THE FORTIES: “IT WAS A DIFFERENT TIME…”
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“So many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets.” …..Gibran
A good photo of old Main Street taken in 1945. The historic Red Bricks
are plainly visible as a “Red-and-White Bus” is shown turning right or
east onto E. Grand. A bus ride in those days cost a kid a nickel.
Several things are obvious to any old citizen of Clovis…perusing the
picture: the water tower is plainly visible, the face-in parking was still
in vogue, and it is a morning pic---the awnings are down, protecting
the merchandise in the show windows.
An interesting thing is that there are relatively few cars actually driving
on Main itself.
On studying this scene, and seeing Clovis National Bank, Jack Holt the
Clothier,Fox Drug, (and I think I see Duckworth Drug), my thoughts raced
back in time to the way things were once, when maybe one could say:
“Things were simpler and certainly cheaper.”
-------You could buy a Snickers candy bar for five cents at Tom Phelps’
Red-and-White Store out on West Grand. They coast 75 cents now.
------You could go to a Saturday afternoon double feature at the Lyceum,
with a “Perils of Nyoka" serial and a “Looney Tunes” for a dime. Popcorn
was a dime and they didn’t sell sodas.
-------You could get a hot dog at Coney Island for 20 cents or a ham salad
san at Woolworth's for the same price.
------Soda popes of all flavors, including NEHI grapes, BARQ’S big oranges,
Root Beers, Squirts, twelve ounce Pepsis, and cokes in little weird green
bottles could be bought for a nickel.
------Five and Ten Cent Stores such as Woolworth’s or Sprouse-Reitz were
found in nearly every town.
------Donuts were five cents at just about any bakery. A yellow Dixon-
Ticonderoga pencil with eraser for school kids was five cents at Clovis
Printing Co.
-----At Barry Hardware where the boys checked them every Saturday,
you could get a good Case pocket knife, with yellow scales for $4.95.
------Haircuts at Jim’s, Jenk’s, or Cotton’s were fifty cents until after
WWII.
------There was a Green Stamp Store at Sixth and Main, run by Mrs.
Pike.
-----OK Rubber Welders on West Grand fixed flats for a time at FIFTY
cents and sold recaps for $5.95.
------Magic Steam Laundry, also on West Grand, turned out a fine
starched, white dress shirt —- folded and banded for fifteen cents.
------Harley Sadler Shows came to town once a year and set up its
big tent on the vacant lot behind the Country Store. At other
times a traveling skating rink rented the same vacant lot.
-----THE OUTLAW, with Jane Russell, came to the Sunshine Theater in
1948 and was billed as an “adults only” movie. The high school boys
tried to figure out some way to get in.
------GONE WITH THE WIND finally opened at the State Theater in
1946 and we heard our first cuss word in a movie…ever. This was
to pale into insignificance as one recent nomination for “best
picture” had 143 f-words and other profanities.
-------Ah, there WERE minimum wages, not ordered by the government
but set by the employers, being it is a free country. My pay at Jack
Holt’s (a fine gentleman and employer) was 75 cents an hour. (My former
yard man recently charged me $90 for an hour and a half of routine work.)
------In those times people didn’t “eat out” much. Until the Boys’
Debating Club banquet held at El Monterrey in the spring of 1948,
I had never eaten any store-boughten Mexican food. We had
enchiladas that night. We bought our chili con carne from Duran
at Bristow’s Food Market on W. 7th. It came in big orange frozen
greasy blocks.
…….During WWII, a movie came to the Lyceum…one which I’ve
never forgotten. It was THE SULLIVANS. Another came during
that time with much interest to us kids: THIRTY SECONDS OVER
TOKYO, with Spencer Tracy. (I met the Doolittle Raiders in person
At KAFB spring of 1986…when their reunion was held in ALBQ.)
-----Did you know that Eddie Arnold gave a “concert” at the old
Clovis Wildcat Stadium in the spring of 1948. I got a job selling cokes
and hot dogs out there.
-----During WWII times, when the paper boy delivered the Clovis News
Journal to Art’s house on Thornton, we boys would spread it
on the grass and read the latest on Joe Palooka and Jerry Leemy
behind the lines in France, fighting the Nazis.
------Along about 1945 toward the end of the war, a captured Japanese
Zero fighter was placed on a vacant space on the corner, just across
From the State Theater. It cost twenty five cents to climb a ladder
and peek in at the controls. I was amazed at how small and tight the
little cockpit was…and how big overall the plane seemed.
-----The New Year’s of 49-50 was kind of a scary one…the forties with
all the war effort and bad news, nonetheless was a time of growing up
for us…from second grade to high school…and there we were facing
a new-half-of-the-century. Mardis, Sieren, and I were hanging out
in front of the State Theater and Maxine Brake (Levi’s sister) and June
Matthews came walking up and we decided we’d just take in the New
Year midnight movie.
It was TWO WEEKS WITH LOVE, with Jane Powell. In it the teen-age
Debbie Reynolds sang with Carleton Carpenter “Aba Daba
Honeymoon.”
When we left the movie, we were in 1950 and we wondered what the
next half century would bring. Little did we realize that we would all
eventually leave our beloved hometown, with its Red Bricks of Main
Street… the only world we knew---and tho’ it would always be OUR HOME…
it would be only in memory.
MIL
23 SEPTEMBER 2017
