Leland Vintage: Memories of The Soda Fountain

I had a reminder of one of Leland’s most beloved citizens the other day, Sam Morlino. A waterline was being dug up behind the old People’s Drug Store building last week. A Big Hit drink bottle, made by the Leland Bottling Company in 1926, was recovered.
Sam Morlino told me a story one time about working at the soda fountain in the drug store. His father, Joe Morlino, had a movie theater next door. When the show was over, he’d ring a bell. All the people that were getting out of the show would pile into the soda fountain hollering for a Big Hit drink. Then there would be a lull till Mr. Joe would ring the bell again, and the soda fountain would fill up again.
Another of Leland’s beloved citizens, George Breisch, would come to the soda fountain and buy a whole box of those penny tootsie rolls. He kept his pockets stuffed with tootsie rolls and gave one to every little kid he saw on the sidewalk. Mr. Breisch came to Leland as a young teenager from Vicksburg. He went to work for a man who had several saloons. After a few years, the saloon owner fell in love with a sanctified woman who made him sell his saloons. He sold to a young George Breisch and financed them for him. Mr. Breisch owned the icehouse where we bought ice for the soda fountain at the drug store. One of his employees, Mr. Clifton, came to the soda fountain every day about ten o’clock and bought a short coke and a pack of nabs. He would return in the middle of the afternoon and do the same thing.
In those days, the soda fountain was a happening place. As soon as it opened in the morning, a lot of Leland Oil Mill workers would be in buying cigarettes, snuff and chewing tobacco. One of our best customers was David Flanagan. He bought Dutch Masters Corona Deluxe cigars two boxes at a time.
Mr. Pinckney had the shoe shop two doors north of the drugstore. He bought Melba cigars and would chew on them. He kept one in his mouth all the time. If he had a real funky-smelling pair of shoes to work on, he’d light that cigar up, so the smell of the cigar would make the smell of the shoes less noticeable.

We sold homemade sodas, ice cream, milkshakes and malts. Hand-dipped Midwest ice cream was always a favorite in the summertime. My future wife, Cindy Pieralisi, would always get the same thing, a lemon ice cream cone. She was about half shy in those days. One day she came in and, before she said anything, I said, “I know, I know. A dip of lemon.” It embarrassed her, and she quit coming for a while.
I remember Johnny Carollo calling the drugstore and ordering a large grape soda with two dips of vanilla ice cream in the bottom. Elmer Burchfield would come in and order a double dip of black walnut. August football practice at Leland High School would send the whole team to the soda fountain after practice; we’d have two big buckets of ice ground up and ready for them.
My mom and dad, Clint and Ellen Ann Johnson, went to a pharmacy convention in Palm Springs, California. They ate supper one night at the hotel where they were staying. They had an ice cream parlor in the lobby. There was a long line of people waiting to get ice cream. My mom and dad waited in line for a good while to get to the ice cream counter. Dad ordered two ice cream cones and gave the lady a ten-dollar bill. She gave him a few cents back.
He told the lady, “Ma’am, I gave you a ten-dollar bill.” She replied, “Sir, ice cream is $4.50 a dip.” The next morning, as my sister, Wilma Wilbanks, was opening the drugstore, the phone in the prescription room was ringing. It was my dad. He told her, “Wilma, go up from 35 cents to 45 cents a dip on the ice cream. It’s $4.50 a dip out here in California, and folks are lined up to buy it.”
One of the benefits of working in the soda fountain was all the girls that came to it. I called myself liking this one pretty girl that came in for ice cream. I wouldn’t charge her for her ice cream. We had a charge book by the cash register where you’d write down what all the kids got and charged to the parents. One afternoon that pretty girl came in and talked for a while, and I gave her a big cone of ice cream and she left. On the store side of the soda fountain was a tall revolving comic book rack. As soon as that girl walked off, my dad suddenly appeared from behind that comic book rack. As soon as I saw him, that dummy look came over me.
He told me, “Billy, you working at this soda fountain this summer is a losing proposition for me.”
“How you figure that?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you exactly how I figure that. You’re eating up half my ice cream, you’re giving the other half away, and I’m paying you to stay up here and do that!” he said. I’m glad he walked on off, ‘cause it sho’ wudden nothing I could say.