Cas Walker, a great Tennesseean, and American

[bubbiesdad]

For those of you not from East TN, Cas Walker was a grocery store chain owner and politician years ago. He always said whatever was on his mind.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFi-649Uezs

 

[bubbiesdad]

For those of you not from East TN, Cas Walker was a grocery store chain owner and politician years ago. He always said whatever was on his mind.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFi-649Uezs

 

[Jim Shugart]

Holy crap! I had totally forgotten about Cas Walker. I went to grade school in Knoxville and he was all over the papers and TV.

This guy was a total Dog-and-Pony Show, but he was a hoot. Glad to see that he lived to be 95YO.

Ya'll non-EastTNeans can read about him here.

Thanks for the memories!

- Jim

 

[PMRet]

I grew up in a small town in SW VA, and we had the Cas Walker Virginia Food Center there. My brother and I used to watch the Farm and Home hour in the mornings before school, with legendary performers like Honey Wiles and Willie G.

 

[News Shooter]

Wow, what a flashback. I grew up in Knoxville in the 50's.

My uncle was a bass singer in a gospel quartet.
His group was a regular on Cas's Farm and Home Hour.

During the summer he would pick me up and take me to the TV station when they had a gig. They would set up a metal folding chair in the corner of the studio and give me a carton Mayfield Chocolate milk.

I guess over the years I saw just about everyone.

One morning in particular I remember. I guess I was nine or ten. I wasn't really into music yet, but I loved being in the TV station.

This woman came into the studio. She was wearing a bright red dress. She saw me and walked over and squatted down and shook my hand and said, "Hi, my name's Patsy, what's yours?"

I didn't think too much of it until she went over and sang her first set.

I'm sure I looked like a fool sitting there with my mouth open, but I had never heard anything like it.

When I got home I talked my mother into taking me to Woolworth's to buy one of Patsy Cline's 45s. Played it until it wore out.

More Cas Trivia. He was known as the Old Coonhunter and at the store near my house we would often run into him arriving or leaving in his truck with cages filled with his coon hounds.

I also remember a story that when he opened one of his stores he got up on the roof and threw live chickens off to the crowd

Quite a character. Nice memories

 

[slowburninsteve]

When I was a kid we used to shop at Cas Walker's Supermarket in Morristown, TN. He did his own commercials on television using a poster board. I remember he advertised a product to keep dogs from turning over your trash cans. It was a chain that you wrapped around the can and then plugged it in. A neighbor bought one, and the next day he found this big hound still hanging dead on the can. Needless to say it went off the market real fast. I think it had some kind of built in coil that stored up the electricity which made it a lot hotter than 110!!!!
Cas wore the same brown suit for about 30 years, then his wife made him buy the blue one. He was quite a character. We watched his TV show all the time, and that was back in the black and white days!!! (Showing my age).

Steve

 

[Smitty500Mag]

Ah yes Old Cas. He was a character that's for sure. He was also a hard worker. He went to work in the coal mines in Ky and saved up $850 bucks to buy a grocery store in down town Knoxville. I forget the name of the street it was located on but I went there many times over the years when I was a youngster.

Most people don't know that when he bought that first store there were a lot of people that owed money to the former owner and Cas marked their charge accounts paid in full when he bought the store with the verbal agreement that they'd continue to shop at his store. Made him very popular right off the bat.

Man some of that local country music back then was hard to listen to even if you were tone deft. Red and Fred come to mine.

Actually they were better than most.

He had some catchy ads like the one with the jingle for his watermelons...Thumpin' Good! Thumpin' Good! Cas Walker's Mellon's are Thumpin' Good!

Smitty

That's Cas in the middle in case you can't pick him out.

 

[Muley Gil]

Smitty,

Are you on the left or on the right of Cas?

 

[mbgator]

My grandparents lived in Knoxville, on Baxter Ave. My grandfather owned the Kingston Pike Motel, at Kingston Pike and Neyland Drive. During the Civil War it was used as a hospital. Anyway, There was a Cas Walker grocery store on Broadway, just down the street form where they lived. I used to walk down there and buy candy and crap as a kid.
My grandfather listened to his radio show every morning (I still have his old radio here in the house - still works too!).

Mike