THE PRINCESS THEATER

Before I leave my innocence behind and move off to the Air Force, I thought I had better do an installment on the Princess Theater in Harriman. I had almost forgotten about it, although I pass its empty shell most days, but I found a video clip on YouTube last night that brought it all back (clip at the end of the post). I sure hope there is a renaissance of the theater for nostalgia sake, if not because it might help bring people back down town.

“Walley” Worlds have killed the small town, not to mention the sprawling urban shopping areas that get closer and closer with each passing year. It seems that one day there will be no divisions between the cities and the small towns, just more urban area to incorporate. Maybe by the year 3000 the whole country will just be called the “Great City of the United States!” Such a sad day and I am glad I will not be around to see it.

The Princess Theater was the highlight of entertainment during the days of my youth. Oh, there were other theaters, skating rinks, a bowling alley, a drive-in theater, and a number of drive-in restaurants, but none of those holds fonder memories than the 50s and 60s movies I saw at the Princess.

There are fond memories of seeing the early Disney movies like “Bambi,” released in 1957, “Old Yeller” in 1958, “Sleeping Beauty” in 1959, and the other classics.

There was also the first 3-D movie I ever saw “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” in 1954. It was not so much scary to me as erotic – Julie Adams in that white bathing suit was just hot and I wished I was the monster!

While logic would dictate that I saw some of these at the Mi De Ga Theater in Waverly, Tennessee, the blender of time will always make me think I saw them all at the Princess.

Oh, and the horror classics of the time still shine the most in my memory. Vincent Price, Lon Chaney Jr., Peter Cushing, Boris Karloff, and Christopher Lee all gave me many a restless night, but I could not stop watching. Again, these movies, while they kept me awake at night, were also very erotic to me in some strange way. There was just something about carrying off a helpless beauty or sneaking into her bedroom – oh my! You know how the adolescent mind works – remember?

I remember the popcorn smell of the theater and the sticky/tacky touch of the floor between the seats and the little squishy sounds it made when you walked over it.

I remember the low hum of teenage voices, just under the movie sounds, whispering in the ears of their dates or remarks made out loud meant to make an impression on some pretty girl.

I remember leaning out from an end seat and looking down the carpeted aisle illuminated by the little lights on the sides of the seats. I do not know why I liked to look down the aisles, but maybe it was the colorful carpet in the unique lighting. For some strange reason it was a safe place to me, and I loved being there among friends and acquaintances – sharing the experience of being in a movie theater.

Occasionally, there was a live show, or at least a prelude show to build up the intrigue in the up coming horror show. “If you frighten easily, or if you have heart problems, or if you are here alone, I advise you to leave now!” This, of course, only made you want to see the movie that much more. “The screen will flash red just before a scary scene to warn you. That will give you time to hide your eyes!”

“Okay, okay,” everyone would shout, “get on with it!”

The popcorn and the Coke tasted so good as you crammed your mouth full of the salty, buttery food and soaked it down with the icy, sweet, and syrupy liquid. And Goobers and Sugar Babies! Oh, my gosh, what I would give for a pack of Goobers right now!

Well, some just nibbled the corn, one kernel at a time, but I was like a hamster, bulging out my cheeks and not swallowing until it was thoroughly chewed! This must have been an added attraction for my dates!

I think back on those days and nights and the calculated strategy of trying to sneak an arm up and around a girl’s neck, and let it rest there on a fake rabbit collar, gently rubbing the Ban Lon sweater sleeve with your hand, and inhaling the White Shoulders perfume. Come to think of it, this could have been the beginnings of my shoulder problems. Girls do not realize that this position is really uncomfortable and within the first two to three minutes your arm usually went to sleep, but you would not move it for the world. To a young boy it was worth the pain just to get into position to slide into first base!

This position was also a point of some status – to be seen out with one whom you thought to be the prettiest girl in school, with your arm around her at the movie.

Finally, I remember the balcony – a place I was only allowed after the 60’s and after I married the manager’s daughter. Before then it was just for the “Colored” folks, who occasionally dropped off empty cups and popcorn boxes onto us snobby “white” folks below. I am so glad that time ended; otherwise I would have never got to enjoy a movie from the balcony, which was closed to everyone except family.

So, here is a piece that was posted on YouTube in 2006 about the efforts to bring the Princess back to her glory. Here is hoping that happens! My grandchildren also deserve fond memories of her as well.

BREAKING INTO THE OUTHOUSE

The photograph of the six-holer above is from DaNang South Vietnam. On a day off touring the base, again, because we were restricted to base unless we rode an escorted 6X6 to China Beach, I took this shot from atop an old French bunker for entertainment. If you look closely, you can make out one lonely occupant, taking care of business! The little flaps in the back was where you slid out the “crap” barrels, poured JP4 on the contents and set it ablaze if you were unfortunate enough to draw “shit detail!”

This story has nothing to do with this particular “crapper”, but it did remind me of the times the County Fair came to Humphreys County when I lived in Waverly, Tennessee. Three or four of us teenage boys wanted to save the cost of admission for grander things like rides, cotton candy, hotdogs, and games of chance! So, we devised a break-in scheme, and the one we came up with seemed foolproof.

The first day we went down to the main gate in the hopes someone would take pity on us and let us in free, but nobody did, and they actually seemed irritated that we stood there so long and watched them work. In retrospect this was our downfall.

Finally we walked off and started down the side of the poplar board fence kicking at cans and looking through the cracks and smelling the aroma of what we were missing. As we leaned against the boards near one particularly large crack, we noticed that people were walking toward the fence and disappearing just below where we stood. After a few minutes they reappeared and walked off into the crowd again. Upon closer observation, we realized we were near the outhouses that used the fence as a back wall.

I do not remember who first got the bright idea, but soon we were prying at a loose board on the back of the men’s outhouse. When someone came in, we jumped back away from the cracks and waited. Finally, we had a single board, about seven to eight inches wide, free at the bottom so that it would hinge to either the left or right.

I was the first one to slide between the planks and into the outhouse where I quickly locked the door. I looked through a crack in the door afraid to go out. The others whispered encouragement and “chicken” at me from the other side of the fence. It occurred to me that no one would think anything about it if I just acted naturally. I pushed open the door, and walked straight toward the crowd pretending to finish zipping my pants!

It worked like a charm – no one was the wiser or even looked at me. I stood near the corner of a concession looking back at the fence. Sure enough, soon there came one familiar face, then another, until we were all standing there giddy with delight and barely able to contain our pride in our covert accomplishment.

That day and the next were terrific adventures. We roamed the fairgrounds like proud outlaws that had gotten away with robbing the biggest bank in town. Each day our mom’s would give us the price of admission, to keep us out of their hair probably, and a little extra with which to eat and have fun. Each day, we saved the admission and came out of the outhouse one at a time zipping up our pants as if we owned the place.

However, on the third day the youngest member of our “breaking in the outhouse gang” panicked when a fair employee, who had remembered the kid standing at the front gate, looked questioningly in his direction. The terrified kid bolted to the outhouse and back through the fence. Before we knew what was happening, there was a man in the outhouse inspecting the swinging board, and two others were running around from the gate toward us. Like chickens being chased by a dog, we scattered in all directions. Our ruse was up and worse yet, we could not even come back with our parents!

The fair was over for us but we decided that there was always next year. However, when next year came, there were brand new outhouses sitting far away from the fence. From that year on, it was a slow fair year!

MY TWO BEST HALLOWEENS

Well, here is the only “ghost” shot I could get to post - it was horrible folks! That hideous face, raising out of the ground, and the moans it made! It reminded me of …

The most memorable Halloween I ever had is a compilation of memories from the three years I lived in Waverly, Tennessee. I lived there in the years between the seventh and ninth grades. Besides where I live now, Waverly was the longest period of time I ever lived anywhere. I left grade school and entered high school there with many friends and a comfort level for belonging that I never acquired any other time in my education history, including college.

These Waverly years were my Elvis years. In 1958, Elvis was just beginning to hit it big and sock hops, TV dances, meeting girls at the movie house on Saturdays, and parties that included playing spin the bottle with girls was the “in” thing in those days. I loved this time and whenever I think about school days or think about my Happy Days times, this period is it.

It was a time I first became aware of fast cars and can still recall the sweet sound of a black 1958 Chevy 409 going through the gears heading out of town, with its 4-barrel wide open and sucking in the cool night air. It would be years before I could duplicate that in my own “hot rod.”

It was a classic time, a time of finding yourself, of discovering where you belong, and of losing your innocence. It was a time of my first broken heart, my first rejection, and my first realization that living in a trailer was not exactly what your new girlfriend’s parents wanted in their daughter’s future. I do not know why people always think that the way a person starts out in life is the place they will remain. In truth, that is rare, more often than not such an environment pushes people to do their best in life.

But this was my life at the time, my comfort zone, and I took everything in and remember it most. I once even sneaked back into Waverly late one night while driving to Memphis. It had changed, but there was enough remaining that I could see me riding my bicycle down its Elm canopied Main Street on the way home.

I remembered sneaking down this street on a Halloween night, hopping from tree to tree until I made it up to a red light. Behind me were two fellow mischievous boys carrying water-filled balloons. We hid ourselves from the oncoming cars and waited for them to stop at the light.

Halloween nights are usually warm and that night was no exception. You could hear rock’n roll and girls giggling coming from the open passenger side window just before we released our barrage of water bombs. Then, just gasps from cold water and screams of surprise!

As we ran, we could hear soft core cursing (not the filth you hear today) and someone calling out one of our names! We lay in the grass beside Warren’s house and rolled with laughter for several minutes. But soon, we were brave enough for another car bombing.

As I drove along I saw a familiar porch with its white washed steps and thick concrete block walls and low hanging flower baskets. It was on this porch and all around the yard where a neighborhood lady created the scariest Halloween she could imagine.

I could see myself walking reluctantly up her sidewalk, past the lighted pumpkins, dummies in rocking chairs with strange noises coming from behind them. Fake spider webs draped her hedges, and hung from the eaves of the house. Little orange and red lights flickered and the “Monster Mash” was playing off in some dark corner of the porch.

Just as you made the first step up, the lady, dressed in a very authentic looking witch’s costume, greeted you, and took your hand as she helped you onto the porch. In order to be rewarded with candy, you had to perform a few rituals. “Now, stick your hand into this bucket my sweetie,” she hoarsely instructed. “Feel the eyes?”

The power of suggestion works greatest on young minds and I could actually visualize the wet gooey grapes as actual eyeballs. I would quickly jerk my hand back and await her next command. “Now feel these cat guts!” Warm noodles and spaghetti in the dark can be imagined as most anything gory!

There were other things to feel as you ran the gauntlet to the candy. However, it was the most exciting times ever for a young boy during his Halloween season.

Last, but not the least scary, was her husband who suddenly rose up from one of the rocking chairs and screamed “Boo!” as loudly as he could. After the jumping around and screaming stopped, he held out his huge bucket of candy, or pointed you toward candid apples (in the days before razor blades sliced into our innocence) and popcorn balls. The two spared no expense.

I do not know if they had children or not, but if they did they probably stayed right there the entire evening and joined in the spooky fun. If not, we were their children for a night and they seemed to love each of us. They took time to compliment our costumes and ask our names and pushed us back out into the Halloween night saying, “See ya next year, my sweets!”

Number two in my memories of Halloween was not in Waverly, but in Harriman, Tennessee where I was by then a seventeen year old in heat!

We were past the age we could legally dress up, but we still roamed the neighborhood streets as the little ones trick-or-treated their way around house to house. There must have been about a six of us teenage boys prowling around on “sort of” dates with our best girls, trying to impress them with our stupid antics.

I was with a girl that was wearing a big white fuzzy coat and her “grand Tetons” as we referred to them were teasing me and calling my hand in the dark as we walked. She wore bras that remind me of Madonna’s gold metal sharp pointed stage bras – sharp enough you could stick paper notes down over to keep them from flying away!

Well, that is another story. Do not know how that snuck in here, but memories are strange roving entities that can materialize anywhere they want.

My attempt at impressing the pretty gal came as an opportunity to pound the rear quarter panel of a slow passing car. I banged the side of the car and fell down in the middle of the road holding my leg hollering.

A man stopped and jumped out of the car and flashed his Constable badge in our direction and wanted to know if I was all right. I pretended things were find and walked off into the dark to escape the embarrassment! He finally drove off after telling everyone to stop walking in the middle of the road.

Everyone got a good laugh at me, but hey, I was a bit of a clown then (and now) and liked it when they laughed, for whatever reason.

As I have stated before, I do not personally celebrate Halloween and the reason is mainly because I think the observance has changed from a celebration of life, where families enjoy it together, to one of evil or death. Life should be celebrated not death. If you carve the pumpkin, welcome the neighborhood children accompanied by their parents, and take the time to recognize each child’s creative effort, as a family, then go ahead, have a Happy Halloween.

MY HANDS FELT JUST LIKE TWO BALLOONS

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain you would not understand
This is not how I am.

I have become comfortably numb.

From “Comfortably Numb” (Gilmour, Waters)

I loved living in Waverly, TN and if I could have been raised in one place (I attended 9 different schools growing up – more on that latter) that would be where I would have chosen. It was a beautiful community; at least it was between 1958 and 1960. Main Street leading into the city from the east was a completely covered by a canopy of mature elm trees and made the trip, especially by bicycle, a kind of magical mystery tour for a pre-pubescent boy.

I had learned the art of working for money and had many an odd job like digging up old rose bushes for elderly widow women in the neighborhood and mowing several yards. Naturally, I did not yet have my own mower and gas, but rather used the customer’s equipment.

This situation was the spawn of the only dream I ever had come true. I dreamed I was using a neighbor’s new Lawn Boy mower and hit something and all that was left of the mower were the handlebars – the rest totally vaporized! The very next day I hit a rock and knocked out a large chunk of cast metal from the side of the Lawn Boy. I agonized about telling Mr. Payhal when he got home that afternoon, but as it turned out he was a very understanding and logical man. “Could have happened to me just the same son - don’t worry about it.” Wow, if only my dad had been that insightful!

Anyway, one hot August day I had ridden down the long elm tunnel into town a couple of times, gone to the store for my mom and returned with a full basket, mowed three yards, and dug up one old stubborn hedge bush for a lady down the street. I was just about at the end of my youthful stamina when Richard begged me to “camp out” with him that night. Camping out to us meant sleeping out in the yard rolled up in our sleeping bags. We fancied ourselves great outdoorsmen ever since the Boy Scout Camporee the previous winter.

The night was very hot and humid, as most are that time of year. However, I have always had a habit of pulling the bed covers up under my neck while I sleep. I had grown up with quilts and loving the feel of them next to my skin, even in the summer. So, up around my neck came the insulated sleeping bag.

They found me the next morning, in the fetal position wrapped in the sleeping bag unable to move and only semi-conscious. This was probably the closest I ever came to dying.

The doctor diagnosis was that I had sweated all the sodium out of my body – I had no electrolytes and my hands were drawn into fist and “felted just like two balloons.” To this day, when I am very sick and dehydrated my fingers will began to draw toward my palms and feel swollen and puffy.

There was no Gatorade in those days, so the solution was to get as much salt into me as quickly as possible. Under directions of the doctor, who never suggested a hospital for some reason, I had to drink glass after glass of tomato juice with about an inch to two inches of salt in the bottom.

It was several days before I regained any strength and began to look and act normally. The incident gave my mom and dad quite a scare and the condition affected me for years. I had very low tolerance to heat and when I went into the Air Force I was the first one to ask for the salt tablets during PE. I was also very weary of my propensity to heat exhaustion in Vietnam.

With the energy and stupidity of youth, I was back out ridding the tunnel to town in a couple of weeks, mowing yards, and grubbing flower gardens again. However, I was more conscientious about drinking plenty of water from that point on.

Ah, those were the days my friends that I long for when I think of my youth, my Norman Rockwell, or Herb Mandel days - days of playing in the streets, along the creek bank, in the woods, in the sage grass fields, and taking in the wonder of being young and on the cusp of becoming a teenager.

When I was a child

I caught a fleeting glimpse

Out of the corner of my eye

I turned to look but it was gone

I cannot put my finger on it now

The child is grown

The dream is gone

And I have become Comfortably numb.

From “Comfortably Numb” (Gilmour, Waters)

The fleeting glimpse is youth and it cannot be held long or long enough, and too soon we become comfortably numb and stop dreaming. All that is left are subtle reminders of those days, things like your hands feeling like two balloons.

I BLAME IT ON THE BUZZ BOMB

I’m overweight, ugly, my joints hurt, my hair has turned gray, my soldier doesn’t salute very often, my eyesight and hearing are getting worse, and I think I know why – DDT!

“The Buzz Bomb is coming!” came the call down the street and ten to fifteen kids hit their front doors, grabbed their bikes, and headed out to meet the weekly tour of the neighborhood by the city DDT spraying Jeep. We called it the “Buzz Bomb”, not knowing that it did sort of sound like the WWII flying bombs Germany sent in from France to terrorize England, but because of the weird guttural sound it made as it slowly moved down Fairground Drive in Waverly, Tennessee.

We formed up on the side of the street as it came by and then charged into the white dense cloud about 100 feet behind the Jeep, holding our breath for as long as we could. You see, as long as you didn’t breathe it, it couldn’t hurt you. Getting it on your skin, in your eyes, and on your clothes did not matter. It had to get inside your lungs or mouth before it could hurt you was the myth we believed.

I was always toward the front, racing with one or two others to see who could get up the closest to the nozzle of the buzzing bomb, see the flicker of the fire inside the nozzle where the mixture was ignited and discharged, without running out of air and having to dart to the side for a clear breath of air. If you darted out too soon, you lost the contest.

Often times, two or more of us ran into each other and piled up in the middle of the street, shouting obscenities at each other, and…breathing!

All the while, the driver was oblivious that the neighborhood children were following him as if he were the Good Humor or snow cone man. The cloud came out in a narrow dense stream about 6 inches wide for about 18 inches before expanding the width of the street and rising some 50 feet into the night air. It was impossible to see through the fog until the Jeep was some quarter of a mile down the street. It slowly expanded and dissipated into a fine mist that floated throughout the neighborhood.

The driver was actually one of many Pied Pipers that roamed neighborhoods in the 50s, 60s, and up until the DDT ban in 1973. Kids could not resist chasing the buzzing sound and bellowing white smoke, and parents only warned us not to breathe.

So, that’s what’s wrong with me today, course it’s taken it 60 years to work on my body, to break it down and to get me to this awful state. I know my symptoms sound a lot like old age, but I know differently – it was the DDT mixed with the Agent Orange I came in contact with in Vietnam, and yes, maybe combined with a little passing of time that did the real damage.

There is a push on today to bring DDT back and I think we should all unite and beat down this notion. If we don’t, many more people are going to get old like me. 

STOP THE BUZZ BOMB!

A SCOUT IS FRIENDLY, COURTEOUS, & KIND

Three of the 12 laws a Boy Scout pledges to are:

A Scout is Friendly.
A Scout is a friend to all. He is a brother to other Scouts. He offers his friendship to people of all races and nations, and respects them even if their beliefs and customs are different from his own.
A Scout is Courteous.
A Scout is polite to everyone regardless of age or position. He knows that using good manners makes it easier for people to get along.
A Scout is Kind.
A Scout knows there is strength in being gentle. He treats others as he wants to be treated. Without good reason, he does not harm or kill any living thing.

So how well did I uphold these laws as a youth growing up in Waverly, Tennessee? Not very well and I think you’ll agree.

I actually loved the scouts; I loved reading the Boy’s Life magazine about other boys my age across the country who were striving to be the best scout in the whole of the United States. However, I’ve always been just a bit too lazy to actually exceed in much. I’ve always done just enough, but an Eagle Scout I was never going to be – just wasn’t the right material.

I loved tying knots, collecting leaves, and learning tracking signs. I actually could do most of the projects required to become an Eagle Scout, but I wasn’t going to sit down and learn Morse code, or anything really time consuming or hard – just too lazy and too interested in other things.

I also loved camping and remember my first campout in the scouts. I was so excited that when I woke up the next morning there was frost on the lower quarter of my sleeping bag! Wow, and I hadn’t even gotten cold. I was a real camper – could survive in the elements just like an Artic explorer!

However, my excitement for the scouts changed one evening in January. Something happened that made me realize I did not have the right stuff – just couldn’t keep the laws as I should. I discovered guilt – something that keeps most folks from understanding the true gift of Grace, and it was a long time before I ever felt worthy of manhood.

Snow had begun falling and was already collecting on the ground as we scouts gathered at the lodge that was located behind the high school, between the school and a long ridge of rolling Middle Tennessee hills.

None of us could listen to the Scout Master with full attention at all that evening because we knew what was happening outside. We could not wait to run home ripping snowballs at each other and watching the world turn white and fresh.

All things finally end, even if you think they never will. We ran, screamed, rolled, and tossed snowballs until we broke up into our neighborhood groups. I belonged to the Fairground Drive gang of young hoodlums; two of us trailer trash that came in with the New Johnsonville TVA construction families. We walked slowly across Highway 70 toward the alley that ran between Hwy 70 and Fairground Drive talking about everything 13 year old boys discuss, kicking snow as we walked. The snow had accumulated about 2 inches while we were getting our weekly scouting lesson.

Suddenly, out of the east came the sound of a tractor trailer changing gears. Almost simultaneously we all got the same idea “Let’s snowball’im!”

We ran back toward the highway and each of us chose an elm tree for cover, 2 on the far side of the street and 2 on the near side, and began forming snowballs to about 3” diameter.

The truck driver had just pushed his rig into high gear as he passed the school heading into town when we let loose the bombardment! Two snowballs hit directly into the driver’s windshield, while one missed completely and the other harmlessly thumped the trailer just back of the cab.

Everything would have been fun from that point on had the driver either not been a hot head, or had not panicked! Suddenly, we knew the brakes had locked on the truck and the trailer began to jackknife badly toward the school side of the street. With eyes wide open and mouths following suit, we stood motionless for several seconds until someone yelled “RUN”!

Just as I regained my composure enough to get my feet moving, I heard the door on the cab slam shut and began to hear the patter of big feet splashing the slush on the street. “Oh God, he’s coming”, I yelled, visualizing a tire-iron or gun in the driver’s hand.

We dashed through yards and on to the entrance of the alley that had been our first destination. The two guys that had been hiding across the highway had already made it into the darkness of the alley and were nearly 50 yards ahead of me. The guy that had been on the other side with me was about 10 yard ahead of me; having come to his senses sooner than I.

The foot steps were getting louder behind me and were about to be drown out by the heart beats pounding my ear drums – my heart was racing and I was nearly out of wind, not so much the running but from pure fear.

I knew I couldn’t see him and that he probably couldn’t see me – yet – so I decided to make a calculated move. I would dive into the ditch that ran along the alley and let him pass me in the dark, but if he could see me, I was dead meat!

I ran 3 or 4 more strides and launched myself into the dark ditch – right into a tangle of briars, but I held my screams in check. I could hear him clearly now just steps back, and I was sure he could hear my heart thumping out its telltale message – here he is, here he is!

As fate would have it, he stopped directly beside where I lay terrified. I could hear him breathing, gasping over the sound of my heart, and I just knew he would soon hear it and look my way.

Down the alley I could still hear the other criminals running and hollering instructions of some sort. The driver listened too and moved on a few steps. Then, as God chose to bless me, he silently moved off the alley and into a backyard of one of the houses that fronted the highway.

After several long minutes I heard the truck door slam again, the truck motor rev up, and a gear grinding into place – he was leaving!

I rolled over onto my back and looked up into the night sky, caught a few flakes in my mouth, filled my lungs with cold air and thanked God for sparing me – sparing me the embarrassment my parents would have felt and the ass whooping my dad would have given me!

The other guys eventually came back down the alley looking for me. By then, we had gotten over the shock and nervously laughed about the previous event, but down inside me, I knew I could never again be a true scout.

I had not been friendly to my fellow man, I had not been polite or used good manners, I had not been kind and gentle and had almost brought harm to another. I was not worthy yet to be trusted with any oath, law, motto, or slogan – I was still just a kid and I still had a lot of growing up to do.