One local GOP delegate was about to become a TV star, 55 years ago

In July of 1964, Bangor attorney John Bosshard was headed to San Francisco as a delegate to the Republican National Convention. A camera crew from public TV, known in those days as National Educational Television, was planning to follow Bosshard, his wife, and their four children as they traveled by car from Wisconsin to California.

The national commander of the American Legion spoke in La Crosse for a 4th of July ceremony that summer. Daniel Foley lived just up the road in Wabasha, and he drew parallels between 1964 and the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Foley said the U.S. must meet the enemy in places like Cuba and Vietnam, or ‘we will meet him in the streets of New York.’

Rudy’s A & W Drive-In on South Avenue was celebrating its 33rd anniversary in July. Not far from Rudy’s was another drive-in, Vi’s Zesto. It was selling root beer for 75 cents a gallon, if you brought your own container, in 1964, yesterday in La Crosse.