Chuck the Blogger Guy

Showing at the Drive-in.
Early last spring Sheba, my secret wife, flew with our 13-year old granddaughter to California for a spring break. This was early pandemic and visiting various places in California was either limited or closed. But one place that was available and a place she had never visited was the local drive-in theater near San Luis Obispo. She had never been to a drive-in movie. Granddaughter loved it. Just find a parking spot, stay in the car, tune-in to a designated FM station, and waalaa, movies in a car. How cool was that? Between the thrill of the drive-in movie and driving her uncle’s front-end loader tractor over his acreage near San Luis Granddaughter had a total blast during spring break. Never mind missing going to Disneyland and visiting Hollywood.
A few years back when Sheba and I lived in Hawaii, just down the hill from where we lived was a drive-in movie. A screen with Perl Harbor just sitting behind. You could see the Arizona Memorial from that drive-in. One of the movie’s we did see at that drive-in was Tora! Tora! Tora! A flick written and produced in Japan depicting the bombing of Perl Harbor. Oh so spooky.
Now the local drive-in in Tulsa called the Admiral Twin has never been so busy. Live concerts, religious services, and exclusive concert showings on the screens have paid the bills at the Admiral Twin. An exclusive on screen Garth Brooks concert was very big. Coming soon is select movies from the Sundance film festival. . By the way the Admiral Twin is two screens just off Admiral Boulevard in Tulsa. A motion picture viewing icon in Tulsa for many decades going back to the 1950s. Let’s all sing ‘Wake up little Susie.’

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Saturday Matinee.
My friend’s dad would give Jim a dollar for the two of us to go to the show. So Jim and I would walk three blocks to the GarMar Theater on Concourse and Whittier Boulevard. It was called the GarMar because the owner operator’s kids were Gary and Mary. Get it?
This was the mid-1950s. But anyway, one dollar would get Jim and me general admission, a small bag of popcorn each, and either a box of Ju-Ju Bees or Milk Duds. Both candies were slow chewing. Hard and gooey. Might last through the first feature film. The theater was a large round top hanger barn-like building. Sort of military looking. And on Saturdays at noon it held about 300-screaming pre-teen kids.
So what we got for a quarter’s admission was two Looney Toon cartoons, a weekly world and national newsreel, two or three serial adventures of Gene Autry, Tarzan, or maybe Flash Gordon. Then a Disney nature and small animal flick. And finally a feature movie or feature length cartoon. All lasting about three or four hours. We were happy and Jim’s dad was happy.
What we saw on the big screen: Disney’s Lady and the Tramp; okay but too cute and tame. Tammy and the Bachelor and Tammy’s in Love; I was in love with Tammy but discovered later it was really a ‘Chick Flick.’ Another Disney; Flubber. Fred McMurray at his best. Elvis in Jailhouse Rock; I played along with the girls and screamed just to help out. A couple of WWII movies; Thirty Seconds over Tokyo and the Cain Mutiny. There were a number of other movies and feature length cartoons but I don’t remember the movie titles. However, my most favorite movie and again a Disney production, “Twenty-thousand leagues under the sea.” Captain Nemo and his saw tooth submarine. I was energized after the movie and would have taken on any monster sized squid. Bring’em on!
But after much thought, I wouldn’t trade this preteen boy experience for anything. A gazillion laughing and screaming kids, great movies, and an intermission give away drawing, and a chance to escape parental constraints. We all were just crazy kids needing a little screaming screen time.

Book Report.

I really liked this book but it was recommended for grades three to six. A middle or high schooler would find it informative and entertaining as well. It is historical fiction and is titled “Letters from Cuba” by Ruth Baher, published 2020.
It is a series of letters written by older sister Esther to her younger sister still living in Poland with their mother and brothers. Esther has left Poland in 1938 attempting to join her father in Cuba. Both had left Poland to escape persecution from Hitler’s army. Esther’s family is Jewish and Esther and her father are in Cuba to earn enough money to bring the remaining members of their family to the southern Island nation.
A side benefit to this book while Yiddish speaking Esther is learning Spanish is many Spanish and English words and phrases are used interchangeably. A beginning Spanish learner would benefit from this book. I would strongly suggest finding this book in the audio version. Possibly at your local library. The audio book actor/reader does an expert job. However the print version reads well. My thirteen-year old granddaughter really liked this book.

It’s our money.
I have no problem taxing the rich and large corporations. The money they gained came from you and me. They encouraged us to invest in risky investments and often we lost. They charged us high interest on payday and short term loans. Shareholders got dividends on our saving accounts and nnot us. So pay the stockholder instead of the account holders. Insurance companies charged policy holders high premiums with little benefit. Instead of receiving a reasonable amount of interest on our bank accounts, we were charged bank fees to them to use our own money.
Again, the one percent didn’t find this money under a rock. It came from our own wallets. It’s our money. We need to reclaim our hard earned money.

I love a fat juicy and sweet peach.

But before I get started on juicy peaches, let me mention a few things.  When we lived in East L A back in the 1950s, we had three backyards.  The one just behind the back porch was just a grassy area with clothe line and a detached garage.  But behind that was two other yards.  The third yard and the furthest from the house was a big patch of weeds once used for growing vegetables but the soil was so hard nothing grew.  However the middle and second yard corraled many chickens around a white washed chicken coop.  A little square outbuilding where chicken nested and slept.  Have you ever watch a chicken sleep?  The put their heads under their wing.  Something likes sleeping with your head under a pillow.  But enough with that.

Now here is the miracle of the middle yard. There were three peach trees in the chicken yard. What the chickens did for the trees was something like miracle grow. If you know what I mean. But the end result, pardon my pun, was big fat sweet peaches. Peaches as big as a softball. Big, juicy, and sweet. They were oh so good. The trick though was to pick them off the tree before they fell to the ground in chicken poop. . Thank you chickens for the end results.

Too much time to think.

Especially about the past.  Every so often I catch myself thinking about old girlfriends in high school.  Lucy, Terry, Anne, and the two Pats.  Easy friendly smiles with teen girl complexions.  Warm hands and voluptuous lips.  Wouldn’t it be good to see them now?  But, wait a minute!  I keep forgetting they would be as old as me.  Yikes!  As I discussed before having arms and legs sprinkled with barnacles just as I have.  Bags under the eyes and double chins.  Yuck!  Snap out of it Chuck.  Just get back to figuring out your Windows Ten operation problems.  Why is my Email so slow?  

Virus-free. www.avg.com

Creative language arts.

I was not an English major in college.  Rarely spoke in public.  Couldn’t spell.  Not good at diagramming sentences.  Didn’t know parts of speech.  Had a hard time understanding punctuations and where to place the Period.   Grammar was mutilated.  Took two remedial English classes and had to drop both or take an incomplete.

So, to say the least, English was a second language.  My mom and dad, the red dirt farmer and his wife, taught me more better Okie speak.  Speaking in short broken and incomplete sentences with lots of dot dot dots.  It worked okay until I finished sixth grade.  These days, I can get by with dictating into my iPhone and sending a cryptic text and blaming the corrupt verbiage on SIRI.  “Boy howdy! If that don’t beat all I ever saw,” my Okie dad would say.

Good reviews.

I got a hardy thumbs-up from granddaughter E-7.745.  “That was a good bedtime story Pops. 

It was a follow up story to the “Three Bears.”  Goldie decides to color her hair pink and return to the Bears house in the woods and was turned away due to non-recognition.  Even though she had a nice pink dress and pink Patton leather shoes.  Mama Bear said, “Don’t know you kid.  Must have the wrong house.”  Slam! Goldie returns the next day with a blue ensemble including blue hair.  Same thing.  “You’ve got the wrong house.”  Slam again.  Goldie thought to herself, what do I have to do to get a play-date with Baby Bear?

So Goldie returns the next day with play shorts and yellow top with hair washed and golden lochs.  “Goldie, where have you been, Mama Bear exclaims. Baby Bear has been looking for you.”  Duh!  Smiling face with tears of joy.