Saturday Matinee
In most of my adventures, nobody got hit in the face with an axe.
I can remember the floor plan of every place I ever lived in. In 1948 we lived in an apartment in San Pedro. I remember where the kitchen was, where the bedrooms were, the front door, the back door and the living room where we played Monopoly and Canasta on the floor and we gathered around a standup wooden radio console and listened to our radio shows: The Shadow, The Inner Sanctum, The Halls of Ivy, Hopalong Cassidy, and Roy Rogers. My first "news" broadcasts; Walter Winchell intoning: "Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea". His important sounding delivery punctuated by Morse code "deep-de-deep de-de..."
Our home was Apartment A, on the ground floor across a common hallway from Apartment B, where my pal, Bunky, lived. The hallway opened to the front on Weymouth Avenue, and out the back to the encircled parking lot where all us kids played hide-and-go-seek, kick-the-can and keep-away. We sped around the smooth walkways of the apartment complex with strap-on roller skates, homemade peach box scooters, and when I got a little bigger, a two-wheeled bike. With a bike, I could fly around the maze of sidewalks.
About two blocks to the north was Averill Park, which had paths and stone bridges over little waterways that wound through the trees. With a stick, a cotton string and a little piece of bacon you could catch crawdads. If you went uphill one street and north three more blocks from Averill Park you would come to the Seventh Street Elementary School where I started kindergarten. My sisters and I could walk there from home.
There was a big swimming pool complex on Gaffey Street, surrounded with eucalyptus trees. I had a girlfriend, Dinah Wright, who lived in nearby Palos Verdes. We were going to get married when we grew up. Hasn't happened yet.
The apartment complex was called "Sea Cliff Circle", and it sat on the hillside above San Pedro, about 10 blocks from the heart of town. I had been downtown on the bus with my mom doing her shopping many times, and I have always had a great sense of direction.
I was 4 in 1948, my sisters 9 and 8. As a first-born child, my big sister Joan, was going to escort Judy and me to the Saturday Matinee downtown, her first time trusted with such a big responsibility. Our parents had driven us down and watched us get our tickets and go in to the theatre. We got our seats, watched the newsreel and the first movie of a double feature; then the cartoons, and an intermission. I followed my sisters into the crowded lobby where they were going to get refreshments. When we got there my sisters were distracted, and I, not knowing there was another movie, thinking it was over, I walked through the exit doors and out onto the sidewalk. The doors closed behind me, and I was alone out there. I remember this. I tried to go back in but the doors were latched. The box office was closed up. I waited a while, and nobody came out.
I knew what to do, though. If anybody asked me my name and address, I could tell them, but there was nobody. No problem. I knew the way home. Two blocks to the South was the street where the bus ran up the hill to our apartment complex. I had been that route many times with my mom. The whole routine was familiar to me: Waiting at the corner for the next bus to arrive; The coins going into the hopper; the different bells rung by pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, as they fell through, so that the bus driver could count your fare without looking; the sound of the change sorting machine spinning the coins into their individual slots, and jingling with the vibration of the road; the five barrel money changer that clipped to the side of the sorter; the cord that ran along the tops of the windows that you pulled if you wanted to get off at the next stop.
I walked down to the corner and waited at the bus stop for a while and no bus came. I got tired of waiting, so I started walking up the street toward home. When the bus came, and I ran as fast as could toward the bus stop on the next corner. I was about mid-block when it passed me, and since there was no one waiting at the corner, the bus kept on going.
I went back to walking uphill toward home and in the course of those ten blocks (about a mile), two more busses came by, each time catching me between corners. I ended up walking all the way home. Finally, probably 45 minutes later, I reached Weymouth Avenue and crossed the street. Strangers, neighbors and policemen, my mom and dad, and my sisters were all on the lawn in front of the apartment. Everyone was glad to see me.
Except, once again, I'd traumatized my sisters, but everyone knew now that I would always find my way home.
Copyright © 2022 John Oliver
All Rights Reserved
mail@unclejohnsweb.com
I can remember the floor plan of every place I ever lived in. In 1948 we lived in an apartment in San Pedro. I remember where the kitchen was, where the bedrooms were, the front door, the back door and the living room where we played Monopoly and Canasta on the floor and we gathered around a standup wooden radio console and listened to our radio shows: The Shadow, The Inner Sanctum, The Halls of Ivy, Hopalong Cassidy, and Roy Rogers. My first "news" broadcasts; Walter Winchell intoning: "Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea". His important sounding delivery punctuated by Morse code "deep-de-deep de-de..."
Our home was Apartment A, on the ground floor across a common hallway from Apartment B, where my pal, Bunky, lived. The hallway opened to the front on Weymouth Avenue, and out the back to the encircled parking lot where all us kids played hide-and-go-seek, kick-the-can and keep-away. We sped around the smooth walkways of the apartment complex with strap-on roller skates, homemade peach box scooters, and when I got a little bigger, a two-wheeled bike. With a bike, I could fly around the maze of sidewalks.
About two blocks to the north was Averill Park, which had paths and stone bridges over little waterways that wound through the trees. With a stick, a cotton string and a little piece of bacon you could catch crawdads. If you went uphill one street and north three more blocks from Averill Park you would come to the Seventh Street Elementary School where I started kindergarten. My sisters and I could walk there from home.
There was a big swimming pool complex on Gaffey Street, surrounded with eucalyptus trees. I had a girlfriend, Dinah Wright, who lived in nearby Palos Verdes. We were going to get married when we grew up. Hasn't happened yet.
I was 4 in 1948, my sisters 9 and 8. As a first-born child, my big sister Joan, was going to escort Judy and me to the Saturday Matinee downtown, her first time trusted with such a big responsibility. Our parents had driven us down and watched us get our tickets and go in to the theatre. We got our seats, watched the newsreel and the first movie of a double feature; then the cartoons, and an intermission. I followed my sisters into the crowded lobby where they were going to get refreshments. When we got there my sisters were distracted, and I, not knowing there was another movie, thinking it was over, I walked through the exit doors and out onto the sidewalk. The doors closed behind me, and I was alone out there. I remember this. I tried to go back in but the doors were latched. The box office was closed up. I waited a while, and nobody came out.
I knew what to do, though. If anybody asked me my name and address, I could tell them, but there was nobody. No problem. I knew the way home. Two blocks to the South was the street where the bus ran up the hill to our apartment complex. I had been that route many times with my mom. The whole routine was familiar to me: Waiting at the corner for the next bus to arrive; The coins going into the hopper; the different bells rung by pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, as they fell through, so that the bus driver could count your fare without looking; the sound of the change sorting machine spinning the coins into their individual slots, and jingling with the vibration of the road; the five barrel money changer that clipped to the side of the sorter; the cord that ran along the tops of the windows that you pulled if you wanted to get off at the next stop.
I walked down to the corner and waited at the bus stop for a while and no bus came. I got tired of waiting, so I started walking up the street toward home. When the bus came, and I ran as fast as could toward the bus stop on the next corner. I was about mid-block when it passed me, and since there was no one waiting at the corner, the bus kept on going.
I went back to walking uphill toward home and in the course of those ten blocks (about a mile), two more busses came by, each time catching me between corners. I ended up walking all the way home. Finally, probably 45 minutes later, I reached Weymouth Avenue and crossed the street. Strangers, neighbors and policemen, my mom and dad, and my sisters were all on the lawn in front of the apartment. Everyone was glad to see me.
Except, once again, I'd traumatized my sisters, but everyone knew now that I would always find my way home.
Copyright © 2022 John Oliver
All Rights Reserved
mail@unclejohnsweb.com
All Rights Reserved
mail@unclejohnsweb.com