Art and Mil, cir. '39
I HEARD JOE LOUIS FIGHT...ON THE RADIO!
*******************************************************
Bet I can do something, most of you
can't! That is---
Remember the Thirties!
They were both good times
and bad.
At least everyone then loved
the good old USA---
Yet Hitler was working up to
begin a war, which
would eventually cost the world
seventy million souls.
Little kids, starting to school
were innocently playing
Red Rover and eating
"plumgranites."
A dollar was a dollar, and
some people worked
all day for one.
my dad did.
Avalon smokes were nine cents
a pack...I know---I was
sent to buy 'em, at the little
Red and White Store
there in Clovis on West Grand.
Bread was nine cents a loaf....
Bacon was nineteen cents
a pound, and pork 'n beans were
twelve cents a can...
Candy bars--- Hersheys, Snickers,
Baby Ruths, Butterfingers,
Black Cows, Walnettos, and Bit 'O
Honeys were all a nickel...
Wrigley's was a great gum in those
days...and was five cents...
Coffee was a nickel and no one
dreamed of paying two
or three dollars (the price of a
steak dinner) for a cup
of coffee, in those days...
A three-scoop ice cream cone
was fifteen cents, and a
good thick "malted milk" was
thirty-five cents.
NEHI orange and grape soda pops
BARQ's root beers, twelve
ounce PEPSIS, DELAWARE
PUNCHES were all a nickel...
as well as the fascinating, strong,
eye-watering
six-and-a-half ounce COCA-COLAS
that came in the little weird
tinted-green funny-shaped bottles.
Adults drank them.
Even Cracker Jacks, born at the
1892 Chicago World's Fair,
were a nickel...and you got a free
prize in each box!
Clovis was a marvelous, quiet little
town, filled with good Americans---
all trying to get along in life...
There were three movie
theaters, a tall new hotel, and a
Woolworth's, right in the
middle of town...and the pride of all---
The Barry Hardware Store!
The USA hadn't yet experienced
Pearl Harbor, or WWII, and
lost over a half million sons and
run up a WWII debt of
288 billion dollars, while helping the
whole world with "lend lease."
The Doolittle Raiders likely hadn't
learned to fly yet.
All that was ahead...in THE FORTIES.
Little Mil started to school at La Casita
over at Thornton and W. Seventh---
at the tender age of five; early
September, 1939, while Germany
was invading Poland on some pretext.
As I sit here this cool fall day of
November, 2014, drinking a strong
old fashioned Coca Cola and eating
a box of Cracker Jacks...
I can see it all, back then, seventy-five
years ago....it was.
The "old planet" has turned over many
times since those days...
Most of our friends and loved ones
from then are gone...
Many, many great American boys have
paid the ultimate price for
our freedoms and way of life...
Now the questions hit this old-timer---
Is the USA being ruined by its
politicians, illegal immigrants, and
foreign ideologies?
You young citizens need to read
history...
and be alert.
BY MIL
11/04/14
No comments:
Post a Comment