Dirt Road Wonder: Our Entertainment in the 1950s

When I was in school in the 1950s, we did not lack for entertainment even though we lived in a rural county.

The things we liked to do would seem silly to a modern teenager, but it kept us happy, and we never felt like we were deprived of anything.

We had never heard of a rock star, but we would go to the all-night sings in Thomasville and tell each other who we thought was the most handsome man in the quartets.

Somebody in the family would drive us up to Thomasville to the City Auditorium.

They were not really all-night sings, because they finished about 2 a.m. in the morning. No matter whose parents drove us up, it was always with the promise that we would get up the next morning for Sunday School and church.

The quartets that I remember are The Florida Boys, The Happy Goodmans with Vestal Goodman and The Cathedrals.

We loved parades like the big ones they had in Tallahassee.

I think I lost some of my love of parades when I was in a marching band…I have forgotten the occasion, but I remember it was hot and we had to march from the spot that Thomasville Road comes into Monroe Street to the other side of the capitol.

One of our majorettes fainted from the heat and I remember they took her into one of the shops along the street that had a sign on the door that said they had air conditioning.

In the early 1950s very few stores (or houses) were air conditioned.

Posters would appear all over town advertising a stage show that was coming to the Havana Theater or picture show as we called it.

In front of the movie screen, there was a space large enough for a person to perform their act.

The two stage shows that I remember were Smiley Burnett (Frog Millhouse) and two sisters that were Siamese twins.

Smiley Burnett sang and told jokes and told all the little children that he had something for them and to meet him outside after the show. He gave us all an autographed picture of himself.

The twins sang and danced for us.

I tried to see where they were joined, but I never could figure it out.

We waited each year for the Tobacco Festival.

It was a small carnival but with an added attraction.

The four high schools in the county each sent two contestants to the beauty pageant each hoping for the title of Tobacco Festival Queen.

It was more of a hometown fair than the North Florida Fair in Tallahassee and I for one really miss it.

I remember the men from the town going fishing at the old iron bridge early in the morning.

They would come off the river late in the afternoon and start cleaning the fish.

In the meantime, the women from the town would take the frying pans and coke buckets to the iron bridge and start frying fish and hush puppies.

I remember playing at the old iron bridge with all of those kids.

I wish we could all get together like that again or as the old saying goes… “oh to be a kid again.”

‘Till next time keep on the sunny side. Gwynn0720@Comcast.net

Dirt Road Wonder: Our Entertainment in the 1950s

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Dirt Road Wonder: Our Entertainment in the 1950s

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From the Editor’s Desk: Quilting Circles

The Liberty Center in Chattahoochee hosts monthly food pantry

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Popular News

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