Welcome to HickoryRecord.com. Skip directly to: our Keyword Search, Section Navigation, Content.

HickoryRecord.com - Hickory Daily Record

HomeNewsEntertainmentSportsLifestylesOpinionCommunityWeather Online Tools Jobs | Real Estate | Shopping | Classified

When there was no Friday night football

For Seniors Only

By MARCY BUCHANAN

Published: October 22, 2009

That's correct! There was a time when high schools had no football or any other kind of ball games on Friday night. Why? I can hear younger folk asking with disbelief. Ball games were as scarce as mill whistles are today. The reason was the same as for many other missing fun times in our lives: World War II.

With gas rationing and fewer cars, there was no way that school buses were to be used for ball games or other entertainment. So what did one do on Friday night? Television had not made its debut, and we surely didn't have forty-leven theaters to visit, let along the price of more than one or two a month. So what?

During the last two years of high school with a small class, we began to devise home get-togethers. We evaded the term party, as somehow it conjured up more than our parents would allow. We played all the old parlor games of musical chairs, spin the bottle and a few played cards — with no money involved, of course. There was a radio blaring for the few who could jitterbug. And we always had refreshments, that for some reason seemed to always include pimiento cheese sandwiches cut into triangles.

Since so many food items were rationed, there was a limit to what we could serve. But to this day, i do not care for pimiento cheese.

Sometimes, when the weather permitted, we would have a wiener roast in someone's pasture, and that was a lot of fun as our noise didn't have to be monitored. We did a lot of running games at these outings.

When it came time for me to hose a get-together, I knew I had some hurdles to contend with. For one thing, our house wasn't roomy enough, and we certainly would not be permitted to play cards or jitterbug. But where there's a will, there's a way. I was blessed with a terrific Aunt Hettie who cam to my rescue. Not only did she have a larger house, but offered to serve something besides pimiento cheese.

The only thing she didn't have was a working radio. That was solved by borrowing one from a cousin who lived nearby. Now there was one other request of me that I dreaded. I would have to make a trip to buy a chicken for her to make chicken salad sandwiches instead of the usual fare.

Remember, these were days before frozen food and prepared mixes.

I took an early bus to a downtown warehouse that had live chickens. Without telling the clear I was riding a bus, taking for granted that I was in a car, he handed me the chicken with its legs tied together. I crammed it under my arm, trying to hide it, but the ride back to Long View was the longest trip of my life.

Aunt Hettie burst out laughing when i arrived and asked why the store clerk didn't put the hen in a box with air holes in it.

The party was well attended, everyone in good spirits, with two girls jitterbugging up a storm in the dining room, when suddenly a loud knock at the door brought everyone to a halt. Aunt Hettie came from the bedroom to open the door to find her brother standing there with a scowl on his face. He didn't wait to be invited in, but made a dash for the radio, yanked it out of the socket, ranting that he paid for that radio and it wasn't going to be used for no dancin'.

He stormed out the door and I wanted to hide I was so embarrassed. Again, Aunt Hettie came to my rescue as she did so many time of my growing up. She told everyone to pay no attention to him and we'd still have music. She dragged out her old guitar and began to play songs that we know. Soon, we had a songfest that gave everyone a big appetite for her chicken salad sandwiches.

Thinking I would be laughing stock in school, I dreaded Monday morning. I found just the opposite when several told me is was by for the best get-together we'd had. At least it was the most memorable for me.

No Friday night football? Who needs it when you can have a traveling chicken and pimiento cheese sandwiches?

Marcy Buchanan is a resident of Hickory. Some of the names in her column are, by necessity, fictional. The stories are real, however.