December 31, 2020
Volume 50 - No. 52
Editor’s Note and Preface:
We’ve all had quite enough of 2020, thank you.
After all the pain and sacrifice we have gone through in this past year we thought to go back to a more quiet, peaceful time, - what we might call, “the good old days.” By R. L. “Pete” Peterson
Saturday morning. Anytown, USA. September 1951. Boys in clean shirts, freshly pressed trousers and The Paper - 760.747.7119
website:www.thecommunitypaper.com
email: thepaper@cox.net
black leather tie shoes that Momma shined last night, hair parted and slicked down with Wild Root Cream Oil, clutching the ten-cent admission fee, a quarter wrapped in a handkerchief and nestled in their front pocket are first in line. They’ll get the premiere seats in the first three rows of the theatre. Boys, Boys, Boys
Next are regular schoolboys, redheaded boys, blonde-haired boys, boys with freckles, boys with eyes filled with wonder, boys who giggle
and boys serious as sin with younger brothers hanging on to older brother’s hand. They clutch the five bread wrappers they need for free admission to today’s event. As the theatre’s opening time creeps closer and closer, the excitement increases by decibels and many a bad guy meets his fate from a quick drawn forefinger and six shots from the imaginary pistol. That’s how their hero does it on the silver screen. At the far end of the line are the hard scrapple kids. Newspaper
The Good Old Days Remembered . . . See Page 2
boys. Grocery store delivery boys. Window washers. Bus boys. That freckled-faced kid in the worn blue jeans and yellow tee shirt stained with newspaper ink? That’s me, a death grip on my five precious Sally Anne bread wrappers that allow me to enjoy the festivities free. Bread wrappers I had to go door-to-door to accumulate since 22 cents is way too much to pay for a loaf of bread. True, admission is only a dime, the price of a Roy Rogers comic book, and you can read and re-read that sucker for weeks. Priorities, priorities.