Looking back can be inspiring — ‘pulling old negs’ from the archive...

Discovered this photo yesterday while looking for something in my achive. Knew I’d made black & white photos of “Hurry Back” over the years, but it was a surprise to find this color shot. Wish I knew the full story about the market. Maybe someone will send me some facts or stories? I first experienced the place in the summer of 1969 when I came to Vanderbilt. It was right next door to the Exit/Inn on Elliston Place, two blocks down from Elliston Apartments where I lived for 15 years. No telling how many hundreds of times I stopped in there. Added an earlier view from 1973 to the colorFree page. Interesting to compare the two. [7/20] -C.

Pat Nolan offered a fun perspective... “One of its owners, John Rotier of Rotier’s Restaurant fame was a very good friend of my father. So I got a job working there on Saturday nights while I was in high school (1967-68 as I remember) sacking groceries, beer and ice. I think I made about $12 per night working from 6 p.m. to midnight.”

And Travis Burch wrote: “During my 1967-1971 Vandy tenure the guy behind the counter was Roger. Roger was lenient on fake id’s before 1970 when the drinking age was lowered from 21 to 18 when I turned 21. Roger ended each transaction with a not so cheerful, “Thank you and Hurry Back.”

I was just two when my dad made this photo, so it predates my own photo archive by 13 years—but it’s such a fun and classic photo I wanted to give it some attention. The early 1950’s style inspired the “OutFront” portraits I’m doing now in front of people’s homes at a special lower rate, just because I think everyone really ought to have a photograph like this. [4/16] -C.

The “old & fun” idea for this page started with the photo below. Someone wanted a print and asked if I still had the negative... which reminded me that I have a huge collection of images dating WAY back, even well before I came to Nashville in 1969. Many are from the music industry, and others are just portraits of Nashville families, and of kids who are no longer kids! And at least a few of these photos deserve to be uncovered. So that's what I'm going to do... “give myself an incentive” to pull one or two old photos per month, and in some cases, I may shoot something new of the same people, or of the same location. Should be fun...! -C.