Our version of entertainment on a Saturday night back in the 1960s.
Saturday Night Live
by Mendy
10/21/2003
Back in the 1960’s when I was growing up, people enjoyed simple pleasures. We didn’t get to go many places because there was a lack of money. We had what we needed but we didn’t have “mad money” or any to blow on nonsense. Oak Hill, Ohio was a peaceful community and it was far removed from the riots and anti-war protests of big cities. In my little corner of the world, I had no idea of the chaos of the 1960’s or of Viet Nam or anything else outside my cocoon. I am sure we had residents who had links to all this, but I was just a small child and in my world everything was sunshine and roses.
I was the youngest of the 8 children that Roscoe and Lexie Simpson had. I grew up with just 3 of my siblings because there was a range of differences in the ages between the first born and the last born. When I came along, there were only 4 at home and the other 3 were already out of the nest. Ralph was 21 and in the Navy, David was19 and got married when I was just 5 days old. Kay was 17, married and already had a daughter, Debbie. Then she had Cindy just 2 months after my birth, so I grew up with her kids. Bonnie was 14 when I came into the world, but left home when I was just 3 years old. Gladys was 11, Nancy was 9, and Pat was 6 and these are the three that I have memories of being at home with me. I was the end of the line, the “baby”. Actually, Mom had a miscarriage when I was 3, so there would have been 9 of us.
I had a very happy childhood. My days consisted of waking up to Mom whistling or singing in the kitchen. It would be 7 a.m. and there was already a clothesline full of drying clothes and bread baking in the oven, and the smell of coffee brewing in the percolator on the stove. I remember sunlight streaming through the windows and kittens playing outside. I went outside early in the morning and played all day, taking time out only to eat dinner.
Dad worked 6 days a week, all day Monday through Friday and half a day on Saturdays. He would drive home at 9:30 a.m. for “piece”, which was a late breakfast. Then he came home at noon for “dinner” and he got off at 4:00 and we always ate “supper” shortly after.
Saturday mornings while Dad was still at work, it was cleaning day and we would sweep and mop and clean the bathroom, kitchen, and bedrooms, iron line-dried clothes, and dust and sweep the living room. I got out lucky because I was small and wasn’t made to do much. The hardest thing I did was iron handkerchiefs or “help” Mom with the laundry (once getting my arm caught in the wringer washer and going all the way in to the elbow until Mom was able to get it stopped and then put it in reverse!).
On Saturday nights, Dad would want to take a drive. That was just what we did. We’d have supper around 4:30, clean up the dishes and then around 7 or 8 p.m. we would drive down through town and see people we knew out on the streets or sitting in their cars just watching traffic go by.
There wasn’t a whole lot open in the evenings, there were no such things as malls or shopping centers in our town. Pastor’s Home Department Store was where we got clothing, fabric and shoes; Jenkins Pharmacy was where we got medical supplies; Jones & Morgan Hardware was where we got building supplies and paint; Spears Drugstore was where we got miscellaneous items. Grocery stores included Truman Faulkner’s , Curt Nunnery’s and Carl Miller’s, but some weekends we went to Jackson to Shaffer’s or Henry’s Super Market. Dad got gas at Wisecup’s Sinclair Station or out at Milt Cheatwood’s past our house. We got ice cream cones and hot dogs at Verda’s or at Allen’s Dairy Bar.
If you had the money to buy jewelry or you needed a repair, there was Burton’s Jewelry Store. The Bake Shoppe had good food and you could do your laundry in the adjoining Laundromat while your clothes were in the dryers. You could go to the Highway Restaurant right on Front Street and have a sit-down dinner, if your family did that kind of thing, but we never did. The only time I was ever in there while I was young was when we had a football banquet and I went with Gladys in our matching black and turquoise dresses Mom had made for us. I was the “mascot” cheerleader when I was 6 and Gladys was the head cheerleader for OHHS.
Our banking was done at Oak Hill Bank and if your were a farmer, you got supplies at Landmark. You could go to Armbrister’s Restaurant to sit at the soda fountain counter and have a Coke or ice cream sundae. I only remember being in there one time and it was with Bonnie, Gladys, Nancy and Pat. We ordered Cokes and drank them through a red and white striped paper straw that would float to the top of the bottle in between sips. It was known as Dutch’s Restaurant way back when, but June Armbrister had bought it by the time I was around.
There were no drive-in movies or even a movie theater when I was growing up. The town theater had closed down. There were no fancy steak houses, or even a McDonalds (the first McDonalds I saw was in Columbus and they were only in big cities back then). No video games to play, no bowling alley…get the picture? Not a lot to do, but we didn’t know any different.
It was the little Welsh established community of Oak Hill, Ohio in the early to mid 1960’s…it was almost like Mayberry. We all knew the local police chief, Curt Hayes, on a first name basis. There was very little crime so he had a pretty easy job. The local newspaper, The Oak Hill Press, had 5 or six pages of stories about the local folks and the victories and defeats of the high school ball teams, not stories of murder or robbery. Not that there wasn’t the occasional tragedy, but more often than not, it was pleasant news.
We always had a swing in the yard to sit in and watch the cars go by. In the summer, kids played outside from early morning until it was dark, and then we came in to get ready for bed. I never went far from home by myself. I would ride my bicycle on East Main Street, but only from the corner of our block by Mrs. Shackleford’s house up to the railroad tracks by Jr. and Teenie Bates’ house. That was it. I crossed no streets in either direction. Wasn’t allowed to and I didn’t push it, that’s just how it was.
The only time I could ride my bike in the street was to go to the Margaret Ann swimming pool just a block down from our back door. It was named after Maggie Davis, one of the town’s richest ladies, who had built the swimming pool in the 1950’s. The Davis’ had started numerous businesses in and around Oak Hill and they lived in the biggest houses in town. My dad worked for them at the Ohio Firebrick Company, my brother-in-law worked for them at the Sivad plant (which is Davis spelled backwards). My brothers worked for them for awhile. The Davis family was the ones who had built the Oak Hill Bank and they pretty much had all the money in town!
When we kids wanted to break some rules, Debbie, Cindy and I or me and Pat would walk the railroad tracks by Bates’ house until we got to the part where you could see the water through the ties about 10 feet below. That was about as risky as we got (and that was only about 5 yards from the sidewalk!).
My neighborhood playmate was Eddie Grubb, a brown-eyed, wavy-haired boy about 7 months younger than me. We would climb trees together, we had a clubhouse behind his house and we went on adventures together. If I was inside too long, he would peer into the back screen door with his hands cupped around his eyes and ask me when I was coming back outside to play. Also, he had a crush on Gladys but he thought her name was something else and he would say to Mom, “can Lettuce come out to play?” Well she was a teenager, so she wasn’t interested!
So back to Saturday nights…. The Grand Ole’ Opry was on the radio. We would get in the car and drive through town, then Dad would take out a side road somewhere and we would be in the boonies. Dad knew all the roads, where they went and where they would come out. We always had a big car, usually Pontiacs if Dad had his way. We had Catalinas and Bonnevilles. BIG cars, BIG bench seats, BIG back windows…and that was where I would lay.
Looking up at the stars from the back window of those old cars and listening to Roy Acuff and on the radio. Ernest Tubb would sing “I’m Walkin’ The Floor Over You” and Roy would sing “Great Speckled Bird”. Then Patsy Cline would come on and sing “Crazy” and the crowd would cheer. You knew Minnie Pearl had entered the stage when you heard the high pitched and drawn out “How-deeeeee!” She would always tell a few jokes and then on to the next act. Tennessee Ernie Ford sang “Sixteen Tons”, Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys would play some Bluegrass, Mama Maybelle and the Carter Family, Red Foley, Tex Ritter, Lefty Frizzell, Gene Autry, Jim Reeves, Hank Snow, Carl Smith, Bill Monroe, Bashful Brother Oswald…the list goes on and on. We would drive for an hour or more and listen to the sounds of “Country and Western” music.
If it was colder or if I was sleepy, I would lay between them, my head on Mom’s lap and my feet on Dad’s lap and Mom would stroke my hair and rub my back until I fell asleep. She always said I was part cat because I liked to be stroked and petted. I guess when I was a baby and toddler, sometimes they would have to take me for a drive so I would go to sleep.
When we got home it would be 9 or 9:30 p.m. and it was bedtime. I’d go in the bathroom to wash up and then up the stairs to bed. I shared the back bedroom and the black iron bed with Pat, and Nancy and Gladys had the front bedroom with the antique wood bedroom suit.
Sometimes they all went on the Saturday night drives, but they were teenagers and sometimes they had other things to do. Pat didn’t like car rides much, Nancy was usually with Greg, and Gladys would have a date or be reading a book. And when they did go, the three of them would be scrunched in the back seat, pushing and shoving each other and fussing over something… “She scratched me”, “get your head off me and move over”, “Dad’s ashes are coming back here!”, “stop the car, I’m sick!!” So most of the time it was just Mom, Dad and me.
So before Saturday Night Live was on television, we actually had our own version, listening to the live broadcasts of music from the Grand Ole’ Opry in Nashville. I learned to love the sound of that music and I still love it today. Sometimes my father-in-law comes to our house now on Sunday nights and we will sit out on the deck and listen to old time country music on the radio. I think he is surprised that I know all the singers and the songs that he grew up with, too. I’ll say “That’s Mac Wiseman (or Jimmy Rogers, or Ferlin Husky or The Stanley Brothers)” and I know their sound. Sometimes I surprise myself that I have retained all those voices from the past and my Saturday night drives with Mom and Dad.
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Saturday Night Live
