BAMA MAMMOTHS: September 2023

WHAT THE CHUKKER MEANS TO ME PLUS CHUKKER IMAGES FROM THE ROBERTOREG ARCHIVES

This stuff will give you a pretty good take on why I should be considered an EXPERT CHUKKER PATRON. a great Chukker quote: "The Chukker is an island of tolerance in a SEA OF INTOLERANCE." ~ Donnie Waldrop (You should interview Donnie. See if anybody can get in touch with Don Waldrop, a very articulate Chukker patron)

Yeah, everything that guy from Samantha said in his 2003 GOOD RIDDANCE TO THE CHUKKER! letter to the editor of the Tuscaloosa News was true: A WHOLE-LOTTA-CHAOS&TROUBLE walked INTO the Chukker and A WHOLE-LOTTA-CHAOS&TROUBLE walked OUT of the Chukker but THE CHUKKER (along with its COURTYARD & "ROOF") truly was AN ISLAND OF TOLERANCE IN A SEA OF INTOLERANCE. It was international (a great place to practice Spanish) & it was NATIONWIDE ("I don't want zee rednecks in MY BAR!") but it was also INTRASTATE. Monday through Saturday, you could look at the tags of those vehicles parked around the 2100 block of Sixth Street (formerly COTTON STREET) in the evening and see "2" tags and "38" tags and "39" tags, "49" tags, and "15" tags scattered through the "63"s and "1"s. You could meet folks from every part of Alabama on any given night. The Chukker was a destination and it was also a launching pad and it was a BEACON OF HOPE waiting on you whenever ya got back to T-town from wherever you were in this WONDERFUL WORLD at any moment & then it disappeared.

On December 21, 1987, a patron of the Chukker, a bar/restaurant/nightclub in Tuscaloosa that opened in 1956, suggested that we have a "BEST PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE CHUKKER" essay contest.
Well, one thing led to another & now I find myself the unofficial historian of THE CHUKKER.

Got da box so here are the titles to the cards:
Alves, Walter
Banned from the Chukker(the classic is Claudia Chermuk trying to buy
a draft for 37 cents)
Barred from the Chukker
"Allman Joys"- 1965-1967
Ariff, Basil
Artists and Art
Artifacts (looks like most of the artifacts have disappeared)
Big Ben Adkins and the Nomads
Bill Connell
Beer (sample: Quarter Beer-Tues. and Thurs. 1972- outlawed by State
ABC in 1985)
"Blues Magoos"
Butts, Jimmy
Barlow
Bartenders

Beverages- January '82- moved bar to rear- bar moved to plumbing in

to serve liquor.
Blue Laws
Check on Bill McMinn
Cort Pickett
Crazy Shit That Has Happened at the Chukker(according to me the
craziest is Weston biting and sucking
a boil off Michael McGovern's toe)
Chefs(Bruce Hopper photographed the corpse in the coffin of the
father of the big old black lady who cooked for Chukker Bill)
Chukker Nation (proclaimed in August '69 by John Little while
watching telecast of the Woodstock Music Festival in
the Chukker)
Chukker Room in Hell (Trice Keene,Bob Weston,Stephen Rogers,Tom
Kuhns,Brian Hendrix,Joe Cary, Mike Tucker, Mike
Williams, Robert Register, John Thigpen, Val
Holloway,Lloyd Riley, Tommy Stevenson,John Thorn
Ron Shirley, Dick Ellenburg("I'll already have first
row seats saved." said Dick while he was alive),
Bill Gipson)
Chukker definition from the dictionary
"Candy Men"
Censorship
Chukker Bill
Cornbread
Deceased patrons (over 50 on this list)
Drugs(someone always played "For What It's Worth" on the jukebox
when a narc walked in)
Dona
Eddie Hinton
Ernie Halford
Ellenberg, Dick
Entertainment
First Time In the Chukker (The Classic:"I was so young I was amazed
to be served alcohol")
"Feather"
Fantasies (The Classic:"All you guys want to see is two girls get it
on. It's UNIVERSAL!!!!)
"The Five Minutes"- '62 or '63
Fat City (game preserve)
"Gents"
Graffitti (The Classic: BEAT ME, WHIP ME, MAKE ME WRITE BAD CHECKS!")
Hogdoo
Hendrix, Jimmy (Phil Phillips has a Hendrix guitar pick)

Hogie (Guy Huthnance, Jr.)
"Hourglass"
Hagler, Marshall
Hart, Bill
Hinton, Eddie
Janitors(The Classic: Ed Hanselman)
"John Ed" Watford (The Classic: Took a dump on the bar to win a bet)
"K-Otics"
Kooness, Oolee
Kizziah, Mickey
Little Bit
Lesbians(The Classic: Engraving on sports trophy for a Chukker
softball team:"Nobody Could Beat Those Dykes"
"Misfits"
"The Magnificent Seven"
Music (The Classic: Don Maples, "the Possum Man", hit Jimmy Turner
with a beer bottle because Jimmy played the jukebox and
Maples wanted to hear his tape deck-Maples barred by
Callahan)
Myths (The Classic: Mice nests in the pinball machines fuck up your
game.)
May of 1970
Mary Kay
Menu (copies from the late sixties are owned by Bruce Hopper and Jo
Hayward)
"Nighthawks"
Nineteen Fifty-Six, July-Chukker opens (Oasis opens at same time)

Owners
"The Omen and Their Love"
Orange Julius
The Old Dutch
Pat's (Earl's first bar- changed to Jackie's)
"Pieces of Eight"
Personal Testimony (December 21, 1987- Dart Hayward suggests a
contest for "Best Personal History of the
Chukker")
Poets (Rhett Maddox moved to New Orleans and gave readings at the
Maple Leaf Bar on Oak St.)
Pets (Chuck the Cat died violently and you could feed cashews
to the mouse who lived in the cash register)
Queers (The Classic: The VD control officer asks Enoch for the names
of everyone "he'd had intercourse with lately" and Enoch
lists everyone he had talked to at the Chukker and Egan's.)
"Rocking Gibralters"
"Rubber Band"
Riley, Lloyd
Ronnie Brown
The Red Rooster
Residents (Bob Weston)
The Roof
Robert Register (Loves Pussy. Very narrow minded on cornbread!)
Ramona Landers ('55 or '56 - '88)
"Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs"
"SouthCamp"

"Sail Cat"
"Swinging Medallions"
The Silver Dollar
Scotty Fitzgerald (Waverly asks,"Could you procure a marijuana
cigarette for Scotty?)
The Spectrum and The Dickery
Starvin' Marvin Henry
Sports Teams
Swindle, Sharon (First visit to Chukker- 1972. Had her first orgasm
in the summer of 1972)
"This Side Up" - with an arrow pointing down
Tab (LARGEST TAB: $1700 FOR A SUMMER. Brian paid it with '66 GMC
pickup.)
Turner, Jim - "Today Was Surreal, Wasn't It?"
Thigpen, Johnny
Tiger Jack Garrett ("under Confederate gray skies")
University of Alabama
Voodoo
Weston

Wallace, George

From a Planet Weekly Interview with Jerry Henry:

Jerry: From what I hear you are know as the official historian for the historical Chukker. What are some of the printable highlites that happened at the Chukker?

Roberto: I guarantee you there's very little "official" about anything associated with The Chukker. What I officially am is the proud owner of a recipe box filled with 4 by 8 cards.They tell one hell of a story.

This attempt to preserve Chukker history began on December 21, 1987 when we were all sitting at the bar and the late Dart Hayward, brother of Charlie Daniel's bass player Charlie Hayward, suggested that we start a contest for "The Best Personal History of the Chukker."
Well, that contest never occurred but I started taking notes that night and basically it all degenerated into "The Craziest Stuff That Ever Happened In The Chukker."

In most people's opinion, the craziest thing that ever happened in the Chukker involved the late Bob Weston and Michael McGovern's toe. That's all I'm gonna say about that because my Mommy and Daddy raised me not to talk about stuff like that in public.

pretty cool post https://professionalsoutherner.com/2014/10/25/the-chukker-nation/

This blog gives ya lot of THE CHUKKER backstory. When Bill Connell died, I attempted to add him to the title but I'd run out of title space on blogger-dot-com! I may have been the first person in North America to come up with that title "ROCK PILGRIMAGE" on the Internet. I got contacted by some people involved with a "'Rock Pilgrimage" copyright case in Great Britain. https://rockpilgrimage.blogspot.com/

(note: I have an ENORMOUS collection of Sixties, Seventies and Eighties BAMA memorabilia plus full access to almost all the Corollas.) https://bamamammoths.blogspot.com/2023/09/interpretation-of-illustrated-map.html

https://bamamammoths.blogspot.com/2023/08/blog-post_30.html

Here's some Chukker-related links to my blog posts and youtube videos. BAMA MAMMOTHS

BAMA MAMMOTHS

The Chukker - YouTube

MAGIC MAN IN THE CHUKKER COURTYARD Christopher and Magic2 - YouTube

Kokomo and Magic - YouTube

BAMA MAMMOTHS

robertoreg - Google Search

"EAT CORNBREAD, RAISE HELL" was a piece of graffiti I put up in the Chukker Mens Room & I'm pretty sure my late wife, Sharon, put on the wall of the Ladies Room in about '88 or '89 back when Bruce Hopper owned it. I'd missed my 20th DOTHAN HIGH CLASS OF '68 Reunion but I'd immersed myself in '68 nostalgia. ECRH was a take off on our Sr. '68 motto "RAISE HELL, GO NAKED". . In our 1968 GARGOYLE (Dothan High yearbook) we didn't want to write RAISE HELL GO NAKED because we were afraid the teachers would take up our yearbooks for writing "dirty" words so we abbreviated it to RHGN. An example of a '68 GARGOYLE yearbook autograph are the next two images. You can also see the 1968 version of the DHS Class of '69: "Sex, women and wine. We're Seniors '69!" By the time 1969 rolled around it had changed to WEED, WOMEN AND WINE. We're Seniors '69." The "Cornbread" thing came because my son had been born in the summer of '88, I was broke, couldn't go to my class reunion and cornbread had become a part of our little household again. Before I settled down in '88, I'd spent three years on the road eating what I could find so I was happy to have a settled homelife and to get back to eating cornbread and garden vegetables. BAMA MAMMOTHS http://www.flickr.com/photos/kathycha/sets/72157594535571131/

from the October 13, 1984 ~ REST IN PEACE, LIL QUEENIE (Leigh Harris) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Harris

from the May 18, 1984 TUSCALOOSA NEWS

from the December 19, 1986 TUSCALOOSA NEWS

from the June 7, 1989 TUSCALOOSA NEWS

from the November 9, 1984 TUSCALOOSA NEWS

from the September 26, 1984 TUSCALOOSA NEWS

from the May 4, 1988 TUSCALOOSA NEWS

from the April 25, 1984 TUSCALOOSA NEWS

from the February 13, 1987 TUSCALOOSA NEWS

from the January 23, 1987 TUSCALOOSA NEWS

from the October 4, 1988 TUSCALOOSA NEWS

from the April 4, 1989 TUSCALOOSA NEWS

from the July 9, 1987 TUSCALOOSA NEWS

On this portion of the 1887 Tuscaloosa panoramic map, the 2100 block of Sixth Street(formerly COTTON STREET) is just above the street label "COTTON." This 2-acre (330 feet by 198 feet) city block appears to be occupied by four main residences along with their out buildings. Each residence appears to occupy the corner of each of the 4 original 1821 half-acre town lots.(Lot No. 193 on the northeast; Lot No. 194 on the southeast; Lot No. 195 on the southwest and on the northwest ~ the CHUKKER's location ~ LOT NO. 196) The lower margin of the image is the north side of the 2200 block of University Boulevard (formerly BROAD STREET). The downtown terminal for the horse-drawn trolley is located in the middle of the intersection of University Boulevard and 22nd Avenue (formerly MADISON STREET). This map was drawn during the construction of the extension of the trolley to Queen City Avenue, 8th Street, the University, Bryce & Lake Lorraine. In 1887, the only thing the trolley connected was downtown to the railroad station on Greensboro Avenue at Hargrove Road where it made hourly trips. The large three-story building on the southwest corner of University Boulevard and 22nd Avenue is the large WASHINGTON HOTEL which covered almost half of the entire city block. In the present-day this is the location of Tuscaloosa City Hall.

John Earl photo of ROBERTOREG @ the Chukker (circa 1977...I'm sportin' an I PARTICIPATED IN SEX WEEK button along with a Druid Dragons BURN 'EM, DRAGONS button)

Tom Bradford

ad in a summer of 1970 issue of HIGH GAUGE

Sharon Register & ROBERTOREG @ CHUKKER HALLOWEEN 2003 ~ photo by Michael Palmer

BRIAN HENDRIX

I got the scan of the menu from Bruce Hopper. Don't have the date.

April-May 2002

Look midway of the left margin for 2121 6th Street. You can see the trees growing in the courtyard. The old furniture store next door had been demolished and Alta Apartments still stood.