My Life in 1950
The time is late March, 1950... I'm in the fourth grade at Jefferson Davis Elementary School... my teacher is a big, tall German lady with a heck of a handle... Mrs. Westerhaus... she is a tough old Prussian... really strict...she would have made a great German general... she might have won the war for them... nobody would mess with her... there were two fourth grade teachers... everybody wants to be in the other class... that teacher was a happy-go-lucky sort that everybody liked... nobody liked Mrs. Westerhaus... but, looking back on it, she was really a fine teacher... I learned a lot in her class... just didn't realize it then... I was blessed to have her in my life... the Good Lord Jesus had taken care of me... He has put many wonderful people in my life to help me get through it... and it has been a really good 'un, so far... and getting better.
I'm 9 years old...but soon to be 10... this was a very important time in my life... I discovered sports... just about every day in our neighborhood we would play sandlot softball... we would play it on the "neutral ground"... in New Orleans that is what they call the median between between two lanes of traffic... my street was a boulevard... I don't remember how well I played at the time, but I do know a girl named Mary would beat out butts every day... we all wanted to play on Mary's team... and yeah, Mary was pretty, too... although I don't think I paid much attention to girls at this time... I was too busy playing cowboys and indians... fighting the Germans and Japanese like John Wayne... and going to movies... I loved movies... especially cowboy and war movies... didn't care much for the "kissing-type" movies that my mama liked... I spent many hours at the Saenger, Joy, Lowe's State Theatre, Orpheum, Globe, Tudor, Pitt, Fox and Gentilly theatres watching Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, Red Ryder, Little Beaver, Lash Larue, Sunset Carson, the Durango Kid, Charles Starrett, the Three Mesquiteers, Wild Bill Elliott, Monte Hale, Jimmy Wakely, the Lone Ranger and Tonto... saw a bunch of war movies, too... I guess my favorite movie of all time was "Fort Apache" with John Wayne and Henry Fonda... at latest count I have watched it 11 times... another one was the "Sands of Iwo Jima" with John Wayne... in Mobile I spent my time at the Saenger, Downtown, Lyric, Crown, Azalea, Loop, Empire and Century theatres...the Lyric Theatre on Conti Street was really special... they featured a live vaudeville show along with a movie... I remember Cotton Clark was the star and comic... my uncle and I saw as many as 6 movies in a day... Uncle Bill was more like a brother... he was six years older than me and we went everywhere together.
We used to shine shoes on the corner in Mobile to get enough money to got to the movies... we would shine 5 pairs of shoes at 10 cents a pair... then head to the movies for a coke, popcorn and a piece of candy... a quarter would get you into the movie and also provided the other necessities of life... we used to store the wooden shoebox in the trash can by the movies... not a smart thing to do... we lost the shoebox with all our shine rags, brushes and shoe polish when the garbage men picked up the trash... hey, we were young... and not the sharpest tools in the woodshed.
In 1950, we didn't have TV... only rich folks had it in the early years... it was 1953 before my family could afford a TV of their own... from 1949 to 1953, I would watch sports on TV at a neighbor's house... we didn't have air conditioning either... folks would sit out on the porch to beat the heat at night... some of them would go to the local minor league team's games... my team was the New Orleans Pelicans... really loved to go to Pelican Stadium at the corner of Carrollton and Tulane... just a thought on new technology... air conditioning and TV killed minor league baseball... just my opinion... people stop going in the early 50s... they would stay home in the cool of their house and watch TV instead of going out into the muggy heat at the ballgames... there were 67 minor leagues in the late 40s... within 10 years most of them were gone.
Going downtown was a big thing in 1950... we would dress up in our Sunday best and head downtown... this past weekend we really had a treat... my mama, daddy and me went to the Saenger Theatre in downtown New Orleans on Canal Street... before the movie we went to dinner at Walgreen's... that right, the drugstore... it also served really good comfort food at modest prices in the restaurant upstairs... we loved it because they would serve hot sweet yeast rolls, fresh out of the oven and onto your waiting plates... my, my, my... they were finger-licking good, dripping with butter... you could make a whole meal off of them... the waitresses would periodically come out of the kitchen with piping hot rolls on a tray and pass them out... we often ate at Walgreen's... the restaurant and lunch counter was on the second floor... you can see the windows just above the two Walgreens signs in the photo below... I always got a hamburger steak with brown onion gravy and real mash potatoes, not those gummy instant potatoes you get today.
After a scruptuous feast... maybe that's an embellishment by me... but it was special to us... afterwards we headed to the beautiful Saenger Theatre to see the latest Walt Disney movie "Cinderella"... and it was a good 'un, too... loved the song "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo"... that song was nominated for the Academy Award the next year in 1951... sang that song for weeks after seeing the movie.
You can hear and sing the magical words "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" right here:
(Oh, yeah... you have to say the magic words to get the song to play)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJy8kdNNrvI