Just a Thought: ‘The
Good Old Days!”By Steve Walker
Many times us old folks get nostalgic
and yearn for the “good old days.”
As one who has recently survived a heart
attack scare on my 69th birthday no less, that got my undivided
attention. Not what I had in mind for my birthday. That “incident” definitely
gives me a strong desire to return to the good old days. Fortunately the doctor
gave me a clean bill of health as far as my heart goes.
Unfortunately the neurosurgeon did not
give me the same prognosis. By the time this a column goes to press I will have
undergone back surgery for a herniated disc. I definitely have a desire to
relive the days of yesteryear.
Those past memories of youth are the
good times when life seemed easier and less complicated and much less
expensive. For some of us the good old days were well over 50 years ago which
would seem to be for the younger generation as the distant past or ancient
history. We sometimes even refer to ourselves as “Dinosaurs.”
Having grown up in the 50s and 60s my
contemporaries have experienced a radical change in lifestyle and skyrocketing
prices for the things we took for granted “back in the day.”
Let me offer two examples. Today when
you go to the movies the tickets cost approximately $7.50 per ticket. If you
take someone with you, you are talking 15 dollars just to get in. Popcorn is
around 5 dollars a bucket; drinks could cost three dollars each which can add
up to 25 or more an outing.
If you are a senior citizen you might
get a dollar discount with proof of age. Imagine having to prove you are old
for a dollar discount. Back then you had to prove you were younger than 12 to
get a discount. Needless to say, “I am a Baby Boomer!”
Second example is the current price of
taking the VIA bus. A one way bus ticket downtown now is over a dollar. When I
attended St. Gregory’s Catholic School in the fifties
in Balcones Heights, it only cost 10 cents to take the bus downtown
to go see a movie. I caught the bus four houses down from my house off Vance
Jackson. It was really very convenient and cheap.
As a seventh and eighth grader my mother
would give me a dollar to take the bus to go downtown on a Saturday and spend
the entire day going to one of the three theatres at that time that included
the Majestic, the Texas and the Empire. I could take the VIA bus for 20 cents
round trip, watch a double feature for a quarter, buy popcorn for less than 15
cents, a coca cola for a nickel and come home at the end of the day, sometimes
with a few cents in my pocket. Usually the double features included at least
one monster movie like Dracula or Frankenstein horror flick. Those were the
days!
If I chose to hang out downtown after
the movie I could walk around the downtown streets with no fear of bad things
happening. I was also known on occasion to walk over to Woolworth’s and sit at
the fountain and order a tuna sandwich and drink with my leftover money.
S. H. Kress & Company, Neisner
Brothers or even Walgreen’s Drug Store were also options.
If I was just killing time, I would
wander up the street to Joske’s affectionately referred to as Saint Joske’s. We
called it that due to its close proximity to Saint Joseph’s Catholic
Church around the corner on E. Commerce Street.
My Saturdays were exciting as I took
many a “field trip” by myself or sometimes with one of my younger brothers to
the downtown area. Yep for me and many of my generation, those were the good
old days. Now that I am into senior status, perhaps I should be referring to
them as those “good young days!!”
Anyway, as always, what I write is “Just
a Thought.”
Steve Walker is a Vietnam Veteran and former Justice of the
Peace and Journalist
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