Nightly Entertainment

My family didn't have a television while I was growing up. We had an AM/FM radio and at one time I had a "cat's whisker" shortwave radio that I built; but no TV. Each evening we would play cards Rummy, Poker, Blackjack, Go Fish or we would play Checkers, Chinese Checkers, Dominoes or Chess. Many evenings would be just for reading. Some evenings we would listen to the radio. The shows that I remember are Amos and Andy, Fibber McGee and Molly, Jack Benny, and The Shadow. And, at least once or twice a month we would go to the "picture show" at one of the two drive-in theaters or the State Theater on Main Street. Sometimes though, Mamma or Daddy (or both) would tell stories about their pasts. These were my favorite times - hearing Mamma talking about ghosts or Daddy talking about cutting timber or making whiskey.

I never was much good at games, but I liked to try. I figured that Chess would be the best game for me to learn to play since my father was a master at all the rest of them. We didn't have chess until I was in the sixth grade. In short order, he learned to beat me soundly every time the board came out but I continued trying. We would only play one game per night and when it was over, I was furious and he was ready to move on. Between the eighth and ninth grades I found a chess book at the library and I studied it much harder than I did any of my lessons at any time. One night the chess board came out and within a few minutes I had beaten him. We had to play another game right then and I did it again. I think he was proud of me, but he wanted to see the book too, so I showed it to him. After that we were about even in Chess. He could always give me a drubbing at anything else.

I remember my Dad working my brother's college trigonometry problems on the floor of our living room with a carpenter's square and a folding rule. His education had ended in the tenth grade of a one room school in the woods of McCormick County. He didn't understand anything about trig, but he could solve any problem that came up. He always said that he could weigh a bale of cotton with a carpenter's square, but I never saw him do it. I wish I had gotten a little more of his problem solving ability.