth-
matic,” she said. ‘‘A person sitting
next to you may light up a ciga-
rette. But do they ever ask if the
smoke bothers you? Birthday par-
ties can be another disaster. The
smoke of one lit cigarette can cause
a person to have an attack.”
The lungs of a person with asthma
are no bigger than a pencil point,
Casterline says. Because of that
they can easily be clogged with
mucus by different elements or by a
simple sickness, causing them diffi-
culty in breathing.
“Colds can be another serious
problem. When you or I get a cold
we take something for it and it’s
gone in a few days. When a person
with asthma gets one they are
usually sick in bed with a lot of
medication. Sometimes they may
even have to be hospitalized.”
Asthma, which is an irritation of
the airways, a twitching, can range
from mild to severe cases and
sometimes can be fatal if not tended
to properly. Although it cannot be
cured, it can be controlled through
medication, allowing a person to
lead a normal life. Still, day-to-day
living can be an uncomfortable and
trying ordeal.
‘““‘When a person with asthma
wakes up in the morning they
cough, hack and weeze,”” Casterline
stated. “They have to take their
&
“My Friend Has
medication whether they are feeling
well or not. Then they go to work
and put up with weather conditions,
perfumes and smoke, and take
more medicine at lunchtime to con-
trol it. Then they go home where
maybe they have a spouse who
smokes.”
Aside from the individual who
experiences the everyday fears that
asthma brings with it, Casterline
says the mother of that child goes
through virtually the same tortures.
“I have a tremendous amount of
admiration for mothers who have
an asthmatic child. They worry
everyday if something is going to
trigger an attack on her child.
Whether they will be all right or if
somebody is with them. It is some-
thing they live with along with the
child. It can be like a nightmare for
them.”
Even though the book itself is
written for children from ages 2-10,
it does speak to adults through
children, encouraging them to see
an allergist and to be tested for
conditions that may be causing their
attacks. With the proper diagnosis
they can be treated. In addition the
book also enlightens the public to a
disease that affects a great many
people in the area.
‘Asthma is not an emotional dis-
ease,” Casterline says. ‘It is caused
by weather conditions, things in the
air, some foods, running, sometimes
its hereditary. And it can be
acquired by a person who has never
had the sickness before, through an
virus for example.”
Casterline, who has been practic-
ing in Wilkes-Barre since 1977,
received her special training at the
Walter Reed Army Medical Center
in Washington, D.C. She is a fellow
of the American Academy of
Allergy, the American College of
Chest Physicians and the American
College of Physicians.
She resides at High Point Acres in
the Back Mountain along with her
husband and two children.
— JOHN HOINSKI
Davis was 32 years old when he joined the band and
continued to play with various groups after that,
including the last 10 years of his career with Gus
Genetti’s at Hazleton. But there was a time when he
flourished once before in the Back Mountain when, at
the tender age of 14, he played at the Old Castle
Restaurant.
“I remember when I started working, there I was
getting $23 a week,” Davis said. “But back then, that
was big money. That’s when gasoline was only about
nine cents a gallon. It was funny though because I was
making almost as much as my father.
Two years later, Davis was back in the spotlight
once again in the Dallas area with a band that played
at Fernbrook Park.
“That place was always packed,” Davis said. “It
was off where the Offset Paperback Company is now.
We got a lot of huge crowds there, too.”
Davis continued his musical career, which has
spanned over 50 years, in the service with the Air
Corps band. He was stationed mostly out west but
spent the last year at Iwo Jima. Still the group did
perform, playing mostly dance music and often would
accompany other bands that were brought in for
shows.
From there, Davis moved out to the midwest for
about a year and a half and played in Kansas City
where Vaudeville was beginning to form.
“We played all over,” Davis noted. ‘We played with
Leith Stevens at the Muhlboch Club. We played at
Mary’s. We played at the Tower Theatre and at the
Kit Kat Club in Tulsa.
“They had places out there called spook clubs.
These were places that were open after hours. If your
band was good enough you would be invited to play. It
was a lot of fun and I can remember they would play
to 6 a.m.” Davis continued.
“But it was very corrupt and immoral out there.
That was known as the Tom Pendergrast era. He had
a lot of power and he was even linked to Harry
Truman although they never proved it.”
Davis, who had always made his home in Kingston,
returned to Wyoming Valley where he says he played
with nearly every local band until the late 60s.
“The musicians used to hang out around the coffee
shops down the square and job-around,” Davis recalls.
“We’d all take care of each, getting one another jobs
with different bands.
“When I came back to the area, I joined Vaudeville
at the Penn Theatre. Then 1 played at places like
Dukes’s Den in Luzerne from ’47 to ’49 and other
spots. We worked with guys like Marty Korb and Jack
Lattimer and at other places like Orado’s on Public
Square.
“Then there were steady jobs. When I was with Jack
Melton we traveled all over the east coast from Boston
to Richmond. But it was not a great thing to make
money in. You definitely didn’t do it for the money.”
Davis has played all kinds of music, but his real love
“You had to be a dixieland enthusiast to appreciate
it,” he says. “Once you started to get into the music,
you could do all sorts of things like improvising and
ad-libbing, especially if you were playing with real
good musicians who could pick up on the music. It was
a real good time.”
And he’s not just whistlin’ dixie.
Planning breakfast
Kingston Township.
The Back Mountain Police Asso-
ciation and Dallas Kiwanis Club are
pleased to sponsor their Third
Annual “Ham and Eggs Breakfast”
scheduled for Sunday, April 6, 1986
from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Proceeds will °
benefit the Luzerne County Associa-
tion for Retarded Citizens
(L.U.Z.AR.C.).
Chairman for the event is Kings- -
ton Township Police Chief Paul M.
Sabol. Chief Gary Nicholas of the
Citizens.
Courtdale Police Department cur-
rently serves as President of the
Back Mountain Police Association.
Chairman Sabol has appointed the
following people as committee
chairmen for the event: Ticket
Committee, Paul Selingo and
Joseph Kalinowski of the Dallas
Kiwanis Club; Kitchen Committee,
Martha Baranowsky and Mary Ann
Cleary of the Luzerne County Asso-
ciation for Retarded Citizens;
Operations Committee, Chief Gary
Nicholas, Courtdale, P.D.; Publicity
Committee, Fred A. Potzer, Kings-
ton Township Manager.
The breakfast menu will feature
eggs prepared as you like, home
fried potatoes, fresh ham, toast,
coffee .or juice and pastry. Cost of
admission to the breakfast which
will be held at the Dallas Senior
High School is $4.00 for adults and
$2.00 for children.
The Back Mountain Police Asso-
ciation and Dallas Kiwanis Club will
also gladly accept other food or
monetary doantions to support this
special event.
Tickets may be obtained from any
member of the Back Mountain
Police Association, Dallas Kiwanis
Any photos that appear
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