Oct. 04, 2003 - 21:58 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Simple Pleasures

The first movies I saw were silents. Hoot Gibson and Lon Chaney and others of their ilk, Keystone Kops too. I remember the piano player down front playing mood music to fit the picture.

Going to the movies then was a great occasion, Mom, Dad and I on a fun excursion, it was so great to be enjoying something together like that. Then later on came the talkies, Al Jolsen in the Jazz Singer I think the first was.

Then going to the movies became an ingrained habit for me, we lived in easy walking distance from two neighborhood theaters, so I was allowed to go by myself on Sunday afternoons.

Sometimes I paid my own way with cash made by delivering handbills door to door for grocery stores and other times money was given to me in goodwill by Dad and Mom, I was proud when I could pay my way, times were hard. It was real neat to go to the show. There would be a newsreel, then a cartoon then the feature. As I grew a bit older I would go by myself or with friends downtown to raid the candy stores, cigar stores and see the shows, but that was later.

Before I was old enough to be allowed to go out alone at night, Mom and Dad and I would go to a neighborhood show together. I liked the evening shows better because there would usually be a sing along, "follow the bouncing ball" thingy above the words shown on the screen. I remember that it seemed that everyone was singing. That was great fun for me, I could sing loud and no one could tell how far off key I was.

Ahhhh, but the downtown shows were an extra special treat. Early on it would be a seldom thing, an evening down town, supper at a nice restaurant, then to one of the big theaters with plush seats. The fare was about the same, newsreel, cartoon and feature film -- but some time in there the double feature came into being - which prolonged the fun. Anyway, toward the end of the show the lights would come up, and up in front the keyboard for the grand theater pipe organ would rise up from below the floor and the organist in his finery would take his seat. Many of the tunes played were familiar to me, "Lady of Spain," "In a Little Spanish Town," "Home on the Range," others were new to me but were grand music. One would have to experience pipe organ music in a big theater to understand just how great it is. As near as I can figure it would have to be a big pipe organ in a church somewhere to equal that big theater sound which used to stir the very blood in my veins. Then we would catch the streetcar home, riding in one of those old wooden tramway cars that would sway and twist along the way, squeal around the corners as if the wheels would grind themselves completely away, shading m eyes and looking into the lit windows along the way. I could always tell where we by the stores we passed. All the way home I would be doing my version of an instant rerun in my head. But, I would be the hero, the adventurer, I buckled many a swash those wonderful times.

I don't think a kid nowadays would even get an idea of the fun it was then and I don't know how to impart that information. I know my 13 year old grandson has the attitude of, "Yeah, yeah Grandpa but just what did you do for fun ?" That was FUN, great fun for me. How I long to experience once more some of those Simple Pleasures . . . . . . . . . . . .

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