Carthage: A Sentimental Journey

Oh, the anticipation!  We decided that we would definitely have a Show and Tell.  One friend planned out the schedule for the 2-day visit.  One prepared a wonderful lunch at her nearby lake house.  Emails flew back and forth.

I'm going to have to pack a second suitcase 

for all of my show and tell stuff!!!!!  

Let's have show and tell at the lake house!

Sounds perfect! Can't wait to see 

what you've uncovered!!!!!

I can't wait to see that Bluebird house 

and the big house in the park 

where I had my 6th birthday party.

The lake is around 15 minutes from town.  

We can meet anytime of the day, whatever 

suits y'all best, there is 

usually always a nice cool breeze beside the lake.  

Hopefully, ya'll can work in some water 

ballet, a Miss Panola County Pageant, 

a couple of games of Mystery Date 

(Jane loves Poindexter!), some 

troll hair-doing, and a couple of rounds of 

"Shing-Gang-Goo-Glory-Glory-Gotcheee!"

At long last, the day arrived.  I met my friend of 55 years, Jane (aka Janie Bug) in Dallas, and we made the 3-hour drive to Carthage together.  Neither of us had been there in about 30 years.  "Remember those All-Day Corn Suckers  (click on the link for a blast from the past...scroll all the way down to the last comment...)  we used to get that you licked down to see if there was a coin inside!?"  We gagged thinking about a filthy coin being fossilized in a sucker like a moth in amber.  "Can you believe that no one figured out that a kid can choke on a quarter?!"  I don't seem to remember ever seeing a kid running around wildly pointing at his throat with one hand and  while waving an All-Day sucker in the other.  Hmm. 

Janie Bug and me.

Drive, drive, drive.
Yackety, yack, yack.
And then, we were there.

Yes, "that" Carthage, Texas.

Home of my happy childhood.  Home of play pageants and weddings.  "I Carolyn, take you, Paul McCartney, the most handsome Beatle, to be my lawful wedded husband."  Home of country road banana bike adventures and Trick-or-Treating without pesky slow-moving adults.  Home of Kristi and Penny and Jane.

We met Kristi for lunch at a little tea room on the town square.  Then, we were off for the big tour of Carthage.

First Stop:  First Methodist

(I tried to get a "groovy shot" with an old picture of my brother and me on Easter Sunday.
Apparently the building on the right in my little picture doesn't exist any more.)  

where Jane and I were christened as babies.

The house I lived in until the summer after 5th grade.

The Esquire Theatre

where we sat here...

[Check out the extra wide seat on the end of the row.  That's where you sat with a guy if he gave you his "disk" to wear.  Remember those engraved disks we wore on chains around our necks?!]

while we watched unrated movies like...

and 

Ratings and parental controls were futuristic Barbarellian concepts.  Our parents happily dropped us off every Friday night with 75 cents for a movie ticket, popcorn and a coke.*  Begone, children!  (*In Texas, all soft drinks are called "cokes.")

Our favorite movie "candy":

from J-Walk Blog (this is a hoot!)

Which brings me to this...

More Carthage shenanigans tomorrow.

Oops.  I said "shenanigans."  Reminds me of...