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Stretching 50 cents was an art form
Each Saturday as I made the long trek to the Allen Movie Theatre, I was just happy if it was nice day — otherwise, it would have been a 15-cent round trip on the trolley, which was an awful big part of a 50-cent allowance, and equal to the admission price to the movie itself. That would only leave me 20 cents for candy at recess the whole rest of the school week. And nothing to buy a movie magazine with! Sometimes the movie magazines of the day would tell you more about the stars than you wanted to know, though a lot of it was bull. And don't forget, this was still in the days when the stars had the hair color they born were with. There was beautiful, glamorous Norma Shearer, who was married to Irving Thalberg, a very plain-looking producer. Navarro was the ultimate 'Latin lover,' but he managed to refuse any arranged 'cover' marriages during his relatively short career. (Sadly, he did not end well.) And Clara Bow, well, she couldn't seem to make up her mind, and any 'longtime' partner was never mentioned. Looking back, I remember how all my friends envied that 'princely' 50-cent allowance. Sometimes we don't realize how lucky we are.
As I made my rounds in the neighborhood today, I saw the omnipresent sticker I have been reading for many years now, "I'm proud of my cub scout," plastered on the back bumper of a resident's car. In days gone by, I had such a sticker on the back of at least two of my cars — probably one of the convertibles. All the boys in our troop loved to ride in those cars with the top down as we made our way to the woods or troop meetings and various locations for fun and games. There were 11 kids in the troop, surely too many for them all to be in one car, but I don't recall that we had any trouble. It must have been true what my grandfather, the minister, always told me: "Someone upstairs must like you." We always had good times and a lot of laughs. I remember stopping at a local drug store with the troop on a hot summer day. The other customers at the fountain smiled as we ordered five-cent Cokes, and suddenly, a generous fellow sitting in a booth across the store called over to us. "Everyone have an ice cream soda on me — my treat!" Those sodas cost 10 or 15 cents each, so that was a munificent gesture indeed. The kids were profuse in their thanks. Many years after those cub scout days, I would meet that kindly man again - when he became the President of the Philadelphia College of Art, the school I had attended just a few years before those cub scout days. Small world, isn't it?
Bayview Senior Center is now offering monthly matinee movies and lunch, and this month, Nov. 25, featured the classic "My Fair Lady." Movies typically begin at noon, with a casual lunch served for only $1 per person, seniors 55 and over only, please. For information, call the Center at 436-5190.
"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school." - Albert Einstein See you next week! |
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