The Story Of A Giant From Another Era!

as published from Olean Times Hearld in 1973. By Mike Abdo

This a story Chuck Ward or Chuck Pollock should be doing, something that is right up their talented literay alley. . . but they were only "So High" when it happened. 

 It's a story that Bob Daviex can't do because he wasn't traveling in this circle...so, it's one that I'll have to tell. 

 Not that it's a chore - far from it, considering the memories - but there will have to be a number of read-it-between - the -lines areas for you and, of necessity only a few will be named. 

 It's the Jack Hord story ... the story of Jack Hord as I know him from the mid 1930s and on. The complete Jack Hord story would require a number of other chronicles who could travel back further, to the Prohibition era, to World War I and before that. 

 JACK HORD - the fellow that an old boss of mine, John Morton, use to call "Jason" and "the Lord of the Manor" - came to the end of life's trail Tuesday and the obituary was something like the man himself. Simple, no heading on it, no lodge affiliations, and if you don't know Jack Hord, and had not lived his era, it was something unnoticed. 

 Yet, the man was something of a giant in the Olean area for 60 years or so. Maybe more.

 I remember when I was a kid and my pa would mention Jack Hord's name. Then, I knew Jack Hord as the friend and father father confessor of, oh so many people - newspaper men, underworld characters,  athletes, businessmen, business-woman, gamblers, clergymen. You name them and it's very possible they ran across Jack Hord at something or other. 

Jack was the gentleman who ran the Sportsman's Club on the Five Mile Road in the town of Allegany. That throws you right? Well, if I said Jack Hord ran "Jack Hord's" the chances you'll say, "Yes, I stopped in there a time or two or three." I always knew it as "Jack Hord's" and it was the place that was conducted after-hours. 

After-hours, that is, when legal drinking joints closed shop at one o'clock in the morning. 

There was the bar in Jack's place and it was absolutely correct for the decor of Jack's camp. How well did I recall when visitors marveled over the workmanship of the camp and I can just picture Jack - a tall, absolutely bald, ruggedly-handsome guy with an open sport shirt down his chest - explaining to people (even U.S. Senators) how he loved "the good life up here". 

There was one ight, right after Thanksgiving Day, in 1945, - and I was just back from Europe and my way - the first stop was Jack Hord's. It was two o'clock in the morning or so, and Jack's place was bulging customers. 

He wasn't behind the bar. That chore was left to whomever Jack rousted up earlier in the night. Jack handled the door. We pushed a buzzer, I guess. Soon, the peephole opened ... then the door and it was Jack. 

"Mike, you old $?&3/82/8!, you buzzer, when'd you get back," was the Jack Hord greeting. The voice was gruff and gravely - the same as before the war - and it was the same smiling Jack, as only Jack Hord could greet people. 

The People inside were wall-to-wall. 

Behind the bar, was Jack's "collection."

They were Jack's tribute to the armed forces of the United States - the insignia of Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force, Merchant Marine and whatever else Uncle Sam had going for him. Jack's customers, during the war and years after, had left and would leave their "calling card."

It was only natural for an Air Force guy to remove, first, his Eight AF emblem from the left shoulder, then the Ninth AF from the right shoulder sleeve, and resent them to Jack. They joined the hundreds of other military emblems on the back-bar wall. 

The last time I saw them, years after that 1945 "presentation," it was some sight. 

Jack Hord conducted a good place . . . after-hours, and all. 

He demanded "decent language" from his clients and he usually got it. 

Strangely though. whenever one of the visitors did veer from the proper language track, Jack handled it as only Jack Hord could do it . . . plenty of salty words that would make the hardest of Sergeants wince. From Jack Hord, it was something in keeping with the guy. Even old friends, tried and true, required the Jack Hord Language to assure themselves that the old boy was fit as a fiddle. 

Always the ride to Jacks . . . through the village if Allegany, up on the roads, the five mile of the six mile; then the turn into the roadway up to Jack's camp. Outside of the log cabin, Jack had his miniature lake, and his dogs (one was called 'Blitz' and what an animal!). The monkeys, too!

Yes, Jack had two monkeys and I don't readily recollect how he ever did collect them . . . maybe it was his old friend, Red Quinlan, who have them to him. Red, you see, loved a little mischief and he also loved Jack. 

There was the night that a couple of guys - maybe one of them was my pal, Joe, the muscular battler you must know as "Oudee-ay," - decided to take the monkeys for a swim. That didn't settle too well with Jack and he challenged everyone to take him on. As it turned out, all finished well for the night that ended about seven in the morning. 

If Jack Hord kept a diary - and I doubt it - it would be something of a history of the Olean-Bradford area from the turn of the century. Having known Jack Hord, he took everything with him - the bad with the good memories.