July 2, 2012
No Distractions, No Problems!

Summer time and the livin' is easy.  Well, it could be easier, that's for sure, if we were living summer in the 1940s.  There would be no computers, or texting, or television to distract and entertain.  It was a time when you made your own kind of fun, as Tupee Turner, who was a youngster growing up in the 40s recalls. 

She maintains that they had a good time, riding bike or walking all over town, making their own kind of fun.  She and a group of friends spent a lot of time out on the Lake Shetek Keeley Island point where there was only one cabin near the Bible camp then, the rest of the area wide open.  With the whole place to themselves, the  kids had bonfires and hung out there along the lake.  As far as transportation, Jerry Bennet always had a car and they'd fill it up with 8 or 9 teens,  she remembers.

When they were elementary age, she recalls that for the cost of a thin dime,a school bus transported the youngsters to the Lake Shetek State Park to swim at the beach there.  There was no swimming pool in town at that time of course.

And then there was dancing.  Tupee remembers doing a lot of dancing at the Silver Star, which was below the Silverberg's store where Loopy's now is.  (To clarify, the Silver Star was not located in the Mint Cafe building, but was accessed by a brown door to the left of Silverberg's main entrance.  To the right was another door and that led upstairs to the rollerskating rink/dance floor.)

The Silver Star had a jukebox that provided plenty of entertainment for the high school students.  A lot of parents wouldn't let their kids go there, Tupee remembers, but she was allowed to go.  Tutt McDonald, the proprietor, took good care of the kids and would kick the them out at 10:00 p.m.  In addition to dancing, they also played cards there. 

Tupee and her 7 of her girlfriends had a card club they dubbed the "Zalbeta Zate".  They would take turns playing cards at each others' houses.

Together the kids did some dumb things, Tupee recalls.  One Halloween the hijinks centered at the train yard which was where the senior center and library are today.  Together the kids pushed a car out onto to the middle of main street and left it parked there.  

With one police officer on duty, they easily got by with the stunt, but scattered when they were discovered.  Tupee and her friend hid among a pile of telephone poles stacked near the water tower, which was at that time in that area.

It was another time, but not all that different from today.  Kids still need something to fill their idle time, the lake ever beckons, and shenanigans still abound.