Oral History Interview with Norman Moore

“Stories From the Balcony”

Interviews about the Grand Theatre in Frankfort Kentucky

Interview on Video with Norman Wayne Moore

On Location at the Grand Theatre

Tape 0024JTH_DV

Conducted by Joanna Hay

January 11, 2007

This project has been supported by the Kentucky Oral History Commission

and Save The Grand Theatre, Inc.

[TAPE 0024 STARTS WITH MR. MOORE TALKING, THE CAMERA ROLLS FOR AUDIO ONLY, WITH VIEW OF THE VAUDEVILLE WALL.]

HAY: We are just starting this tape. We’re doing a walk around in the Grand Theatre with Norman Wayne Moore. This is January the 11th, 2007 in Frankfort, Kentucky. I’m Joanna Hay and before Norman sits down, I’d like for him to describe what walking into the Grand Theatre was like, when you would come here. So what was it like?

MOORE: All I remember is its just a beautiful place. When I was a kid, I was just fascinated with the, I loved Westerns and they showed a lot of Westerns here at the Grand. Most of, all Westerns. Every now and then you’d see somebody else, but mostly Westerns. It was all the Western stars and the B movies. And when you walked in, in here, the lobby.

HAY: We can walk around.

MOORE: Yeah, here in the lobby. Here on the left was, from the floor to the ceiling, glass, with the western stars, great big pictures of them. They’d be like four or five foot tall, with just maybe their heads. You could tell all about what the Western was. Who played in it. And here on the left side and the right side, it was all glass, Western, pictures of the stars. …lights behind them and lights shining down on them. Really, really beautiful and it had two big swinging doors going in over there and coming out over here, had big swinging doors, took up the whole passageway, that swung out. Red carpet, everything was red. Walls was red, carpet was red, everything was spotless. You had the ticket collectors dressed up just like they was on a train. They had uniforms then, it’s fascinating.

HAY: You’d walk in one set of doors and you’d come out the other set of doors?

MOORE: Yeah, you went in the right… over there was the walk in doors over to the right about like it would be in a big grocery store, the big chain. Big doors here, great big doors. And it cost, I never will forget, two dimes got you in for all day. The film started in the morning, I have no idea what time it started, probably seven or seven-thirty, and it went until about ten, eleven o’clock at night. Might have been midnight but I think it was about eleven. But you didn’t have to leave. You could sit in here all day long for twenty cents.

HAY: Is that right?

MOORE: Watch it over and over…[Hay- laughter] The picture show was my babysitter. Momma worked at the dime store next door. And my sister brought me. I remember back this… I, you know, four or five… about the age I was… I remember watching movies when I was four and five and my sister brought me. And I’m sixty-three now, Jean’s three and half, four years older than me. And she told me to remind her, to remind me, that she brought me. But, I remember watching one movie when I was a kid her and it actually ter… scared me to death, and I was just a child. It was Alice in Wonder… it wasn’t Alice in Wonder… the little girl that lost… the rabbit that went down the hole… can you remember what that was? Was it Alice in Wonderland?

HAY: The rabbit? Yeah, yeah.

MOORE: The rabbit, uh huh. I never could forget that to the day, I was terrified of that, and I didn’t come back to the picture show for three weeks! Because, and that was out of my league! It wasn’t no Western, it was a little girl got lost and fell down a rabbit hole. Really scary for a child to watch! If you just stop back and think.

HAY: Well, I want to ask you more about that, but before, and I want to get you to sit down, but before we do that, can you describe what the ticket booth…

MOORE: The ticket booth set right in the middle of the picture show and it had a little bitty door that you went in, behind, and it was glass, glass in the front, glass on the sides. And the ticket had a little metal, like a little bitty, like a hubcap would be on a kid’s, like a tractor or something and it had slits in it you could talk through. And it’s just…. I wish I had pictures of it. You know you didn’t think back in those days to take pictures of your favorite place.

HAY: No, so it had a red carpet?

MOORE: Oh, yeah, everything was red.

HAY: You said something about a beam…

MOORE: It had two big swinging doors and it had probably about a two foot beam went completely up and caught the ceiling, come down whatever the next level there. But the swinging doors every bit as big as that break there. And big swinging doors had great big chrome pipes on them that you walked up and pushed the doors open. Course over here didn’t have no pipes on it, on the inside was the pipes, you pushed the doors come open.

HAY: Okay.

MOORE: A kid opened them up pretty nice, they worked pretty smooth. When you walked in, you walked straight back, the candy was right straight back, on this left side of the building, the candy, and you automatically went over to the right and walked down a long hall and this was all red carpet, red walls and the guy that managed it, the managing office was to your right and went down that wall, narrow, I looked in it when I was a kid, even as a kid I was nosy. And it looked like it was maybe five or six feet wide and went back the whole length of the building here, where the boss, the owner sat. And the boys took the tickets was just right in this side when you went in, standing right there on the right side of the wall, right out from the candy. Well, you could buy, I remember Momma would give us two dimes as kids, two dimes a pieces, then she’d give us, some money to buy some candy and popcorn and stuff and that’d be like, it wasn’t very much, it was like twenty-five, thirty cents, and it seemed like we ate and drinked all day. Cause it didn’t cost nothing! It didn’t cost nothing! And I mean, it… [laughter]

[tape stopped, Mr. Moore is now seated.] 5:27

MOORE: … A lot of good kids in this town. And you had to order the, now, my Daddy was a Cowboy lover and Daddy was born in 1919, but Daddy, all he talked about was Hugh Gibson and the Cowboys and Daddy was watching John Wayne in the hospital right here in Frankfort and when he passed, and was watching John Wayne with a smile on his face. He pointed at it and what he was saying, he pointed his finger and shook it at me and he said watch the Westerns sons. Because he couldn’t talk, he had pipes in his mouth. Well, I lived in the picture show. Momma worked in the dime store and Daddy worked a the American Pontiac Garage and of course back then it was where the city hall is now. That was American Pontiac, owned by Mr. Harrod. And I say, my childhood was in the 40s and 50s and it could probably have been just as strong with the Westerns in the 30s. The picture show was here in the 30s at the Grand. But I remember the 40s. I had such favorites. Hopalong Cassidy and Rocky Lane and a lot of people, somebody asked me the other day, did I know the cowboy’s horses? And I said, yeah, I know almost all of their horses. And that’s how you done. You learn them. Black Jack belonged to Rocky and of course, everybody would know Trigger. And Champ, Gene’s horse. There’s Black Jack and all that good horses. But it’s a wonderful, to me, it’s just a wonderful, thinking back to childhoods. Now a lot of people forget it and fade out when they grow up and get married and move away. But my room at the house, my TV room is still The Grand. All you got to do is look at the wall inside. I welcome anybody to come and see it. The Grand’s pictures of all the cowboy stars. And I’ve been married you know, for forty something years and my room is still the people I watched at the Grand. The cowboys. My favorite. It’s just a wonderful thing. It tickled me to death when you all put it on the news that you all was bringing it back, because, a lot of people’s doing that now. I think it’s a wonderful thing to do!

7:19

Should have never faded. And town, when I was a kid, in town, Saturday at the Grand, you talk about everybody. I don’t know, it seems like they come from Versailles and everywhere, because the town, on this street where the Grand is, and I can picture it back in my mind, I was five or six years old. You’re talking about on a Saturday day, all day long, you talk about on this one street where the Grand is. I ain’t exaggerating, one bit, I bet you there was a thousand people on these two streets right here. They was sitting on your fenders, Daddy always said he didn’t care enough about parking here on this street because too many people sat on the fenders of the cars. And of course, back then, they were built like army tanks, you gotta imagine. But Daddy said, no, he’d park around there down the street, down there by George Taylor’s or somewheres. Where there wasn’t that many people leaned on your car. But, this town was busy and of course all the towns was, but, this Grand, the dime store next door, you’d go next door and buy you a bag of peanuts for a nickel or a dime and eat on them for two hours. And it just brings back a lot of memories for me.

HAY: So, on a Saturday, what time would arrive at the Grand Theatre? And how long would you stay?

MOORE: I think Momma, Momma worked at the dime store next door and even if she didn’t work she’d be at the grocery or wherever, and we’d spend the whole day. I remember spending the whole day. I remember coming in here and it’d be in the morning at ten o’clock and we’d come out and it’d be pitch dark. It was just like, oh it was just a couple of hours that had passed. We’d been here all day. That’s just every day kids, and I’d meet my cousins and all my friends. At this Grand picture show, you’ve got to realize, when you walked back here, every seat in this house had kids in it on a Saturday, all day long. And plus, they had the, when you walked down the aisle, had the right aisle and the left aisle that went down and they had a ladder, it was up about, if I remember, it was about four foot high and they had a ladder under it where you could stand and just lean and watch the picture and you could watch the whole picture standing up. And that was always full. All the seats. And I could just name kids. A lot of them’s passed. But I could just name kids and kids who was in here on a Saturday. It was like a big family. Just wonderful.

HAY: So, how old were you when you first came.

MOORE: Oh, my sister was bringing me, I was probably two or three years old. But remember real good starting at about five. I’d say at least five to about fourteen, fifteen, I remember all the movies. Everything I ever watched!

HAY: Do you think you came every week? Or more than once a week?

MOORE: No, we didn’t come much during the week. I had come here as I got up and got to work, of course back in them days, we started working when you was thirteen, I’ve been working ever since I was thirteen. You got out and learn how to make money. I used to come here during the week as I got paying for it myself. But when I was a kid, Momma paid for it, so everything was sort of stretched. Like Maw Kettle used to say, here’s you a nickel, stretch it out all day. She’d say that in the movies. I used to watch Maw and Paw here and Bud Abbot and Mr. Costello but mostly it was Westerns. But I loved my Maw and Paw Kettles. I got all the Westerns and I still got Maw and Paw at the house. And I watched the films, “The Egg and I” was one of my favorite movies, that was before Maw and Paw Kettle was invented and they was just next door neighbors in the movie called “The Egg and I” and they, it went over so good, they asked them to make films and they showed every one of them hear at The Grand. And made thirteen of Maw and Paw Kettles and you’d think they made 5,000 and they showed them over and over and when I was a kid, you didn’t pay no attention to that, and you just loved being here and be with all your friends and having a good time.

HAY: Would you be visiting with your friends while you were watching the movie? Or did everybody, was everybody quiet?

MOORE: No, most kids, I watched that movie. There was a lot of kids that would just come there and just talk, but no, I’m a movie watcher. Even to today. I talk a lot and I got people that tease me about talking when they come to the house now to watch Westerns. And I do talk but I get into the movie and talk about it, you know, and talk with them, you know. And try not to interrupt it too much. But, I remember, I used to take it to come into to town, as I got older there, talk about as I got older and used to come on my own, I had a, I put a motor in a bicycle frame. But I’d ride it to Frankfort. And rode it down the Devil’s Hollow Road. I lived in Choatesville and I’d ride it down the Devil’s Hollow Road and they called it back then, they called it Devil’s Hollow Hill 1:00and it’s over here by the rock quarry. And I’d park my bicycle I’d put a motor in, and I’d ride it to town and I’d ride it back. And I parked it in the horse weeds behind the Yount’s feeding mill that was at the bottom of Devil’s Hollow Hill. Back then the rock quarry was working and everything and I’d just hide my bicycle in them bushes and I’d come over and spend the whole day, and you’re talking about thirteen. I think I built it when I was about ten, eleven and you talk about ten, thirteen, up to thirteen, fourteen. I rode it to town and I remember riding it back to Choatesville and riding it back up Devil’s Hollow Hill, sometimes passing two or three kids and sometimes grown ups walking home and I’d just wave, just riding, no pedaling, motor pulled me home. 2:00HAY: You were lucky!

MOORE: I’m an inventor.

HAY: That’s amazing, so it was a bicycle… and you put a motor on it.

MOORE: Bicycle and I put a motor on it. See, that’s what I do today. I run and work on motorcycles. Run a motorcycle shop. But I was making them… I bought four, five, six motorcycles, bikes, they called them Wizard motor bikes, back in, they was wore out when I got them so I ended up putting a lawn mower motor on one of them. And I rode it for three or four years, and rode it down here to the Grand.

HAY: Is that right. So, as a teenager, your friends were walking on foot and you were zipping around with a…

MOORE: Not even pedaling, I’d just feed the gas, just like you do on a Harley.

HAY: That’s tremendous. So, you’d be here all day long and you said your sister, you had an older sister and then your brother was younger than you.

MOORE: Jean would bring us, I think I told you her name, Jean Moore was her name, and if anybody knowed her, she worked for the state for years at the highway department. And as she got older, where we was, back then, it ain’t like it is now. She was with us when my brother was four and I was five or six but when we got to age eight and nine, I remember Momma dropped us off down here and we’d go, Momma would give us the money to go around to the barber shop, round by George Taylor’s the barber shop and she’d give us the money to go round and get a good expensive haircut and we’d take the money, and instead of going round to the expensive barber shop, we’d go across the bridge, bridge street, we’d go across the bridge, as children, little children, we’d cross the bridge by the YMCA and get a haircut in there, because that guy’d caught your hair for little to nothing. He used a… clippers, he’d done his hands like this, it wasn’t electric, they’s was electric up there but this gave us more money to spend in the Grand. And that’s fact.

[Hay, laughing]

That gave us more money, and how much more money was it? It could have been a quarter, but a quarter went a long way. And I remember it as well as it was yesterday, me and my brother’s go across that bridge and we were scared, going across the bridge, looking down at that water. And you’ve got to remember, back then, Bridge Street, when we was kids, was wooden and every now and then a board or two would be missing. ‘Cause they’d break out and I remember even they put a concrete floor where you walked, in the walk, we used to go across there and sometimes had to jump across and I told my brother, don’t jump real hard, because that board over there might break and if it does, we’re going to end up in the water. And it was a wooden walkway, hard to believe. And we was wanting to get a cheaper hair cut, so we’d have more money in the picture show. And that is, I never thought about it, I get to thinking and I could write a book on it. I really could.

HAY: That’s amazing. That’s so interesting. So really you were saving your pennys and nickels so you could spend more time here at the Grand.

MOORE: Yeah, Milk Duds. Popcorn. [laughing]

HAY: So, when do you think, how old were you the last time you came in this building, do you think? Before you came in before.

MOORE: I don’t know, I tell you, when you get busy, when your life gets busy, about the time you start getting married and having kids, and that’s probably about what it was. And I got married and I was about 19 and two, three years after that you have your first child and the pictures shows ain’t in your mind no more, you got to get out there and make a living and pay for stuff. But I come here for years, I’ll never forget it, the warmest time in my life. If only the kids had it to do today, I think we’d have a lot better kids. And we just had to have all the garb, our guns and pistols and dressed up like the cowboys and just had a wonderful time.

HAY: So you, I saw that picture with you dressed up in your cowboy outfit when you were about five years old and your Mom made that for you or got that for you?

MOORE: No, she bought that for Christmas. Probably at the dime store, I’d say. And back then, I think you paid for all that stuff, you didn’t buy nothing on credit. 3:00And but, she bought all the garb, back then they called them the Roy Rogers outfits, the Gene Autrey outfits and Hopalong Cassidy outfits and I know ours wasn’t Hopalong, because Hopalong, I think, she bought us like the Roy or Gene, probably a Roy Rogers. I remember it showed the pictures of the stars on the handles of the guns. And I had, for years, still got some of the stuff left, it’s laying in my room at the TV room. And I had the little leathers you put around your wrist and kept your shirt covered up. Cowboys wore them.

HAY: So, you’ve still got those from that picture, from that same outfit?

MOORE: Yeah, I’ve still got those. It’s leather, they snapped around your wrist. And cowboys back then, it’s really fascinating, they had them they snapped around your wrist where an arrow wouldn’t go up your shirt. And it kept your sleeves clear from your gun when you drawed them. Plus then, what fascinated me, is when they folded their britches up, back in the old Westerns, like John Wayne, like they made twenty-seven of John Wayne Westerns. He folded his cuff up on his britches sometimes, looked like it was folded up there, thirteen inches, it was really odd.

HAY: But that was probably a very practical thing to do, wasn’t it?

MOORE: I guess that keep them from hanging in the stirrups and stuff. They folded them up there to make it safer. And they had these things your wrist, that made it where you wouldn’t hang up on a fence or something. You know what I’m saying? And the chaps and stuff, they kept you from hanging up on stuff.

HAY: I was just thinking, did you ride horses much when you were younger?

MOORE: Oh, yeah. My brother had horses and yeah. We. brother, as he growed up. I was trying to think how old he was, probably, he’s probably eighteen or nineteen and he started buying horses. He bought a buckskin one time, he bought double guns, real ones, these ain’t toys, double guns, he even bought a Winchester and put in the holster, on the gun, fence, on the saddle. He put fancy saddle on it and he got in, I never did go that far, I rode motorcycles, but he got the horses and went for the whole thing. Bought the expensive guns, real ones and Winchester and a holster, and he’d get our riding and he’d put all that on that horse on a weekend and rode. And I rode his horses.

HAY: That’s tremendous. I’m just going to take a quick break for a second here… turn this off. [interruption]

MOORE: … tell her about my bank. So, the woman spent a whole day with me doing the same thing she done. At my motorcycle shop. And at our music in Choatesville, they put me in the paper twice. I got both of them still. If I thought, I’d brought them. A lot of people, I don’t like bragging on myself, but I had a band, was in a band. It’s all on film.

HAY: What was your band called? And what kind of a band?

MOORE: We just played here in Choatesville. We played with different people. We had like at the Ruritan Club in Choatesville we played music out there. I had a, we played in my garage, my shop, for about a year and we played even out to Earl Perry’s on Cardwell Lane. But Choatesville was the last place and we played in the band and not really had a name, wasn’t nothing fancy, just get together and have music and people come. It was all free.

HAY: What kind of music?

MOORE: Mostly country, but we played, we played western and a little bluegrass and, but mostly, old country’s what we played.

HAY: What instrument did you play?

MOORE: I’m a harmonica, I play guitar but I’m a harmonica when I play in a band. Pretty sharp harmonica is what some people call me.

HAY: I’m trying to remember if there were any westerns with harmonica players in them.

MOORE: Froggie Millhouse played western harmonicas all the time. And they had a lot of others, but Froggie’s the only one that knowed, Gene Autry’s partner, he’s the only one that knowed how to play harp. There’s a lot of people who played harp in the westerns but they had it the wrong place when the sound was coming out of their mouths, so I knowed they wasn’t playing it. But Froggie Millhouse could play any instrument made, and that was Gene Autry’s partner. He played any instrument made. Plus he made a lot of instruments. And Froggie was a very smart music person. He could play anything it was to be played.

HAY: Who was your favorite cowboy?

MOORE: Hopalong Cassidy was my favorite. But I liked them all, I liked Rocky and Hopalong and Gene and Roy and all of them. But my favorite’s Hopalong Cassidy and I’ve met Lash La Rue in person. My Daddy, like I said, my Daddy loved cowboys. We went to the state fair back in the 50s when Roy and Dale and Pat come and we got to see Roy, well, me and Daddy waited to see Lash La Rue. Roy was inside that year, in the big auditorium, and Dale, and Lash La Rue was outside. For people that know their cowboys like me, Lash La Rue was outside, he was the one that had the bullwhip. And he was outside and we waited til everybody left his tent and Daddy walked up to him and said do you mind talking to us for a few minutes, being as you ain’t got nobody here? And he talked to me and Daddy for about an hour outside his tent at the State Fair. Because Daddy loved westerns as much as me. And I remember it as well as yesterday and I had to be real little, but I remember it as well as yesterday, because he was holding his hand down like this on my head and I had to have been like four or five or six years old. But talked to Lash La Rue. Daddy worked at, like a said a while ago, at the Buick/Pontiac. Well, he called me one day at work after I got married and said. Well, guess whose car I’m working on over here at the Buick garage. I said, who? And he said Tex Ritter’s. And I said, he, aw it’s fascinating… he said, can you come? I’m digging a basement and a guy’s on the job and I can’t come, I’m sorry Daddy. He said, well, they’d play us three songs before they left and I’m working on his car, the boss put me on his car, means because I like cowboys and Daddy worked on Tex Ritter’s car, somebody he adored. Can you imagine?

HAY: Wow, what an amazing thing. So, was Tex visiting here? Was he here doing a show?

MOORE: No, he was done out of the picture shows, he done got too old to make westerns. But what he was doing was touring with this band. And Daddy said they had a big Buick, looked like a hearse, but it wasn’t called a hearse, but it looked like a hearse, back then it was like a van, you know. And they had all their equipment in it and they was traveling, to each town, and they was booked and just playing music, so he went right on playing music to make a living. Tex Ritter was fascinating. And he got to be a big man.

HAY: I, someone told me that they used to do live music shows here at the Grand. Do you remember any live shows?

MOORE: No, I don’t remember no live shows. I remember, I tell you what they used to do. Yes, when you say live shows, let me bring this back to say, because I remember coming here it was like Tupperware parties and stuff. And I remember that. And that shows you the stuff you forget. They used to have, people would rent this certain days back in the old days, because I remember my Momma coming here a few times and they sold different things on the stage and I remember one time they had, some, like, I said Tupperware, but they sold dishes and stuff, because I remember my Momma come. I just happened to remember. I remember when I was a little kid, a piano still sitting there at the corner of the picture show. And Daddy said when he come here to watch them when he was growing up, you gotta realize there wasn’t no sound, and a woman sat and played the piano all the time the western was on. And I remember the piano setting in the corner over there. You know, nobody used it.

HAY: Was it on the stage or below the stage?

MOORE: No, on the floor, down on the floor. On the left side of the building, and you got to realize that below the stage you had two doors you went out to the street next door, in case of fire or something. And you walk around behind the stage. And sometimes on a hot summer day they’d open the doors and sort of get the ventilation coming through. Because there was no such thing as air conditioning. And I don’t remember it ever being that hot in here. You know, down in the building, pretty nice. I don’t ever remember it getting hot in here. But I remember having the doors open. And they… they took pretty good care of us kids. You got to realize there wasn’t no grown ups in there, it was all kids. I remember there was only one person that was a grown up and any body watches this and remember that definitely I was here. It was all kids, and I’m talking about anywhere’s from five to 4:00ten might have been a few in here twelve, thirteen, generally it was little kids, but who was sitting in the middle of the audience was all the time, I remember turning around looking for him, and he wasn’t in there and most of the time he was, and was nobody but Judd Green. And he was a great big guy that was the umpire at the state stadium. Us kids, because I even belonged to the state stadium on a team. I was red sox. I forget, it was red sox or some kind of sox and he was an umpire and his name was Judd. And he would benefit for us kids. And was raised up at the institution on East Main and he got to be good and they let him come and participate with the kids. And that’s where he lived, was at the institution up on the hill, they called it back in them days, at the Wacko House. He would sit around with us kids and he was a good guy.

HAY: So, he had some sort of mental disability?

MOORE: Yeah, his parents put him in the institution at the top of the hill. We used to have one right at the top of the hill on the right. Where the health office is was a big, back in them old days called it the Crazy House. But he got better as he got older and Daddy knowed him and said he was alright. And he, they let him, he still felt like a little kid. He watched the westerns with us little kids. Nice guy, I remember him as well as yesterday. Name was Judd.

HAY: And he also played, he was an umpire, you said, he…

MOORE: He worked for the state stadium, they gave him a job being a… a he knew all about ball, baseball, sure. He’d work at the state stadium and I guess gave him a little money, probably what he was spending up at the Grand. Watching shows. But he got paid up there being a umpire. Sure did.

HAY: Did you say that there were ushers here? And would the ushers sort of keep order?

MOORE: They walked through to be sure we didn’t do nothing. You didn’t see nothing tore up. They’d walk through every now and then with a flashlight down in there looking around to make sure everything’s alright. Making sure everything’s straight and there was a ticket person dressed up in their little… they had their costumes, their picture show costumes and when we was a kid it used to be a commercial, I can’t remember it, a little guy sold cigarettes or something and he had a little hat, a little round hat, on their head and it set over on one side of their head and I can’t remember that commercial that guy was in but that’s the way they dressed. They had uniforms on, real nice uniforms. HAY: Was it Phillip Morris?

MOORE: Yeah, Phillip Morris commercial, he’s say, [he sings] Phillip Morray… and he leans over and he’s got the little hat on, that’s exactly what he said, Phillip Morray was the commercial and boys dressed up like that, they was the same color as the carpet, red outfits, like trimmed in gold, and I’m talking about it seems like a band costume and they wore their little outfits, they sure did.

HAY: So would they be selling… they were just in that sort of…

MOORE: The guy took your tickets, was dressed up in the uniform and the little boys that walked around with flashlights and they wasn’t men, they guy that took your ticket generally was a man, adult, but the boys, that had the little uniform, walked around, making sure everybody was doing right was just a kid, they hired here in town.

HAY: Do you think, like, what age kid? 5:00MOORE: He was probably, I don’t know, probably fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. There was some kids in here as big as him, but he sort of worked for the picture show. And they wore that little uniform, and I tell you exactly what they done, because I remember now and then he’d do it, because kids get in little fights now and then, you know! Somebody throwing something, hitting somebody. And they just made sure the kids stayed straight before he went didn’t want to call somebody to load up one and take him to hospital. So, everything went pretty smooth, I don’t ever remember any body ever getting hurt, but they kept it straight.

HAY: Do you remember the manager here? Or anything, or the guy in charge?

MOORE: Yeah, but I can’t remember the names, it’s been so long I can’t remember the names. That’s just like us kids remember stuff, and I remember the manager of the Y over there, Mr. Fudge. But I remember this guy that run this picture show, but I can’t remember his name or who he was. Now, someone told me not long ago.

HAY: Mr. Parsons or Mr. Gene Lutes. Mr. Parsons? Either of those names ring a bell?

MOORE: It’s been so long, I forget. It’s been so long.

HAY: Did you ever her a name Allie Combs?

MOORE: But I guarantee you my Momma would know. My mom would know everything that was going on down here then. No, I can’t remember the name, I really don’t.

HAY: So, you preferred coming to the Grand rather than going to the Capital.

MOORE: Oh, there wasn’t no comparison. The Grand was the only place to be. That’s where the westerns was. Very seldom would you look up there on the corner, and I’d stand on the corner… at the drug store, right under there, when we was kids, WFKY was upstairs and I’d stand on the corner, right here on the corner of the drug store. We had a drugstore on this corner across the street from y’all and that corner up there on the other side and down up the other side across from the Old Capitol I’m looking at the picture on the wall, down at the Capitol, that’s where I’m looking at the picture if you wondering why I’m looking that way, that just fascinates me, the pictures. Down on the corner, down there on the right was a drugstore down there, now you could go down there and climb up on the stool and get you a coke for a nickel and sat in there for twenty minutes, whatever, to kill some time and everybody’s just polite and nice back in them days. But I’d stand on the corner over here and try and figure out, and most the time just stood on the corner just for fascination, I’d look up at the Capital, no I didn’t want to go see them shows, then I’d look up at the Star, no, I don’t want to go see that, and the picture show up there had two or three different names. I remember at one time they called it The Star. It was up there, up the street there, up by the newspaper company.

HAY: Was it the same one that was the Franklin? Was it the Franklin and the Star?

MOORE: Yeah, it had several different names. Over the years different people bought it. Where the Grand was always the Grand, same people owned it. But that one up there it was owned by three or different people and they changed the name every now and then that’s why as kids, I can’t remember. I remember at one time it was called The Star and it was called The Franklin, you’re right there. You know more about it, and I don’t even remember it. You read on this stuff. But the point of it is that you couldn’t keep the name in your mind because it kept changing. But the Grand was always the Grand.

HAY: And you liked the movies here better.

MOORE: Oh, it wasn’t no comparison. They had pretty good westerns on up at the Star. But I liked the westerns here. And you just like, it’s like home. Next door to where Momma worked.

HAY: And all your friends, were all your friends here?

MOORE: Yeah, and see if something happened I could run out and go where Momma worked, you know, say if you needed another dime or so, I’d go around over there, and they knowed who you was. And you just run around there, and they’d say… you’d tap on that glass and run around there and that, that’s how that little thing was it had glass on the front and glass on both sides and it set right there in the middle, that sticking out right there like it shows in that picture. [emotional]

HAY: And she knew where you were so she felt happy with…

MOORE: Well, see there wasn’t no worrying back in them days. In the forties nobody worried about where the kids was, nothing been going to happen. It ain’t like it is now, nothing happened, nothing’s going to happen, you wouldn’t worry five seconds, ain’t the way it was back in them days. And I mean, I hear my Daddy say the good old days, the forties, was the good old days too, but Daddy’s talking about the good old days was back in the, he was born back in like, 1919, 1912, I think and he was talking about the good old days. But my life, here we are in the 2000s, the forties is the times I loved. Back in the cowboy days. I got to watch scraping and popping my fingernails, the mic will pick that up, I gotta stop that.

HAY: You’re okay, I don’t hear it at all, actually. So, yeah, so those, 1940s cowboy are really your favorites. Do you still watch them today?

MOORE: Oh, every day. Every day. I still watch the Ma and Pa films, I got them all. And somebody asked me how many westerns I had and he thought I was exaggerating and I said, I don’t know, about 5,000.

HAY: Wow.

MOORE: And I watch the western channel on the satellite dish, but I think I got more westerns than they got, really. I think I got more than they got. Because I got, I started taping, me and my wife got married back in the.. and we moved over to Bridgeport and I had the big satellite dish then, the great big one and I started taping every western that was on Ted Turner and on WGN Chicago and I’m talking about on channels that used to show westerns. Don’t show them no more, WGN used to show westerns on Saturday out of Chicago that was my favorite channel, after I growed up in the seventies and Ted Turner Network used to show a lot of westerns, sometimes he’d show westerns for two or three weeks. And I’d tape every one. And I got everything and I still, I just dropped by Wal Mart last week, bought two big packages of tape, I still tape, because I told my wife, one of these days I might just want to drop this dish, and I got all these tapes I can watch! I don’t want for watching no westerns, I got them all!

HAY: So the Grand got you hooked on the westerns didn’t it?

MOORE: Wonderful childhood 7:00That’s why I’m here, it was just a wonderful childhood. And here I am, sixty-three and I still remember yesterday at the Grand. Tickles me to death that y’all are bringing it back. Everybody ought to be, when I was a kid, back in the forties, ought to come and see what’s going on, cause it is fascinating. And I donated to this, and I’m proud of it.

HAY: That’s wonderful that you did that. So, if you were two or three or four when you first came, that would have been in 19… the first year you came would have been…

MOORE: middle forties

HAY: Middle forties? What year were you born?

MOORE: I was born in ’43 and my sister brought me here, and I wasn’t much more, I know she brought me here when I was three or four years old, because she brought my brother and you gotta realize I’m in that picture I just showed you and I look… she looks to be ten, which makes me about half that and my brother’s going to be even lower than that, so. He wasn’t probably I don’t know in that picture, it’s hard to say, he looks like he’s about four, there and I’m about six or something and she looks ten, eleven and….

HAY: I’m going to get that picture.

MOORE: I was just a little child. 8:00That was back when you go in the dime store and buy that whole outfit, put it on too, it was the popular days of cowboy outfits.

HAY: I’m just going to hold that picture up here. That’s that picture you were talking about.

MOORE: That’s it, we was dressed up. Sister’s there in the middle and me and my brothers dressed up in the cowboy outfits and I’m next to the tallest one in the picture is my sister. She looks, I don’t know how old she is, we didn’t write on the back how old it was. She was ten, eleven, I don’t think she was twelve, she looks to me about ten, and it varies. Back then, the kids would vary, the Mommas would have a baby and that wait two or three years and have another and there was three in our family, me and Jean looks to be about ten, eleven, I would guess, because I don’t know, and I’m about half her age, I’m four years younger than her and my brother’s about two and a half below me, so that’s us. Back then, that was a big thing, you went to the G… but I don’t remember we didn’t wear our outfits to the picture show. I don’t ever remember wearing the outfits to the picture show. But we had this to put on when we got home, to pretend. But I don’t ever remember wearing the outfit, I don’t even remember wearing the hat, because, you know, you didn’t do that, somebody might take your hat, you know? Never did try to see… we were sort of careful for the stuff we got, Momma worked hard for that. We took care of it. 9:00HAY: Did you have a question you wanted to ask?

STODOLA: I think Norman, when I talked to him a couple of years ago, he remembered hitting his crazy bone.

MOORE: Oh, yes, that’s one of the hardest, yes, I’m glad you reminded me of that. See, I forgot it. I took and went to set down in it at the picture show, it was just about like this chair sitting here that I’m in. About like the picture show, the seats were basically what they are now, they flipped up and flipped down the seats over, I went to set down in there in the Grand, I remember all I was in. Generally I sat in the middle. I never did like down front, My cousin used to sit front row, in the middle, and I didn’t like that. The screen’s too big and it just bounced back and it’s hard on your head. I sat back up there about seven, eight, sometimes ten rows, you know, I didn’t like it in the center, back too far, but I like it about center of the half of the front. And that made it about the seventh row and I liked to come over there about three or four seats sort of get in the middle of the picture show. But that day I hit my crazy bone I was down on the, it was a busy day and I didn’t get to sit where I wanted to and it was on the, over on the right hand side where the short seats was, like seven, eight seats on both sides over against the wall. Maybe ten where there’s a big row in the middle. And I set down in there and when I sat down there, my arm missed 10:00my elbow missed where my arm is supposed to set on that rest, and I picked it up too hard and went and pulled it back down and my sister had to take me to the middle of that street out there, because I thought I’d die! I hit that crazy bone and I thought the pain was so bad I thought I would die, I never did ever do that before. And I was screaming bloody murder. I remember she took me to the middle of that street. And across the street was a grocery store, people looking, I was screaming at the top of my lungs because I thought my arm was falling off. And I found out, what the old saying was, you hit your chin, crazy bone, bad. Bad thing to happen.

HAY: How old were you when that happened, do you think?

MOORE: I was real little, I was like five, six, seven maybe. But boy, I mean to tell you, I remember it as well as yesterday, I remember, I don’t ever remember doing it like that no more. And you don’t want to do that very much.

HAY: You’ll never forget that.

MOORE: Never forget it. And it happened in the Grand. I’d forgotten, until he reminded me, I was telling him two years ago, when they was opened up down here. It was one of the worst events I can remember. [laughter- Hay] And I just remember all the good old days. That’s what my Daddy said, the good old days.

HAY: I just put those pictures that you brought down, right by your feet there, do you want to pick any of those up and describe any of them?

MOORE: I’ll show them to you. These are all these guys played here at the Grand, best I remember, and now, you’ve got Hoot Gibson, people like Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, never did see him here, was too late. But who played here all the time, was the Durango Kid. Gene played here, I don’t remember seeing John Wayne, but John Wayne started in ’27, he started way back before the boys did who started in the forties. John Wayne’s first western was 1927. But most of these guys came along in the forties. Like the Durango Kid, Gene, and Hopalong Cassidy, Tex Ritter, Roy, and Bob Steele, and Lash La Rue played here a lot, Rocky Lane played here a lot. Rocky Lane was a cowboy that made a lot of westerns, and very few people done it, but it was in a Rocky Lane movie, and I remember mostly was Rocky Lane made a lot of his westerns in caves, like the crooks was hiding out in old abandoned caves supposed to have been gold mines. Lone Ranger, he played here, but this about [can’t hear] Hoop and Tom Mix played here before me because Daddy talked about him. [can’t hear] 11:00And but all the rest of them in that picture played here.

HAY: Did your Dad come to the Grand to watch the cowboy movies too?

MOORE: No, but he come with us to the picture shows. But it’d be like on a weeknights or something and I was trying… I can’t remember… I remember one time he come up, it was something real popular that was on advertisement and he come with us. Very seldom, he was at work and we was here. And Gabby and Dale and a lot of people know that history of Roy. Roy was playing at the state fair and his wife had just passed a few years before, three or four, five, and Dale went to interview him, she worked for WHAS, Louisville and she went to interview him and they fell in love at first sight. It happened right here in Louisville, Kentucky.

HAY: Is that right?

MOORE: She worked for WHAS channel 3 in Louisville. Oh, yeah. I met Roy, I met Dale. And at the state fair. But they told that on the news. Anybody knows cowboys they know Roy. I can’t remember, Roy’s wife passed having a baby, or what. They had one or two babies and she died, sick, and he was just a young guy. And here’s that old [can’t hear] But Dale went to interview him, they sort of struck right up on the first meeting. And Rex Allen was a nice…. Rex just barely made it, westerns was just getting ready to fade out and he come in and he got it, famous like in the early fifties. He just barely made a few films and they faded away. Like the old saying goes. Television was invented and ruined it all. That’s what happened. Yeah, TV was what ruined the picture show. People got too lazy to go out, get in the cars and go to the picture show, they just turned the television on. And that’s what this, they say. What happened. This is Tex Ritter, down here, Daddy worked on his car. Tex and Monty Hill, Monty Hale there, Monty Hale was a good.… A lot of people don’t remember names like Monty Hale. They still show his pictures here and there.

HAY: I’m just going to adjust your microphone for a second.

MOORE: It’s moving or something?

HAY: Yes, it’s just getting caught, since we changed…. I’m going to try it right down there. That ought to be fine.

MOORE: I’ll bring the rest of these up here.

HAY: You can put these on your lap,

MOORE: And I’ve got a picture, this is was the front of the book. Back then. It told how much this sells for. The book sold for 25 cents, it says here, on a Hopalong Cassidy book. You can’t hardly see it, but I can look back behind there. There’s July and it costs 25 cents and this one is a western book, And this was back when The Grand was in its heyday. And you’re talking about, back in the forties, and these books, you could buy them and they come out of Hollywood, naturally, and this western here, says 500 westerns and it had 500 pictures of westerns, that’s full pictures in of the cowboys just like it shows Roy, in color, this whole page, and I got all them in frames. I got all of them in frames and I got so many I change them. And the ones I ain’t looking at I go and stack them and put them under the bed and then I get them out and change them. And I ain’t changed them for a while, it’s time I changed them. But I got just about every cowboy that ever was, and like I said, my favorite was Hopalong. My favorite was Hopalong and a lot of people, is, and here’s somebody a lot of people don’t know about. Herb Jeffries. One of my favorites, Herb Jeffries. And they had a few, but he’s my favorite of the African American cowboy. And there he is. And Herb’s still alive, they just done an interview of him on TV a few months ago. It was down there last summer, on Turner Classics and they done a big article and they showed his movies then they showed him and interviewed him. Good interview, I got it on tape. But this is Herb Jeffries and I got three of his films, is hard to beat. I got four stars wrote on them, because they’re hard to beat. They was made back then. And a lot of people didn’t know about Herb, and there he is. Herb Jeffries.

HAY: So that was films made also during the forties? Herb Jeffries?

MOORE: Before the forties, he made these about the time Hopalong Cassidy was making his. You’re talking about ’38 and ’39. ’38. ’39, ‘40 I got three of him and I know they was made in the thirties. But like I say, a while ago, a lot of people don’t realize it, John Wayne was making westerns in 1927 because I got them. I got westerns that ain’t got no talking on them. [laughing] And I watch them.

HAY: Silent movies!

MOORE: Oh, yeah. But I mean that’s why I got the satellite dish right to the day, I got the western channel and I watch westerns.

HAY: When the westerns that played here at the Grand. Would they always be new releases? Or would they sometimes play the older ones? They’d bring them back?

MOORE: No, I don’t remember, hardly ever seeing reruns. It’s just. Back then they made them, sometimes to make the… it’s like I was trying to think what they said the other day, they was talking about the westerns, they was talking about, I can’t remember which star it was, but they was popping out, they called it “popping out” three westerns, a star made sometimes three westerns a week. Because it’s demand. I’ll tell you the scariest western I ever watched. And I thought of it yesterday, to tell you all. Was a Hopalong Cassidy film, and I’ve got it, but I forget about talking about it, and I was just a kid, but I remember, and I thought about it, like I said, sometimes you watched something and you didn’t want to come back for a few weeks. It was a Hopalong Cassidy movie and when you went in to a special bedroom these crooks was running, the bed, the top of the canopy of the bed, eased down and smothered you to death. And this was in a Hopalong Cassidy film. And I got it, and it killed the first one, I’m trying to think, it killed an old gold miner and they stole his money. It was a motel, it was run, out in the country, it was run by a good guy, but his brother was a crook. In this western, his brother must have been a crook. And him and a couple of guys that had that bed fixed, the bed had a canopy over the top of it and great big iron, I mean, wooden post, in the bed at nights would ease down and of course, it wouldn’t be possible, and smother him to death. And Hopalong figured out who it what was going on and got them. And you talk about a little kid, that right there was scary, and you didn’t want to go to sleep for a couple of nights.

HAY: Yeah, you wouldn’t sleep… [laughter]

MOORE: But I got that on film, to the day, and its called Last Chance.. the name of the movie, I even remember the name of it is Last Chance Motel and Hopalong Cassidy when he went off, he said, if you all want to make some money y’all need to change the name on top of that building. Last Chance and it stood for what it said, because while it is there, people got killed, in this movie. They were smothered to death.

HAY: So, you didn’t come back to the movies for a couple of weeks after that?

MOORE: You couldn’t tell your Momma you were too scared to come back to westerns again. And it would fade out a couple of weeks and you’d try to make it back.

HAY: Then you’d be courageous again and ready to come see some more cowboys.

MOORE: I’d like to, a lot of kids I was in the picture show with back in them days hadn’t seen in forty, fifty years, I’d like to see some of them and I say that, my invitation, is at my house, open if somebody wants to come see my westerns and see my pictures on the wall. And if they remember, a lot of times, kids don’t remember kids, but I got a cousin was in here every Saturday and he went to Vietnam and after that, he passed, a long time ago. But he was in here every Saturday. Now, I tell you something they did show a lot of at the Grand and I didn’t like to watch them, if they was showing them that weekend, I didn’t come. I remember watching a few. But they didn’t interest me. Was Frankenstein and Count Dracula. Vampires and stuff, I didn’t go for that too much. But my cousin didn’t miss a Frankenstein movie. And his name was Donald Ray. A lot of people remember him. He liked Frankenstein. I didn’t.

HAY: Were there a lot of Frankenstein movies?

MOORE: They showed a lot of Frankenstein movies at the Grand, sure did. Back in the heydays, they showed probably one a month, at least, and that’s a lot to me. More than I want to watch. It’s the same ones you see on the old classic movie channels now, the same movies.

HAY: You were describing the posters inside when you came in. Were there also posters outside the theatre?

MOORE: Yeah, they was there. There on the left and right and back that thing. There’s a little bitty glass right there, you could see. And but, it’s back in the container too, in the, but that picture that y’all got there, pretty much shows how it was, shows that glass, how they had the glass looks like the got pictures inside of one. Like I said, the ticket counter sat right out there, I remember like it was yesterday. The glass was in the front and it had glass on each side. She could turn you know she could look to see if someone was sneaking in, that’s what that was for. And the top it showed the glass cage she sat in, it’s a little box. And she just sat in there on a stool, it had glass here, glass here, glass here, and it had a little door over to the other side. A little door you stepped out of, there in the back. They had it fixed where you could look if somebody couldn’t, you know, I don’t think they did it very much, but you never know, I didn’t run the picture show. Every now and then somebody might, if they sneaked by there, the guy in there’s going to catch you. The ticket collector. That’s what the glass was for, wrapped around there. So nobody would come in without her knowing it. And back in them days you knowed them girls that collected the tickets. As I growed up I took the girls home two or three times on my motorcycle, she didn’t have a car. 12:00And the girl took the tickets, when she got off, I took her home. I remember that too.

HAY: So really, everybody they knew everybody, didn’t they.

MOORE: Oh, yeah, everybody was friendly. Every body knows who they was and everything else. It’s just, it’s hard to believe I look at that picture and it brings back those memories. And that’s reason I bought it, I was advertising last year, I bought both Frankfort books they made and it shows the Y and the Capital, just like the street that shows there, and it’s got pictures in that Frankfort book, and she bought both of them. And it so happens I had them loaned out and they come back yesterday. And Polly said she gave about $50 a piece for them. 13:00HAY: Those are beautiful books.

MOORE: She bought both of them for me and that’s the reason, because it shows picture show in it, that’s the main reason. And I remember when I was a kid, there was railroad tracks in the streets, where they had the electric trolley cars. And I never did see a trolley car, but I did in Louisville, but here in Frankfort when I was a kid. All the streets had railroad tracks, trolley car tracks, we called them railroad tracks down every street in this town. In that Frankfort book it shows the tracks where the trolley cars… and they run all over with an electric wire. They run right down the middle of the street, right in front of this Grand.

HAY: Is that right?

MOORE: Yeah, sure did.

HAY: So all of the streets…

MOORE: Railroad tracks. I guess back in the old days, before the taxi cabs and before buses, the little car would pick you up and take you places. And but I remember when I was a kid in Louisville, they still had them. Because I had an aunt who lived right across the street from them and that building, aw, there would be hundreds of them and they would come out in the mornings and they would hook up and take off. They’d run by that little thing up on the top. About like bumper cars at the state fair. That’s how they‘d run, a little electric thing they’d reach up and touched the wire.

HAY: So there must have been like an electric grid all around the town…

MOORE: Electric wire down every street, right in the middle. Back there, it was definitely in the thirties because I come along in the forties and it was fading out. But the streets was, all the streets was brick too, all the floors of the streets was brick, somebody placed, just like you see at the sidewalks walking up to your house. And the streets was brick.

HAY: Is that right?

MOORE: They tore all that up right out here. Dug it up and fixed it back. Tore it up, dug it up, fixed it back. Cant figure out what they want.

HAY: That’s the story of the St. Clair Mall, isn’t it?

MOORE: I know exactly what they want, I want it back looking exactly like it did in the forties.

MOORE: That sure would be nice, wouldn’t it?

MOORE: Oh, that’s something you just dream, those things go, that’s in your dreams. A lot of good times, Frankfort.

HAY: Well, of course it looked different and it was full of people. Now, it’s so quiet downtown so…

MOORE: Used to be, like I said, Judd’s used to be in a show, and somebody watching this’ll say, Mr. Moore I don’t remember. Yes, I do, I just happened to think about her. And Gypsy Rose Lee they called her. She was only adult that walked in there and she lived downtown where, I don’t know where, but anyway, she come in there and she wore a great big rose. Martha, she had two or three names, Indian Martha, and she was a woman who put on way too much makeup and her hair was coal black. And had a great big rose on her chest all the time. She used to come in here when the children was in here and she just sat around, she wasn’t no bother. But she liked the old movies too. And I remember her. Her and Judd’s the only grown ups you seen here back in those days. Didn’t see many grown ups. Mostly kids.

HAY: She had several different names, did you say? What were her names?

MOORE: She had a couple of names…

HAY: Indian Rose?

MOORE: Yeah. Indian Martha. Martha Rose, or… trying to remember, been so long, you forget. Everything she came to the picture show she dressed up real fancy. She had a great big rose, on her dress here. As big as a saucer. It looked like it was real, I thought it was. And she had three names she went by. And Rose was one of them because she wore roses.

HAY: Would you see her out around town or would you only see her in theatre?

MOORE: Only in the picture show, you’d very seldom… but I tell you, I just

52.32

remembered, down at… here in the front of the street, down in front of The Grand, every Saturday it was a man and woman played the guitar–cause that's something I do–he played, he played the accordion and I'm trying to remember, she played the accordion, I can't remember but they was blind and they both played music, just about like on the other side of the... there's two dime stores right there past The Grand, there's two dime stores and on the other side of the Grand it was a little step they sat on, if I remember this, both blind, one played the accordion and one played the guitar and they sung all day long and you drop nickels and dimes in there little pot, there little coffee cup, metal coffee cup. And down in front of the Capitol on the day The Grand's going, I used to remember his name but it used to be an ice-cream truck sitting down there and you could get you a nickel ice-cream or a dime ice-cream and you're talking about an ice-cream that tall. The guy run it in the back of a truck, a wooden van–somebody said his name not long ago but I can't remember it but he had his head shaved and he sold ice-cream. And plus, I remember a guy that walked the streets with a glass, little glass wagon and sold peanuts. Back in them forties.

HAY: How much would a bag of peanuts be?

MOORE: Oh you buy all you want, like a nickel.

HAY: How much would the ice-cream have cost?

MOORE: I remember it was a nickel and a dime and you'd get it, he had it, like four for fifteen cents and, I remember eating a lot of ice-cream.

HAY: [Laughing]

MOORE: And that's the ice-cream he made. It, almost, I can almost think of his name. Mmmm, but he made the ice-cream his self. And has anything you named, he had it back in there. But it sat right down there in front of the Capitol, is where he sat.

HAY: Would he be out in the evenings for the, after the picture show, or would be out during all day every day or?

MOORE: Off and on, off and on all day when it's really busy, it's just a lot of people. You're talking about a line.

HAY: On the weekends, more on the weekends?

MOORE: Oh yeah, I never did see him, mostly on, mostly, only on weekends. So as Frankfort turned in to a, everybody worked all week long, Saturday, was the day that's off and a day to town to shop and a lot of times it was shopping but a lot of times it was talking about how the tobacco's doing down so and so, how the corn's doing. And this is farmers and all the people out in the country and that street there was packed. In the stores, people buying stuff but the point of it is... I remember most all the stores when I was a kid. I remember, cross the street down there, liquor store, had swinging doors like the cowboys had on the bars back then, right down the there, right the street across from this Grand Picture Show, they had swinging doors just like you seen in the cowboy westerns. Still right there, I remember as well as yesterday. And I remember going under swinging doors and going in there, looking around. Every now and then that why I say, get out of there. 14:00HAY: [Laughing]

MOORE: But they still had the doors, when I was a kid, they still had the doors there that was in the cowboy westerns at the saloons. At the saloons on this Main St, right here. Right across the street down there, there's two of them. That's something else.

HAY: What other stores do you remember going into?

MOORE: ( )... all of them. I bought, I bought my, right across my dime store, when I, asked Polly to marry me. I went right straight across, my dime store to a jewelry store and bought her a diamond ring. Right straight across from The Grand,

0: 15:00 -0: 16:00down at the dime store, right straight across the street was a jewelry shop. I can’t think of the name of it. Been too long. But, like jewelry shop’s was owned by…if I remember…probably Jew…’cause that’s why they call them jewelry shops…Jews owned them…I bought the diamond ring for my wife right there across the street. Her sister worked at the dime store back at that time, and I borrowed her to go across the street to buy her ring. And her sister’s fingers was twice her size. Found that out later. Anyway, I brought her sister across the street and had her fitted for a ring. And I bought it right there. You’re talking about busy times, across from The Grand, is where I bought her ring. She’s got it on her finger right now. I tell somebody every now and then, we’ve been married forty three…forty five. Time passes.

HAY: Polly, do you remember the name of the jewelry store?

POLLY: (…)

MOORE: I don’t remember. Really. I don’t remember if you said it.

POLLY: (…)

HAY: Might have been Selberts.

MOORE: I remember it was right across from that lower dime store. I remember the drug stores were on both ends of the street. It had been there for years, and it was there for years and years, and then…

HAY: So everything happened in town.

MOORE: Everything. Sure. Well, you didn’t shop for nothing in the country. Wasn’t nothing in the country to shop at. Everything was in town. Right here. Your life was right here on this street. There wasn’t nothing out in the country. You could stop at a country store and get a package of bologna or something, you know what I’m saying. But, it wasn’t nothing like you do now.

HAY: Did you live in Choatesville the whole…

MOORE: Raised and born in Choatesville. Right there as I was telling you about Devil’s Hollow Hill? Where I was born at, you went up to Devil’s Hollow Hill…course it’s gone now…you turn there and go into the new street goes into the subdivision. But, when I was a kid, my daddy got married and I was born in…the first house going up Devil’s Hollow Hill was on your right, right here at the old rock quarry. A lot of people didn’t know it was an old rock quarry. But there were two houses right there as you went to the top of Devil’s Hollow Hill, the very first house you seen on your right sat back in the dark of the shade of the trees, a little four room house…small four room house…three rooms I think. And Daddy built that when him and Momma got married. I lived in the first house on Devil’s Hollow Hill. It was there for a long time. They tore it down when they put in this new street to the subdivision. Turns in right there. There was a little house there, and that’s where I was born. When I was two years old, we moved over behind the store in Choatesville. That’s where I was born. Right here in town. Right up the town hill. That’s the only way you got to Choatesville when I was a kid. You had to go up that hill…wasn’t no Parkside Drive. Wasn’t no other thing. You had to go up that hill to get to Devil’s Hollow.

HAY: Now when you were a little older, you said you put that motor on your bicycle. Before you had your motorized bicycle, how did you get to town? Did you walk?

MOORE: We’d come with Momma. Sister. We’d come with Momma when she went to work.

HAY: Did you have a one family car?

MOORE: Yeah, most of the time. I remember Daddy had two ’46 Chevrolets, but I remember mostly…when I was fifteen, Daddy had two ’46 Chevrolets that looked just alike. But, mostly we got to town with Daddy driving us. Back then, you’re talking about just going to Choatesville was…I remember going up Devil’s Hollow Hill and it seemed like it took forever to get to the top of the hill. The car would “putt…putt…putt” like a Model A Ford. I remember riding in the rumble seat of a Model A Ford when I was a little kid. Momma and Daddy got the front, and set me and my sister…this was before my brother was born…set us down in the little hole in the back. They’d open it up and set us down in there, and if it started to rain, we’d just pull the door down and closed it and stayed in there until we got where we was going. But in the Model A Ford, it was only made for two people. Momma sat in there. And Daddy. And there wasn’t no room for no kids. Wasn’t no room. They didn’t build the Model A Ford with nobody that had children. They called it a rumble seat. Daddy would open it up…it was like a trunk back there…and he’d open it up and sit us down in there. I remember if it was snowing or raining, I remember sitting back in there with snow blowing in your face. Ain’t no heater. Wasn’t no heater up front. Wasn’t no heater in back. Times have definitely changed.

HAY: But it got you back and forth to town.

MOORE: Yeah, I remember one night we got stuck in a snow storm, and Daddy carried us home. Left the Model A just sitting there in the street. Carried us home. He drug me over the snow most of the way.

HAY: What happened then?

MOORE: Snow storm. We got stuck in a snow storm. Had to leave the Model A sitting there and walked home. Snow. Back in them days, snow was four or five inches deep and you didn’t go nowheres. Tires were as slick as onions. I don’t remember any treads on the tires we had.

HAY: And that’s a heck of a hill too, up that hill to Choatesville.

MOORE: Tires like racing slicks. That’s what they looked like back in them days. You didn’t see no tires with treads on them, I don’t think.

HAY: So a lot of people would be walking on snowy nights.

MOORE: Yeah. [Chuckle] It’s like the movie Ralphie that Daddy didn’t buy too many tires. Ralphie said that Daddy rode on onions. And that’s about what our tires was. The treads were like onions. You didn’t see no wiggly lines in the tires. They were as slick as that floor the tires was.

HAY: I’m going to stop the tape and just put another tape in really quickly.

MOORE: Alright.

1: 17:00 -0: 18:00END OF TAPE 1

�PAGE �

�PAGE �2�