This seemed like a good time to rerun this:

From my Niece, Shari, of VA - 12/14/04:

HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!  That's a good one, Shari!  Thanks! 

Now that you mention it, there's a lot of merit there. 
We are required to bear one another's burdens, are we not? 
I'd certainly be willing to do my part.  WILD GIGGLES!!!

famous-soldiers.html

   (As though I'm really going to argue with an Army Major - particularly the very one who helped me design, build, and expand the page - about who and what should and should not be included thereon!  But it's a great fun game, nonetheless!  WILD GIGGLES!!!)

   Thanks, Adonis!  I appreciate it!

Carol,

Your piece about movie star cards made me remember when we were small children and would buy ice cream cups (Pet, I believe) that came with flat wooden spoons and had a picture of a movie star on the under side of the cup lid. Do you remember those?

--Henry
 

   Well, I know a couple of people for whom that shouldn't pose too much of a problem.  Gentlemen?

   Thanks, Ronnie!

Here is a picture of Lois Pilgrim's 3rd grade class at Robert Sugden School, spring of 1964. I am seated fourth from the left.

Guess I really am a baby, huh???? LOL
 

Yeppers, that's what I keep trying to tell you, Tommee!

Thanks so much for this image, Babe!  It's a classic!

   And thanks for the shot of Shelley.  What a great representational photograph of the times!

   You know, Shelley is going to mysteriously show up here one day, and wonder why on earth we've been talking about her behind her back - just as     Chandler (Nelms - HHS - '63 - of MD) did.  I'm glad we've all been saying nice things!  

   Thanks, Babe!  That helps us determine to move up North a bit closer!  I've added that to the page, and amended the "Our Old Stomping Grounds" links as well:

SATURDAY MORNING

ON THE STREET OF DREAMS

by

Dr. Charles R. Wicke

NNHS Class of June 1945

Saturday morning was the time to head for the Street of Dreams. In Newport News this was three blocks of Washington Avenue holding four movie houses.  Plunking down a dime at the Warwick Theater allowed a frail child to enter a heroic world of daring deeds amid perfidy.  The feature film was invariably a "cowboy show" starring Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, Roy Rogers or Gene Autry.  Accompanying this fare was the episode of a "serial," perhaps Buck Rogers in contest with the evil oriental-featured Ming - or Tarzan lording it over benighted Africans.  But first came the Kiddy Club.  At center stage a contemporary would belt out favorites of the moment: On the Good Ship Lollipop, invariably sung by a Shirley Temple look-alike rubbing her midsection while phrasing ". . . or you'll get a tummy ache," or Red Sails in the Sunset, rendered perhaps by a lad who demonstrated difficulty in reaching the low notes.

The more sophisticated fare at the Paramount Theater attracted an older audience with a higher ratio of girls.  Here one could see, for example, the "Road" pictures of Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour, as in The Road to Zanzibar (1941) and The Road to Morocco (1942).  The live entertainment before the picture was more sophisticated, too.  As the lights went down, the faint notes could be heard as if in the distance.  The music gradually increased as the organ slowly rose from the pit – music matching movement. As if by magic, spotlights popped on, their beams lighting upon the slight musician and mistress of ceremony at the console. She accompanied the singer soloists on the sonorous pipe organ. Her name: Gladys Lyle.

Once a year the live magic show with Harry Blackstone, Sr., played at the Paramount.  The organ background that Gladys rendered added so much to the show that one year Harry persuaded her to go with him on the road: a real road.  And so she left us, and things were never the same.

At the other end of the strip the James Theater competed with the Warwick for the young viewer.  Here was experienced The Popeye Club, with the theme song I'm Popeye the Sailor Man and a Max Fleisher Thimble Theater Popeye cartoon with its feature.   Before the films it offered the usual singers interspersed with boxing matches between volunteer pugilists who, like the vocalists, received a free admission ticket for their performance.

The remaining cinema, the Palace, had no children's show, but depended on higher quality MGM movies to attract an older audience.  Shirley Temple, the most famous female in the world, starred there in pictures with the word "little" in their titles: In 1935, The Little Colonel and The Littlest Rebel; and in 1939, The Little Princess.  Members of the NNHS Class of 1945 identified with the cute curly-head as being of the same age: someone they grew up with.

Indeed, as we left childhood we gave up the Warwick and the James for the Paramount and the Palace.  Putting aside childish things, we began to wrestle with the mysteries of puberty.   Glandular changes produced new and mysterious longings.

The silver screen came to the rescue with a timely series of motion pictures that dealt with our problems.  Offering us didactic vicarious experiences at the Palace were the Andy Hardy films, considered by their producer, Louis B. Mayer, as his contribution to the strengthening of America's family values.

As adolescents we perceived the Hardy films differently from Mayer's intent.  Girls on observing the female leads saw the growing power of their newfound nubility.  Boys readily identified with Mickey Rooney's bumbling approach to dreamlike, chaste, co-stars such as Kathryn Grayson, Judy Garland, and Ann Rutherford in pictures with descriptive titles such as: Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever (1939); Andy Hardy Meets a Debutante (1940); and Andy Hardy's Private Secretary (1941).  Lewis Stone played Judge Hardy, the sagacious father, whose "man-to-man" talks invariably resolved each impasse of Andy's misadventures with worldly ladies.  Oh that we could have fathers as understanding as Judge Hardy.  Oh that a boy could have a girlfriend as good-looking as Judy Garland.  Oh that a girl could become as lovely as Kathryn Grayson.

And then came that grand moment of revelation and, perhaps, confusion; an instant when life imitates art.  The fortuitous event came to pass on January 10, 1942.  Our freshman class had entered high school in September of 1941 a few weeks before.   On the following Friday afternoon the school newspaper, The Beacon, carried the headlines "Mickey Rooney Weds NNHS Grad."

A future member of the class of 1945 had to wonder who was the girl-wife of the story, Ava Gardner?  She was a member of the class that had graduated the previous year.  The older Potter girl, Virginia, the cheerleader, was her friend and had visited her in California -- she knew and could tell us. And she did.

Ava Gardner was from Smithfield, NC.  She had arrived with her mother and father, but soon after the father abandoned them. Her mother had to support herself and daughter by running a boarding house.  Ava had dated older, and presumably more sophisticated "apprentice boys" from the local shipyard.  In Hollywood she was working as a Goldwyn Girl while taking speech lessons in order to erase her southern accent.  Sam Goldwyn wanted to cast her in speaking parts.  But now Mickey Rooney -- Andy Hardy -- had married the beautiful girl next door, next door to us.

What was real and what was fantasy in all this?  As we viewed Ava's magnificent face in wide-screen color close-ups over the years and followed her stormy career, broken marriages, bouts with alcohol, those questions remained unanswered.  Fact?  Fiction?  That which had seemed to us simple and romantic on our Street of Dreams now appears to be more complex.

Dr. Charles R. Wicke is Professor Emeritus of Art History at the University of Victoria, Canada.  In summer he lives at Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; and in winter at Cuernavaca, Mexico. Charles maintains a web site:

 http://www.angelfire.com/bc3/gringoviejo  

From Fred W. Field - ". . Street of Dreams" was originally published in 1992 in the Classes of 1945 Newsletter.  This version is Dr. Wicke's May 2005 update.

In March 1946 I gave a copy of the original version to the late Parke Rouse, Daily Press feature writer. Parke quoted it extensively in his June 1996 article ,"Cruising Avenue of Dreams." Parke died March 5, 1997.
 

WOWZERONI!!!  Somehow I didn't even see that one coming!

 Thanks so much, Charles! 

And thank you, Fred, for sharing it with us!

I posted this essay here:

old-movie-theaters.html