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Just about every summer Saturday afternoon , except during harvest, our family would spend serious time in town.  For one thing, it was the day to sell the previous week’s accumulation of eggs, and for another thing, it was time to get caught up on what was happening in the world. Most of the farm population did the same, and everybody looked forward to Saturdays.
   

It was important to get there as early as possible so that we could get a good parking place on the shady side of the street. Our first stop was at Chet Roberts Grocery and Market where mom would take the eggs and trade them for whatever they would buy, after which she would 
Locate the parked car. She and her farm friends would sit there in front of the Mosher Drug Store all afternoon and catch up on the community news that they might have missed from listening in on party-line phone calls during the week.


Dad would find one of the groups of guys gathered somewhere along the street  and would help the others solve the world’s problems. Some Saturdays, it would take all afternoon to do that.
 Max and I would usually be given a dime and a nickel for admission to the De Luxe movie and perhaps a box of popcorn or a root beer. But our first stop was on the street corner in front of the Bucklin State Bank where Grandad Melia was usually holding court. 

When he finally noticed us, he would give us a little hug and a dime apiece. We most always had to ask him for a tax token or a mill which was the government’s system of sales tax in those days. And as we left, we could hear Grandad growling about the Roosevelt Aministration’s fiscal policy.
  Next, it was a stop at the J.M. Maricle Grocery.  Every Saturday, Maricles would offer three candy bars for a dime! Yeah, full size candy bars like Rocky Road, Powerhouse, Oh! Henry, Cherry Mash, Valomilk, and packages of Walnettos. After the dime for movie admission, we still had a nickel for an ice cream cone later in the day.
  

At the theatre, we would see all our friends and then watch the continuation of the Tom Mix serial which seemingly was there every Saturday all summer. There were usually two or three cartoons, a bunch of previews, and then a real exciting “shoot’em up” western movie that was loud and we would all cheer loudly for the hero.  Theatre owner Cliff Johnson would usually schedule a double feature and we would joyously spend the entire afternoon there.
   

I have no recollection of eating a Saturday evening meal. After all those candy bars, popcorn, and other delicacy’s, we were ready for our double dip orange sherbet ice cream cone, or perhaps a Little Brown Giant ice cream bar, the most glorious ice cream concoction ever known!

And the, back into the Model A for the trip home. It was always a magnificent day and we were all grateful for a day away from the usual. A Saturday in town, without a dust storm or 100 plus heat, was memorable indeed!


Kay Melia is a longtime broadcaster, author and garden in northwest Kansas.