I do my best not to run over students as they are crowding the streets with their return from summer.  In just one week, Chapel Hill changes from what I remember as a child, to the busy life that we all seem to live today.  And every year, it seems to grow busier.

 

I was a child during the Great Depression.  We lived "out" Airport road.  This is now in town Martin Luther King Blvd.  One of my favorite memories, like the students here in Chapel Hill today, is summertime.  A quarter was a lot of money then.  But if I made good grades and behaved in school, my dad would give me a quarter every Saturday morning during the summer.  I would begin my 1 mile walk to the Varsity Theater.  I was only eight years old and would walk all around Chapel Hill.  This is how it was then.

There, I would meet whichever friends were lucky enough to get the dime admission price.  We saw every western movie made.  They all begin with Looney Tunes (Mickey Mouse, etc..).  For 4 cents I got the big tub of popcorn, and for a nickle a large Coca-Cola from which we all ate and drank.  There was one fellow that worked concessions, that would give us free refills.  So, when he worked, we would all stay and watch the movie twice. 

 

When I left the Varsity, I walked down to Tenny Circle.  Back then, before trash collection like we know today, the residents would just throw the trash off the hill down in the bottom.  This was my private stash that I would sort through late Saturday afternoons.  Once the War started, everyone else was there too, mostly looking for the toothpaste tubes and cigarette packs for the aluminum.  Once you collected a fist sized ball, the War Department would buy it.  I did have some great discoveries there.

 

My last stop on the way home was an ice cream stand.  For a nickle I would get a cup of vanilla ice cream and eat on the way home.  I always had to be home by dark.  Do I have to even say that I had no dinner appetite?

 

When I walked  in the door at dusk, my dad would hold out his hand and I would drop one penny in it. 

I can't imagine having a better dad, or a better life.