The Institution That Was Saturday Night

Recently, to welcome folks who had come to McCook to attend a statewide meeting of the Nebraska Foundation, McCook merchants opened their doors for "A Night on the Bricks." The plan was to stage an event that would welcome these out of town visitors and at the same time show off our unique downtown.

From all reports, the event had its desired effect. Comments from visitors, who had come from across the state, were enthusiastic. Everyone had a good time. I don't know if the merchants did a lot of business or not, but, at least for this one night, that was not the main objective. The event reminded me of the 30s and 40s when Saturdays and especially Saturday nights were of great importance to people in a small town.

In the days before World War II, Saturdays were different in the small towns in the Midwest. To say they were bigger and of more importance in people's lives than Saturdays are today is an understatement. Truly they were an "Event" that people looked forward to, not unlike the feeling we have on the day before Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Plainview, Nebraska, population 1,411 was what you would call a "one industry town." That industry was farming. Everything revolved around the farmer. The farmer dictated the store hours and everything else in Plainview. And why not! Without the farmers' business there was no reason for Plainview to exist. But it was a two way street. Merchants did their best to serve the farmers with goods and services, and the farmers traded "at home."

My folks had the bakery in Plainview when I was growing up. My dad would say that they did as much business on Saturdays as on all the rest of the week. The bakers would go to work at 9 p.m. on Friday night, and usually would be finished with the baking by 1 or 2 p.m. on Saturday---all one shift. The bakery would open for retail business about 7 a.m., and with luck, customers would have picked up their purchases by midnight. Only then would the sales girls be able to go home. But it was the same with most businesses---the bakery just had to bake its product that day. Most business people were busy preparing in the morning, but selling did not begin in earnest until after noon, though some farmers arrived to pick up parts, or attend a special sale at the sale barn and ate at one of the two cafes downtown.

First stop for a farm family was at one of the cream and egg stations. Cream, in 5 and 10 gallon cans and eggs in 30 dozen cases were hauled in the trunk of the family car, and were important sources of family income. The grocery stores, who also bought cream and eggs, used the price they paid as a lure for the farmer's wife to trade at their store.

There were six grocery stores in the two block main street in Plainview. People would stop at the grocery store soon after arriving in town and leave their grocery list. Then the grocery clerks would fill that list into boxes, which were placed on the floor in front of the shelves. It was not unusual to go into a grocery store in the evening and find the walls completely lined with boxes of groceries waiting to be picked up. This might not happen until after the 2nd show at the theater, near midnight. It didn't matter. Like the bakery, grocery stores did not close till those boxes were picked up.

The pool hall in Plainview was an unusual place. They served cold drinks and frozen candy bars, but no beer or hard liquor. Perhaps this was to make the pool hall a more gentle place for mothers to allow their impressionable sons to play pool. And SONS it was. Only males frequented the pool hall. If a woman wanted to talk with her son or husband, she came to the door and the proprietor called him. She did not go in. There were no lady pool players!

Homer Haskins, the owner took his role as "keeper of the morals" seriously. He was quick to reprimand a pool player for using salty language, and he frequently banned players (for days or weeks) for horse-play that got too rambunctious.

While drinking was a no no, smoking was very popular at the pool hall. On a Saturday night, when the place was packed, you could not see from the front of the building to the back because of the thick haze of cigarette and cigar smoke (so thick you could cut it with a knife.)

Saturday night was a night to see people and be seen. By sitting in one place on main street, sooner or later a person would see everyone who was in town. It was imperative to arrive early as parking space was limited. Our neighbors, recently retired from the farm, would regularly park their car in the afternoon near the theater, go home for supper, then come back as seven, to sit in their car and be on hand for people to stop to talk during the evening.

Teenage girls, freshly scrubbed in starched dresses, practiced the 30s version of cruising main street. They would walk, arm in arm, the two blocks up one side of the street, cross over, and down the other---repeatedly through the evening. Each time they met a similar group, going the other way, they would stop to chat for a moment. These groups were followed by a like number of boys, vying for attention---the girls pretending not to notice. Many wore their hair in curlers. Apparently, it was still more important to look nice for church on Sunday.

The Plainview businesses of the 30s were specialized. Shoppers bought their groceries at the grocery store, but bought their meat at the meat markets, and their bread and rolls at the bakery. The drug stores had a soda fountain and ice cream treats, but did not serve coffee. The bars sold beer and liquor, but had no pool table. The theater showed movies, but did not sell popcorn. Popcorn was provided by "Popcorn Petersen" who made delicious, buttery popcorn in his gas fired popcorn popper, which he set up outside the theater.

It was my dad's custom to attend the movies on Saturday night. After working all Friday night and most of Saturday, he was exhausted by evening, but he had to be somewhere until it was time to close the bakery, so he chose the movies. He fell asleep sometime during the first reel, and missed seeing the rest of the picture. He was self-conscious about falling asleep, and hoped that no one noticed. But one time, a woman tried to talk the theater owners wife out of buying a ticket for her good sized youngster, saying that the boy would just sleep through the show. Mrs. Hoffman's reply, in dad's hearing was, "Walter Sehnert has been sleeping through the show every Saturday night for years and he never once has asked to be admitted free!"

Baber's Café, on main street occupied two adjoining buildings. The front building had a long counter with stools, a few tables, s small bar, and a pinball machine. The back building, a dining room, had booths around a good sized dance floor. On Saturday nights the lights were low, and the place rocked to the music of Tommy Dorsey and the other popular dance bands of the day, via the juke box. An entire generation of Plainview youths learned to dance to the strains of "The One O'Clock Jump"and "The Beer Barrel Polka" at Baber's Café.

The Institution that was Saturday Night was a phenomenon that was destined to end after WW II, with the advent of good roads and automobiles, which made the trek to the hub towns more practical. Business was spread out during the week. Saturday became just another day.

The crowning blow to eventful Saturday nights was television, with its good line-up of shows on Saturday night. The magic of television brought new friends into our living rooms---friends like Uncle Miltie (Berle), Sid Caesar, and Matt Dillon. To a large extent these new friends replaced the fellowship of talking to old friends and neighbors in person.

But, so much for this trip down "Memory Lane". I need to check on my grandchildren. They are busy collecting their own impressions and experiences for that article they'll write someday about their life back in the early days of the 2000s[.

Source: Growing Up In Plain View, by Walt Sehnert