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Fun was pretty simple back in those days, at least by today’s standards, I reckon. Had a close call at the M&L Club in Demopolis as an underage patron, as well as one night at the Green Gables in Uniontown. Lucky to get out with only the holes the Lord had supplied when I was born.

Moose and I walked into that old dance hall down at Bradford’s Pond just in time to see a beer bottle sail by our heads, and crash into a post at the entrance. We didn’t break a stride as we turned, and rapidly headed back to the car. No need for further investigation.

We had some daytime class parties at Bradford’s Pond. Hey, they had boys and girls dressing rooms separated by one inch pine boards, and you know pine boards have knot holes. One evening my good buddy Frank Aydelott stuck his eye up to a knothole peering into the girl’s side, only to meet a girl’s eye ball staring back through the same knothole. Every time I see that picture show PORKEY”S I think about those knotholes down at Bradford’s Pond back yonder in the fifties.

They had a pool hall in Linden and one in Demopolis which allowed teenage boys in, but about the only way I could get one of those pool balls in the side pocket was to pick it up, and stuff it in, which was the same situation with me the time or two I decided to take up golf in later years. Didn’t take. Just hanging around Linden Town didn’t allow for real adventure normally. Mr. Jowers, down at Peggy’s Café, would usually allow us to hang around providing we bought something, or at least put a nickel in the jukebox every now and again, but if we ran out of nickels, we got a dirty look.

John and Granny Duncan opened up a good ol’ Dairy Queen in the fifties, and the parking lot was a natural born teen age gathering spot. At least until one of us could come up with an extra dollar to buy gas to get to and from North of the Bogue, and have some fuel to spare. Thing about riding to Demopolis from Linden or Thomaston or even Sweetwater was sorta like folks going into a department store thinking they were gonner find something special they wouldn’t get at the ten cent store back home. (There were, in fact, more young ladies in Demopolis than Linden, but no better looking than our own).

But aside from all the gallivanting around, the good times I recollect the best are neighborhood doings. Visiting and stuff.

We used to eat outside a heap in the summer time. Seems like it was not as hot back then, and a few less bugs flying about. We didn’t have air conditioning inside anyhow, but that big old window fan did pull some air through from time to time.

If we couldn’t make it to the Bogue or river for a dip, we always could get under the hose. I chuckled to see three of my grandsons carrying out that old tradition sometime back, and I didn’t mind abit when the youngest sprayed his old Papa.

As I prepare to close, I’m thinking back about tuning in the radio at night to The Lone Ranger, Sky King, Amos and Andy, and the Hit Parade. Pretty simple living, but I wouldn’t have missed it.