PICTURE SHOWS, Mid 1930s. Long ago when I was a kid before television and internet, we had a form of entertainment that was hard to beat. It was not known as movies, stills or Power Point productions. We called them picture shows. Picture shows were merely simple movies projected on the side of a large building and were free for viewing to all. No chairs nor lawn equipment except blankets and bare ground. They usually were shown weekly. Always after sunset. The ones we saw in Bedford used the side of the old courthouse. In Campbellsburg they used the side of the old L&N railroad depot. The local merchants paid the show people for their efforts and they in turn were paid by folks doing their shopping before the shows began;. Besides the main movie event, a running serial was featured with a story plot that left the hero hanging precariously over cliffs or facing certain death in some varying form. This caused all the patrons to come back next week and find out what happened to the hero. The Bedord shows usually were on Saturday nights when most farmers finished their daily chores early and cleaned up and went grocery shopping and of course to watch the picture shows. The first time I ever saw a regular movie was in the Royal Theater in Carrollton when I was about five years old (1933). I went with my dad in his Model T flat bed truck loaded with 55 gallon barrels. We parked the rig in a standing line at the brewery located on the bank of the Kentucky River sometime before sundown so that we could get them filled early the next morning for mash and barley leftovers. This would be fed to the hogs. We slept in the cab of the truck. So, my first time with Dad was special because he told me he would take me to my first ever movie. Sometime during that movie there was a speeding freight train headed right towards us, and I let out a loud yelp and dived under the seats! My Dad told this tale so many times that I thought I would never live it down!
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 22:41:32 +0000
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