During the fifties my childhood gave me a great opportunity to allow my imagination to fly freely. It was the pre-television era in my small hometown. The main form of entertainment for kids besides carefree playing involved going to movies.
We spent many a Saturday afternoon watching films in one of two theaters in our town of 7,000. My favorite movie house had been majestically titled “The Brown Grand.” I believe its history involved a theater for dramatic presentations. Its formal appearance with maroon velvet curtains and opera boxes lining off the balcony indicated its life prior to the movie theater era.
Children’s admittance cost a whopping twenty-five cents, with a dime for popcorn and another for a coke. Various heroes and heroines marched across the screen throughout that period. The images stirred within my brain and like most children, I repeated their themes in playtime.
My next door buddy and I took on the persona of Tarzan and Jane as we grunted to one another from our tree top hideaway.
“Me Tarzan; you Jane,” he pointed out in ape-language, after beating on his chest. All that was missing were the grapevines from which we’d swing from tree to tree.
Other days my girlfriend and I sang romantic arias to one another after seeing “Indian Love Call.”
“I am calling you-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ooooo,” we’d croon to one another from opposite ends of the basement staircase. Even the stars Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald could not have excelled our dramatic gestures.
Best of all, though, were the myriad of cowboy movies we treasured. We would sit at the edge of our theatre seats as white-hatted Roy Rogers or Gene Autry chased after the bad guys in their black hats.
My friends and I couldn’t wait to gallop to my grandmother’s house onto a well-worn path circling her home. We mounted our broom sticks and slapped our thighs to imitate the hoof beats of our imaginary horses.
I received a cowgirl outfit for Christmas one year. In addition to a genuine Hop-a-long Cassidy hat, the ensemble included a six-shooter, holster, vest with star-shaped badge, boot covers, gloves and lariat. Hop-a-long didn’t sing like Gene Autry, but he was a serious cowpoke.
Compared to the bomb-exploding, high-action heroes of today, our flicks seem pretty low-key. However, to an impressionable young girl in the 50’s, they offered good values of honesty, hard work, and respect for authority–not a bad foundation for later years.
“Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word €¦”
And the cowgirls will play all the day.
Dianna
Sharing the Fruit of Maturity
