The Strand Memories

 

  We just watched Amy and Christa of the Marietta Museum of History do docent things presenting the innards of the  Strand Theater on the Square.

I went  to the Strand all my formative years and like to add some thoughts and remembrances.

In the front right upfront of a blue glow MAYES WARD clock near the edit sign.

As a teenager Anna’s mother Marie worked behind the  soda fountain counter at Jones Drug Store, which was  in the store, closest to the corner of  N. Park Square and Cherokee Street.  She recalls in the ally the owner, Doc Jones boiled chickens in a nearby ally and plucked the feathers off and Marie’s made chicken salad for the lunch counter.  Jones Drug Store moved to Roswell Road, across from the Roswell Street Baptist Church and Fox Jewelers, I think took over the space next door to the Strand.

Marie had two teenage brothers, Charles and Paul.  They both worked for the Strand.  Paul worked the projection and Charles delivered the theaters’ flimsy handouts riding bike and placing them in stacks in strategic locations.  Paul went into the Marines and fought in WWII in the Pacific, returned home and worked for the Marietta Post Office.  Charles learned how to fly cargo planes in the Army in WWII and afterwards was a pilot for TWA.

Saturday morning was a social event for preteen kids.  There were almost always  a cowboy movie or a movie like the Bowery Boys.

On the video tour today they came across a movie poster of the movie A GIRL CAN’T HELP IT starring Jayne Mansfield.  In about 1955 or 56 at high school I got into a fight with a kid (he hit me first) and I bloodied his nose.  At the time the Strand was playing WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? Starring Jayne Mansfield.  I got the new nick name as Rock, which some people still call me that.

About a year or so before that I was playing with a Roman cannon in our front yard and it burnt my hand terribly.  I went to the Strand and talked the concessions girl to let me have a large cup in ice.  I sat down the whole afternoon with my hand in the cup agonizing.  They had to account for their cups.  My father was Chief of the Marietta Police and it was against the law to shoot fireworks in Georgia.  So, I hid my burnt black and blistered palm of my hand and gritted my teeth.

Those were the days.