Helen Pickette was born in the late 1940s in a part of Ponte Vedra that still clings fiercely to the name Palm Valley. It is, in their minds, a different place separate and unrelated to the mansions and clubs that litter the beach front. Her family lived in a house just north of Papa George’s Fish Camp on the east side of the Intracoastal. Pickett was quick to let me know that she was well into her adulthood before she heard it called the Intracoastal. They just called it the “canal.” Today, Papa George’s Fish Camp is Palm Valley Outdoors. Papa George Oesterreicher owned the house they lived in. Her father rented it.
Around the age of 12, Helen Pickette got a new name. A neighbor stopped by complaining about a brand new .22 caliber target pistol he had purchased. The gun did not work right. To demonstrate, he took aim at some targets and missed. Helen asked for a chance. She took dead aim and hit the bullseye repeatedly. The neighbor, embarrassed or enraged, took the pistol and tossed it into the canal. From that moment forward they called her Petie, short for Pistol Pete. If you doubt this legend, thinking the name Pistol Pete originated with a basketball player from Louisiana, you would be wrong. The name dates back to a legendary lawman named Frank Eaton. Since 1923, his image has been the logo for Oklahoma State University.
Petie grew up in Palm Valley. Her first solid food was gopher tortoise. Her father worked for venerable builder B.B. McCormick, mixing cement. It turns out that mixing cement is like baking a cake. There is a different recipe for different types. You do not use the same cement for sidewalks as you use for bridges. The cement plant was on First Street near the present-day Pablo Towers. The elementary school was across the street.
Her best friend was neighbor Ernie Mickler. Together, they would learn to play music. Dave Plummer taught Ernie to play guitar. Ernie taught Petie. Petie practiced on an old acoustic Stella guitar until her grandmother, seeing promise in the youngster, gave Petie a Gibson Sunburst for Christmas. Ernie and Petie would often get on the party line and practice together on the phone, even though they lived practically next door to each other.
In high school, Petie ran track and cross country for Fletcher. So did Ernie Mickler and his older twin brothers. They all ran barefoot. When they changed the rules and made Petie wear sneakers during her junior year, she was upset. She was certain she could not run as fast.
Ernie was in a band with Dave Plummer called the Fairlanes. They performed at various places around the area. At the same time, Ernie and Petie began to perform together. The two kids were determined to make a name for themselves and approached WAPE personality Jim Atkins. They walked right into his office prepared to audition for him right there, on the spot. Atkins, who would later introduce the Beatles when they performed at the Gator Bowl on Sept. 11, 1964, in the aftermath of a fearsome hurricane and then subsequently run for and win election to the city council, told the pair that he would not listen to them live, but would happily listen to a demo tape.
Ernie and Petie went back to their good friend Dave Plummer who had a recording studio called Cypress Studios. In those days, Cypress was located along the canal at the end of Canal Boulevard. Plummer made them a demo tape of two original songs “Our Love” and “Nosy Neighbors.” Atkins was impressed. He had a recording studio in his house in Arlington and his own record label, Arlingwood Records. In 1962, he produced four singles for Ernie and Petie and played them on the air on WAPE. This was the height of payola scandals across the U.S. WAPE had a 50,000-watt signal that could be heard up and down the coast from Charleston to Cape Canaveral. It seemed like everyone at WAPE had their own record label, hoping to catch lighting in a bottle, in the form of a popular musical act that could make them rich.
Ernie and Petie had something, their twangy folk-rock sound presaged a later era of Jacksonville music. In 1962, their song, “Our Love,” shot up to No. 2 on the local charts, earning significant airtime. WAPE was owned by William Brennan and his brother. Brennan, a Harvard grad from Alabama, owned a number of radio stations in the South. He promoted those stations by putting on rock and roll shows that would eventually feature names like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. They would often have a show on Friday night in Birmingham or Montgomery and then repeat the same show with the same performers on Saturday night in Jacksonville.
In June of 1962, Ernie and Petie were invited to perform in a WBAM Big Summer Show at the Montgomery State Coliseum. Connie Francis was the headliner. Other acts on the bill included Roy Orbison, Bobby Vinton, Skeeter Davis and Bobby Vee. They traveled to the show by bus. When they got there, they befriended a woman in curlers who turned out to be Skeeter Davis. Because the act was called Ernie and Petie, organizers thought that the pair were both boys. They shared a dressing room, barely more than a closet. Petie remembers standing back-to-back as they changed into their show outfits.
The next day they were scheduled to perform in Jacksonville at WAPE’s Big Ape Club Convention. When Skeeter Davis discovered they were planning to travel by bus, she insisted they travel with her and so the duo drove from Montgomery to Jacksonville in the back seat of Skeeter’s convertible. That night they performed with the same line up in front of 10,000 people at the Jacksonville Coliseum.
In November of ’62, they travelled to perform at WSM’s annual Country Music Festival in Nashville at the Andrew Jackson Hotel. When they arrived, their friend Skeeter welcomed them loudly from across the room and announced, “Look everybody, they brought me grapefruit from Florida!” WSM was interviewing Brenda Lee on the RCA Radio Network. The DJ pushed Brenda to the side, so Ernie and Petie could perform “Our Love” live on air. It was the highlight of their short, but eventful career. Shortly after that, Ernie and Jim Atkins would have a fight in the studio. Petie said that “Ernie had a burr under his saddle” and was mad that Jim kept making them sing the same song over and over. Ernie started to curse. Jim Atkins said, “That’s it, go home.”
They never recorded again. Ernie wanted to go to college. He did. Years later, he would write a national bestseller called “White Trash Cooking.” He died tragically in 1988. The multi-talented Petie went on to be a success at design photo laboratories. She is retired now and lives in Atlantic Beach.
Scott A Grant is a local author and frequent contributor. He welcomes your comments at scottg@standfastic.com.
