When I was five or six years old, my sister, Barbara, and I walked over to the corner of Beulah and Northern to catch a trolley going downtown. The trolley stop was across the street from a gas station that had the rich smell of old oil poured on the ground to “settle the dust” and kitty-corner across from the entrance to the cemetery. I must have been five or six years old because I remember that when I sat down my feet didn’t reach all the way to the floor. My memory is that the trolley ran on tracks instead of being an electric powered bus and that periodically it would stop because it lost contact with the overhead electric line. When that happened the driver would get out with a long stick and put the connector in place and we would go on.
The route took us to “five corners,” where Matt Dillon had a gas station. He was a WWII vet with one arm missing. After my parents bought a car they went there for gas most of the time. Just before we got to the Fourth Street Bridge we went past a place that sold corn dogs. I remember going there because the idea of a deep-fried breaded hot-dog was new. I have a very clear picture in my mind of a McDonalds somewhere near the south end of the Fourth Street Bridge but, both of my Pueblo sources, Jeff Arnold and Jerry Miller, have convinced me it isn’t true. Memory is always tricky but why would anyone remember a non-existing McDonalds? In general I have a very good memory but things like this make me wonder if my mind, like the computer HAL in “2001 A Space Odyssey” gets out of control with an agenda all its own. On the other hand the fact that I remember anything after 50 years is amazing to me.
Most of my early knowledge of the city came from riding on the trolley. My neighbor, Russell Ducey, once told me that he wanted to be a bus driver when he grew up so that he could see the whole city and get paid for it. Below the bridge along the river there were vegetable gardens tended by Asians. I heard that they might have been Japanese prisoners of war but by the early fifties the gardens were gone and I never found out any more about them.
On the other side of the bridge we passed first the hamburger place that sold thick tasty four-inch diameter burgers with lots of lettuce tomato and onion on the side. Across the street was the Canton Café where my family ate on occasion. One night after many rounds of pool a group of us went to the Canton for a mid-evening snack. The Canton Café didn’t have desserts so I asked if I could have a bowl of rice with hot milk, sugar and cinnamon on it. The waiter looked at me like I was crazy and said they didn’t and wouldn’t make it. So I ordered a bowl of rice and a glass of milk, mixed them together with sugar and had dessert while the waiter looked the other way. .
As I remember there were three theaters downtown, the Colorado, the Chief and the Main, another on the Mesa, called the Uptown and two in Bessemer–the Avalon and the Clyne. We usually went to the Colorado Theater for the Saturday matinee because for fourteen cents we got, previews of coming attractions, sometimes an episode from a Superman serial, anywhere from three to ten animated cartoons and a double feature. We also got a newsreel that covered current events. This was before television and the movie theater was the only place where we could see the news. For an extra nickel I got a box of Milk Duds to eat during the movie. After they were gone the box became a noisemaker that made a loud whistling noise when I blew into one end.
On this trip Barbara and I were going all the way downtown to the Colorado Theater for the Saturday Matinee to see the comedy “Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein.” This may have been my first movie in a theater and although it was billed as a comedy it scared the heck out of me. I sat riveted to the screen and held onto my seat for dear life as Frankenstein almost got Abbott over and over again. This was all too intense for a five year old with a good imagination and that night I couldn’t fall asleep. The door to the unfinished basement was in my bedroom and I checked to make sure that the latch was locked. But I could imagine what might come through that door if I closed my eyes. After an hour or so I took my pillow in hand and crept into my parents’ bed. Boogeymen didn’t attack adults so I was safe.
When drive-ins came to Pueblo my family would pile into the car and drive out to the Mesa Drive-In to see movies about Francis the talking mule, or Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis movies. On the way home we’d stop at the fruit stand to pick a watermelon floating in a horse tank full of water and blocks of ice. The owner always plugged the one we picked so we could taste it before we bought it for a nickel a pound. When the cantaloupes from Rocky Ford got to be a nickel a piece we’d buy several of those also. Then, we’d pull off the road by the CF&I to watch them pour slag. We weren’t too hard to entertain in those days. As I got older I took my parents 1940’s Mercury for an occasional date to the drive-in. I remember asking a cute girl from Centennial to go see “Psycho” with me hoping that during the scary parts she would jump into my arms for protection but it all happened so fast that we both just sat there stunned. When the gang of four-Perko, McNair, Miller and I, got tired of shooting pool or going to the dump to shoot rats we would get some beer and go to the drive-in. One evening we stopped by the liquor store and got a bottle of white port, a six-pack of orange pop and a bag of crushed ice. We mixed them all together into what was called “shake-em-up” and drove out to the Mesa for an evening at the movies. I don’t know how that combination works but it was the only time in my life that I actually saw triple. It’s a good thing there was a double feature so that we had time to sober up a little before driving home. The Drive-In was always a good place to have a little privacy with your girlfriend. One day my parents asked what movies I’d seen the evening before and since I hadn’t gone to the drive-in to see the movie I couldn’t remember. Now we have high definition TVs and access to thousands of movies on disc. But going to the drive-in with your family or your friends and then stopping at the CF&I to watch the rail cars slowly tilt over until the white hot slag poured out and ran down the hill was something you’ll never see in the comfort of your living room no matter how big your TV screen is.
Robert Pardun
March 14, 2009 at 12:57 am |
Indeed, there was a MacDonalds located near the Fourth Street Bridge. I recall standing in line for a long time with my dad at its grand opening. I’m guessing that I might have been about ten years old. I believe that the burgers were 15 cents each — “reasonable” from my dad’s perspective. The establishment was in the Midtown Shopping Center near the east end of the bridge, southwest of Ladd Lumber and backed up a short distance from Fourth Street.
(Okay, so maybe my directional suggestions are off a bit . . .)
March 14, 2009 at 2:43 am |
Interesting! It brought back vivid memories, though mine are different from yours. We too regularly ate at the Canton Cafe but I think it was between Main and Court on either 7th or 8th. A breaded veal cutlet meal that included mashed potatoes, gravey and a vegetable plus soup and a dessert was $.97. It also included a drink which was coffee, tea, or milk. I do not remember salad but it also included soup and a dessert which was a little piece of cake. Chicken Chow Mein was cheaper but I do not remember what it cost. I was surprised years later when I ordered Chicken Chow Mein in a restaurant and did not get anything that resembled what I would have been served at the Canton. My dad would order sweetbreads and that was one of the few places that served them. I do not remember what that cost either.
I think the place you were talking about was the China Lantern. My mother and I had lunch at the China Lantern several years ago. Another fond memory.
The McDonalds behind the King Lumber in the what I called the Sears shopping center was still there a couple of years ago. It is a new and improved version. The McDonalds I remember was out on the highway beyond Sunset. It had the continually changing sign that showed how many burgers had been sold and I thought that was amazing that they could count them.
I too remember going to the movies with my family in the summer. I also remember getting lost and wandering up and down the rows trying to find the car. There were some tears involved too.
Good job, Robert.
March 15, 2009 at 7:56 pm |
The downtown first-run movies cost 65 cents for adults and 20 cents for kids under 12. When I turned 12, tall for my age, my parents continued to buy me a child’s ticket, and that continued until after I turned 13. I was embarrassed and would slouch down, and I was sure the ticket-taker was giving me the fish eye. Now it sounds ridiculous, but my dad was earning about $5000/year, which works out to $2.40 an hour, so it made a difference to them.
I remember scenes from a lot of movies. At the end of Public Enemy, there is a knock at the door of James Cagney’s parents. When they open it, Jimmy is there, wrapped up like a mummy except for his face, dead, with his eyes open. He totters, then falls forward. It scared the hell out of me.
The first McDonalds burger and fries (15 cents each) I ate was in Boulder in 1963. I was amazed at the price. Fat? We didn’ know nothin about no fat!