Banana pudding is a dessert dish lesson in ‘layering’

Banana pudding is a Southern food for sure, and its best ambassador may have been Aretha Franklin (1942-2018), the “Queen of Soul.”

 

Born and raised in Memphis, Tenn., Franklin appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 1999 to demonstrate to the television studio’s live audience how to make a batch of banana pudding. This gave the dessert dish national exposure.

 

Food historian Robert Moss of Charleston, S.C., said the first printed recipe for banana pudding appeared in an 1888 edition of Good Housekeeping magazine, published by Clark W. Bryan in Holyoke, Mass.

 “It’s quite similar to a traditional English trifle, with bananas incorporated as the fruit,” Moss reported. The recipe instructs: “Make and chill a pint of custard, then line a pretty dish with alternating layers of sliced sponge cake and sliced bananas. Pour the custard over the layers and top with whipped cream.” 

A basic custard is “a cooked mixture made of eggs and milk or cream, usually having a thick, creamy consistency.” Also, a sponge cake “contains no baking powder or baking soda, just lots of whipped eggs, flour and sugar.” 

Some recipes called for banana pudding to be topped with an ocean of meringue and then browned in an oven, replacing whipped cream.

 

As the years rolled on, banana pudding was “simplified.” The vanilla instant pudding took the place of custard and store-bought vanilla wafers squeezed sponge cake out of the recipe. A tub of frozen whipped topping eliminated the traditional whipped cream. (The bananas-part of the recipe remains unchanged.) 

Moss offered some food for thought: “If you look across the slate of home economics specialties that evolved into Southern icons – ambrosia, pimento cheese and banana pudding – you might note a common trait: They are well-suited for serving at large gatherings.” 

“They’re easy to make, and, particularly, to make in bulk. They’re also easy to dish out and serve. You can bring them in big pans or bowls, and you don’t have to keep them warm.”

 

“Church picnics, funerals, holiday family gatherings, tailgating are key Southern social events that tie people together and create strong food memories, and dishes like banana pudding are ideal for them,” Moss added. 

“I suspect that this was an important factor in why the simple dessert became popular with Southern cooks and also why Southern diners remember it with such fondness.” 

Tommy Tomlinson of Charlotte, N.C., a freelance writer, said: “Unlike pork barbecue or fried chicken, nobody argues much over banana pudding. Make it however you want. Just save me some.” 

The only rule is this: Banana pudding is made in layers. Bananas, pudding, wafers, repeat. Banana pudding is geology. Over time – and it doesn’t take long – the layers press together. The flavors seep into one another. With every bite, you can taste not only the ingredients but also what they have melded into, creamy and cool, with just enough resistance for your tongue to push up against,” Tomlinson wrote. 

“Layers of taste. Layers of time. And, sometimes, layers of love.” 

Asheville-based food writer Rick McDaniel (1959-2020) said: “I think a big part of (Southerners’ love affair with banana pudding) is how easy it is to make. A lot of desserts take a good bit of fussing over. There’s a lot of trouble getting them right. Banana pudding is kind of hard to mess up. Everything in there is sweet. And we go nutso for sweet stuff.”

 

“Of course,” Tomlinson commented, “banana pudding has crept into other parts of the country. It’s too good to keep fenced in.”

Ambrosia salad evokes memories of the ‘Old South’

When is the last time you had a nibble of ambrosia salad, one of the classic “Southern foods” that’s been around forever? 

To some, Ambrosia is considered an “ancient food of the Greek gods,” while others say it’s “the ungodly food of the ancients?” It depends on your individual taste buds.

 

You used to be able to find the fruity ambrosia side dish on the cafeteria line, either among the salads or with the desserts…based on the composition of the “creamed sauce” that holds it together.

 

Robert Moss of Charleston, S.C., a food and beverage historian, has done a lot of research on ambrosia. He is a frequent contributor to Serious Eats, which is part of the Dotdash online publishing group. 

Robert

He wrote recently: “The earliest written reference to ambrosia is in an 1867 cookbook that was written by Maria Amanda Massey Barringer of Concord, N.C.” 

She made “basic ambrosia” with coconut, sugar and oranges. Add other ingredients as available. With ambrosia, you simply can’t go wrong, and you can get creative to the nth degree. Use fresh fruit, canned fruit or a mixture. 

Moss pictures a big bowl of ambrosia that also includes pineapple, pecans, mini-marshmallows and red maraschino cherries.

 

Ambrosia is full of ingredients Southerners love, but how and why did it become a Southern tradition? 

Moss said it’s because Southerners love to socialize, and ambrosia became a favorite dish for large family gatherings and church potluck suppers – cool and refreshing. Ambrosia is a dish that appeals to both kids and grownups. 

“During the 20th century, cooks began incorporating sweeter components, and none was more transformative than the marshmallow,” he said. 

“Around World War I, Stephen F. Whitman & Son of Philadelphia introduced ‘Marshmallow Whip,’ a jarred marshmallow product that they advertised widely. In 1926, Whitman’s product appeared in a series of syndicated columns providing recipes that incorporated Marshmallow Whip,” Moss said.

 

“One of them was for ambrosia, with ‘marshmallow whipped cream,’ which was a heaping tablespoon of Marshmallow Whip beaten with one egg white. Coconut is conspicuously missing from Whitman’s recipe.” For better or worse? 

Contemporary chefs have added all sorts of different items from the produce section, including bananas, red grapes, grapefruit, dates, papayas, peaches, pears, strawberries, kumquats, celery, avocado, cucumber, mango and even jackfruit. 

What gives ambrosia personality is not so much the variety of fruits in the bowl, but rather, it’s the type of creamy sauce the food preparer chooses. 

An impressive panel of Southern food experts was consulted. Common choices for the sauce include sour cream, heavy cream, whipped cream, yogurt, frozen whipped topping, mayonnaise, buttermilk and cream cheese. 

Chef Edward Lee of Louisville, Ky., uses buttermilk and sour cream, adding blue cheese to form what he terms the “dressing.” 

Brandie Skibinski of Norfolk, Va., creator of “The Country Cook” blog, said her ambrosia recipe calls for a tangy combination of frozen whipped topping and sour cream.

 

Brandie

Christin Mahrlig of Fort Mill, S.C., is the owner of “Spicy Southern Kitchen. Her go-to ambrosia sauce is three parts heavy cream/one part sour cream. 

At “Add a Pinch,” Robyn Stone of Carrollton, Ga., goes with frozen whipped topping, adding a splash of vanilla. 

Southern ambrosia has an international fan base. Claudia McNeilly of Postmedia Network in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, said: 

“Beyond the various recipes, each ambrosia salad offers the same feeling: The quiet thrill of knowing you’re about to do something you shouldn’t, followed by pure, sticky bliss as you place that first goopy spoonful into your mouth.”

Did A&P abandon the art of ‘basketwatching’?

Volumes have been written about the rollercoaster ride to…and then from…greatness taken by The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) from 1859-2015. 

Author Dr. Marc Levinson and others said that when brothers George Ludlum Hartford and John Augustine Hartford, were running things at A&P from the late 1900s up until 1950, they “created the most powerful franchise in food retailing.” 

“Mr. George” was put in charge of financials, while “Mr. John” ran the business operations and was dubbed the “Merchant Prince.” TIME Magazine once wrote that “going to the A&P was almost an American tribal rite.”

 A happy A&P grocer

The Wall Street Journal said the Hartford brothers “were among the 20th century’s most accomplished and visionary businessmen.” (Their father, George Huntington Hartford, had taken over at A&P when company founder George Gilman retired in 1878.) 

An essay on A&P’s history in the Reference for Business Encyclopedia provides a brief snapshot, stating: “Much of A&P’s early success was due to Mr. George’s and Mr. John’s scrupulous attention to the business, or, in Mr. John’s term, to ‘the art of basketwatching.’” 

In other words, the Hartfords observed, analyzed and responded to what customers were putting in their baskets, buggies or carts…and what they weren’t. 

In the 1930s, a Saturday Evening Post writer asked: “Who will watch the baskets after the Hartfords are gone? Neither has any children…the direct line of shrewd vigilance will be broken.” 

Ralph Burger, a loyal company man, was tapped to take the reins at A&P in 1950. He went to work for A&P in 1911 as an $11-a-week clerk but worked his way up to become corporate secretary. Burger “ran the company, if not imaginatively, then at least reasonably successfully, until his death in 1969,” according to the encyclopedist.

 

From Dr. Levinson’s perspective, A&P’s “customers were moving to the suburbs, but A&P’s executives preferred to stick with the urban markets they knew best. California was booming, but management in New York refused to expand in distant Los Angeles.”

“Discount stores were flourishing, but A&P’s leaders could not fathom why housewives might want to purchase cooking aprons or cough syrup while picking up milk and bread,” Dr. Levinson wrote. 

“By 1979, when it sold control to the German grocer Tengelmann Group, A&P was staggering,” Dr. Levinson said. “The Germans, convinced that they understood food retailing better than the Americans, made matters worse.” 

The encyclopedist’s assessment was: “A&P’s once ‘resplendent emporiums’ were now perceived as antiquated, inefficient and run-down.” 

Journalist Garland Pollard of Sarasota, Fla., creator of BrandlandUSA.com, has his own take on what went wrong at A&P. He said: “In the 1970s, A&P fell apart. Not only did the chain not invest in new stores, it ditched a logo as classic as Coke’s”…and in the same red and white colors. 

Pollard may be on to something here. From the very beginning, A&P’s ornate white monogram in a red circle made a distinctive mark.

 

“The color palette, representing passion, love and loyalty, was a very good choice for the grocery retailer, whose main aim was to give people high-quality goods and products to make their warm cozy evenings at home better and sweeter,” wrote Aleksei Titov of 1000logos.net. 

The shadowing effect that came along a little later gave the symbol some “depth of field.”

 

The A&P logo was redesigned in 1976. Basically, the letters took on a contemporary sans-serif look, and the circle was stretched horizontally, gaining the yellow and orange “sunrise” effect.

 

In Pollard’s mind, it was more of an omen of a “sunset.”

Jane Parker fruit cakes re-enter national market

Jane Parker once symbolized premium-quality baked goods, sold exclusively at A&P supermarkets across America. The Jane Parker label began “retiring” in the 1980s and ’90s, however, long before A&P drew its last breath in 2015.

 

Usage of the Jane Parker brand was acquired at auction in 2017 by brothers Chris and Alex Ronacher, owners and operators of an online candy sales business in New York City, located in the Borough of Queens. 

The Ronachers formed Jane Parker Baked Goods LLC and are taking it one step at a time to build an online presence for the new Jane Parker. Their first products out of the chute were the traditional Jane Parker fruit cakes, made from the original A&P recipe.

 

Garland Pollard, publisher/editor of BrandlandUSA, said that A&P’s Jane Parker fruit cakes, introduced in the 1930s, “were beloved and packed, far more than others, with fruit and nuts.” Non-cake ingredients included raisins, orange peel, red cherries, glazed pineapple, tangy citron and pecans.

Pollard estimated that the re-launch of the Jane Parker brand cost “less than $100,000, a bargain for such an iconic piece of American food history.”

“The cakes were so important to the overall image of A&P that they were advertised as specialty products in magazines. They echoed the spice trade and clipper ship image of A&P, which was once the nation’s largest grocer,” Pollard said.

The advertising copy read: “Sugar ‘n spice, ‘n’ everything nice! – that’s what Jane Parker Fruit Cakes are made of! No place is too far to go, no price too high to pay for the rare fruits, nuts, sugars and spices that make Jane Parker Fruit Cakes such festive favorites…such a welcome addition to the Holiday menu.”

 

Back in 2009, Pollard reminded his readers that A&P had actually reintroduced its Jane Parker fruit cakes as part of the company’s 150th anniversary observance. 

“The cake’s last sales were in 2014,” he said, and they were mainly marketed by online outlets, since there were fewer than 300 A&P stores that were still standing when the company shut down in 2015. 

Lori Fogg, a food writer living in Johnstown, Pa., has sampled the new Jane Parker fruit cakes. She said they are “perfect for those who enjoy a walk down memory lane and a moist, tender, enjoyable fruit cake.” 

Pollard suggested that other entrepreneurs might want to sift through the collection of other A&P store brands that were “thrown out like week-old fish.” 

Most notable of the A&P graveyard brands is probably “Ann Page.” 

She was purely fictional, like Jane Parker, but you could find her just about everywhere in the A&P store – on countless items including spices, peanut butter, jellies and jams, condiments, mayonnaise, salad dressing, pasta and noodles and baked beans.

 

But there were also many more A&P store brands, and Pollard has rounded up an extensive list. Here goes: 

“Red Circle Coffee, Sail cleaners and detergents, Sultana cocoa, Cap’n John’s seafood items, Sparkle gelatin, Cheeri-Aid drink packets, White House evaporated milk, Our Own and Nectar teabags, Ahoy liquid dishwashing detergent, Yukon Club beverages, Iona canned fruits and vegetables, Worthmore candies, Crestview small/medium eggs, Wildmere large eggs, Sunnybrook extra large eggs and butter, Sunnyfield pancake mix and flour, Penguin ice cream, Marvel bread and ice cream, Allgood bacon, Dexo shortening, Dexola vegetable oil, Nutley margarine and Super Right meats.”

 

Do any of these product names tickle your fancy? They might be available almost “just for the asking.” 

Eight O’Clock Coffee and Jane Parker are ‘survivors’

Once famous store brands of The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) – Eight O’Clock Coffee and Jane Parker – have been adopted by new owners. They carry forward a small piece of the A&P heritage.

In a sense, Eight O’Clock Coffee was part of A&P’s colorful DNA since the very beginning in 1859, when the company was founded by George Gilman in New York City. He started out selling bags of whole bean coffee, along with tea and sugar.

The brand Eight O’Clock Coffee came about as a result of a company-sponsored survey – asking coffee drinkers “what time of day they drank coffee most.” The top two answers on the board were 8 o’clock in the morning and 8 o’clock at night.

In 1919, A&P positioned Eight O’Clock, in its bright red package, as the mild economy brand. Two new brands joined the team. Bokar, in a shiny black bag, was the premium, robust brand. Red Circle, in a bright yellow bag, was full-bodied, yet mellow.

 

Buying coffee at the A&P became a ritual for consumers, once the Hobart Electric Manufacturing Company of Troy, Ohio, figured out a way to attach motors to coffee mills and meat grinders.

A&P was quick to advertise: “Coffee ground fresh with the aid of an electric engine.” 

Foodie Dave Kitchen commented: “Once, A&P was the only store where you could get coffee ground to order, and every checkout aisle had a coffee grinder right by the cashier’s station so the coffee could be freshly ground just before you left the store.” 

“Those huge red grinders were big, heavy, bullet-proof and built to last a hundred years,” he said.

 

By 1930, Eight O’Clock was the most popular brand of coffee in the United States, and it would retain that top spot into the 1970s. 

Indeed, Eight O’Clock earned its place as “a longstanding member of the pantheon of America’s legendary brands,” according to blogger David Pleasant. 

As the A&P empire began to crumble in the 1970s, the company tried to leverage the popularity of Eight O’Clock and shore up sagging profits by offering its three primary coffee brands to other chains, particularly in markets where A&P no longer had stores. 

Since 2006, the Eight O’Clock Coffee Company, has been operating as a subsidiary of Tata Consumer Products, headquartered in Montvale, N.J., with its coffee production plant in Landover, Md. The Tata Group is a multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai, India. 

In 2013, the entire Eight O’Clock Coffee line was revamped with new packaging and new flavors, while dropping the Bokar brand. Bokar was resuscitated in 2018 by American Modern Coffee LLC, of Burbank. Calif.

 

It appears that Red Circle was never part of the deal with Tata. There have been “online sightings” of Red Circle product availability through MrsGrocery.com, based in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada. 

As an aside, Red Circle has been memorialized by artist Harold Lohner, who created an all-uppercase RED CIRCLE typeface in 2006, based on the 1930’s style lettering used on the coffee packages. “I like the big fat deco quality,” he said. The smell of fresh ground coffee and this lettering are forever linked in my memory.”

 

While Eight O’Clock Coffee lives on under the umbrella of a mega-business, A&P’s former baked goods brand Jane Parker has been taken in by a pair of entrepreneurial brothers who work in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens in New York City. We’ll check in with them soon.

Meet a famous duo from America’s publishing industry

Wittenberg University was established in 1845 in Springfield, Ohio, for the purpose of training Lutheran church ministers.

Listed among Wittenberg’s “most famous alumni” are a pair of theological students from the 1860s – Isaac Kaufmann Funk and Adam Willis Wagnalls. 

And you can look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls. 

Isaac Funk was born in 1839 in the small village of Clifton, Ohio, near Dayton. Adam Wagnalls was born in 1843 in Lithopolis, Ohio, close to Columbus.

 

Isaac Funk (above) and Adam Wagnalls (below)

After completing their studies at Wittenberg, each was ordained as a Lutheran pastor and began service to the church. 

In 1876, Funk departed the ministry to establish I.K. Funk & Company in New York City to publish religious publications. He recruited Wagnalls in 1877 to join him in this new venture. Funk worked on the creative side, while Wagnalls handled the financial aspects of the business. 

The name of the company was changed to Funk & Wagnalls Company in 1890. Literary critics agree that Funk & Wagnalls’ most important achievement was its Standard Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1893. 

As the lexicographer, Funk worked with a team of more than 740 contributors. His aim was to provide essential information thoroughly and simply at the same time. The Funk & Wagnalls new dictionary gave readers the most current definition first and the oldest definition last, rather than the other way around, as all earlier dictionaries had been formatted. 

Eventually, in 1912, Funk & Wagnalls produced its iconic 25-volume Standard Encyclopedia. After Funk died (also in 1912), Wagnalls piloted the company until his death in 1924.

 

But there would be more Funks to factor into the company history. Isaac’s son, Wilfred John Funk, served as president of Funk & Wagnalls from 1925-40. He and his cousin, Charles Earle Funk, both inherited the lexicography gene. They specialized in publishing reference books.

 

The rights to publish the Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedias were obtained by the Standard Reference Work Publishing Co., which began to sell the encyclopedia through “supermarket continuity promotions” in 1953. 

Sources reported that Standard enjoyed considerable success with this marketing technique – encouraging consumers “to include the latest volume of the encyclopedia on their shopping lists.” 

Jeff Poole of the Orange County (Va.) Review recently found a reference to a newspaper advertisement from 1971 in which the local A&P store promoted the availability of Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedias. It read: 

“Unlike other good encyclopedias, which are sold through salesmen, the Funk & Wagnalls is available only through supermarkets. That way, you don’t have to pay for the cost of somebody to sell it to you, which means that to own a good encyclopedia, you no longer have to be rich.” 

Dr. Terry Stawar, a retired psychologist in Jeffersonville, Ind., is a frequent contributor to newsandtribune.com. In a recent post, he commented about growing up in a home with an incomplete set of Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedias.

 

“My mother would occasionally purchase them at the A&P grocery store,” he said. “I was careful never to choose a topic for a school report” that was in one of the missing volumes that “she had neglected to buy.” 

“Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls” became a recurring line on the hit comedy television show, “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In,” which aired from 1968-73 on NBC. Dan Rowan regularly used the phrase as a punch line.

Those were the good old days…shopping at the A&P

Once upon a time, you didn’t shop for groceries on Sunday, because the supermarkets were closed. People who worked in the local A&P store got a day off.

 

Except for one. The store manager had to go in every Sunday to “check the refrigeration.”

 

Occasionally, other family members were invited to go along for the ride…and savor the lingering aroma emanating from the red Eight O’Clock Coffee grinders stationed by the checkout counters. 

It was really cold inside the meat coolers where the sides of beef and pork hung on meat hooks waiting for the butchers to chop and carve them up into family-size portions. 

On these special Sundays, the long and silent grocery aisles looked like bowling lanes. Ten small store brand gelatin boxes standing on their end could be arranged in a “10-pin triangle.” No ball? No problem. A larger sized pudding box sliding on its side would suffice. 

Meanwhile, my mother would casually stroll around the store to see what was new among the Ann Page products that lined the shelves. This was followed by a quick tour of the Jane Parker bakery section. 

My mother very rarely actually “shopped” for groceries. She just made shopping lists. She would call my father (the manager) and dictate. He would dutifully hand-pick her order…before heading home. 

“City chicken” was a favorite dish. Cubed pork and veal on a skewer to be pan-fried. 

Dad’s reward? He might dash in for a quick pop at the lounge in the Fraternal Order of Eagles club, which was only a hop-skip-and-jump from the A&P parking lot on Winter Street in Adrian, Mich. 

Ah yes, the 1950s were still “glory years” for A&P. The company was “king of the hill” in the grocery business from 1915-75. 

It’s a remarkable story. In 1859, George Francis Gilman began purchasing coffee and tea from clipper ships on the waterfront docks of New York City. By eliminating brokers, he was able to sell coffee and tea products to his customers at “cargo prices.” 

Gilman saw a business opportunity and opened multiple Gilman and Company retail tea and coffee stores in the various neighborhoods of the Big Apple. 

For a brief period, the company became the Great American Tea Company, but the name was changed to The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) to commemorate the 1869 completion of the “First Transcontinental Railroad” connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. 

George Huntington Hartford, who was hired as an A&P stock clerk in 1861, took the reins at A&P in 1878, when Gilman retired. By this point, A&P was operating about 75 stores.

 

Shortly thereafter, two of Hartford’s sons joined the business – George Ludlum Hartford and John Augustine Hartford. Both started working as teenagers…to learn the business from the ground up. 

By 1900, A&P had grown to include 200 stores. The second generation of Hartfords would lead A&P onward and upward for nearly 50 years.

 

John and George L. Hartford

Dr. Marc Levinson, an economist, historian and author, said: “For more than four decades, from 1920 into the 1960s, A&P was the largest retailer in the world. At its peak, it had nearly 16,000 grocery stores in 3,800 communities.” 

At various times, A&P also sold “Food for the Mind,” the complete 25-volume set of the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia. 

You could purchase one volume per week, so it took about six months to get them all. Volume 1 was maybe a quarter, with subsequent volumes selling for $1.89 apiece…or thereabouts.

Putt-Putt Golf is Carolina ‘born and bred’

Putt-Putt Golf was created in Fayetteville, N.C., in 1954 by insurance sales representative Don Clayton, who was following doctor’s orders to take a 30-day leave to reduce the stress and tension in his life. 

He thought a round of miniature golf would provide a sufficient dose of relaxation, but it only led to frustration. 

The International Directory of Company Histories tells the story about the origin of Putt-Putt. Clayton fussed to his family about the condition of the mini-golf course he just paid to play.

 

“You had to hit the ball through spokes and over windmills and through waterfalls. They gave you dirt and goat’s hair to putt on,” Clayton said. 

“Putting is half the game of golf. I could do better than this,” he announced. 

Clayton and his wife, Kathryn “Cub” Clayton, designed 18 different holes that night – without clown faces, spinning windmills, castles and drawbridges. He took a $100, one-year lease on a vacant lot and bought some lumber, hired some laborers and began laying out his first course. 

“Three weeks later, he was in business, charging 25 cents a round,” according to the historical directory essay. 

“Some 192 people showed up at his course on the first night, 344 on the second night and 744 on the third. It took only 29 nights for Clayton to pay off the construction cost of $5,200.” 

The bank teller who helped Clayton open an account reportedly came up with the name Putt-Putt. At the end of two years, there were eight Putt-Putt courses in the Carolinas.

 

In 1969, Sports Illustrated asked Curry Kirkpatrick to cover the first world championship Putt-Putt event. Magazine editors headlined the story: “Everybody Do the Putt-Putt.” 

It’s not a game just for families or something for teenagers to do on dates. Grown men and women have become professional putt-putters, Kirkpatrick said. Not in motorboats but by walking the green carpeted, 18-hole Putt-Putt courses. 

Clayton and Kirkpatrick discovered a common bond. Both men graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They clicked and the article became an instant “SI Classic.” 

Clayton played three sports in high school in Fayetteville and went to Carolina on a football scholarship. As a 6-foot-3 running back, he was selected in the 1947 National Football League draft by the New York Giants. He was the 300th – and last – player picked that year, before the term “Mr. Irrelevant” came into vogue. 

Kirkpatrick said he “went to Chapel Hill to get out of the cold weather.” He finished high school in Niagara Falls, N.Y. He enrolled in the journalism school at Carolina and worked at The Daily Tar Heel. Sports Illustrated hired him right out of college in 1965. 

Clayton had the bright idea of putting Putt-Putt tournaments on television, and he brought in the famous sportscaster Billy Packer, a Wake Forest alumnus, to handle the “color commentary.” Fans were recruited to form the “gallery.” Admission was free with complimentary free soft drinks for all.

 

From time to time, Kirkpatrick wrote, Clayton would get on the public address system and say: “Folks, you’re just a beautiful gallery, but would you please get your shadows off our carpets?” 

Don Clayton died in 1996 at the age of 70. His daughter, Donna Clayton Lloyd, became chair of the company. Donna’s husband, David Lloyd, was president.

Investor David Callahan acquired the business in 2004, and Putt-Putt LLC is now based in Chapel Hill. 

“Buster,” Putt-Putt’s orange ball mascot, is still his rambunctious self.