Press

Why the IO

Topics in the IO

Palace Wednesdays

Tarps Over Elmwood

This Week that Was

Act like an Adult

Vicksburg/Shiloh

Nauvoo IL an easy drive from Elmwood

Illinois' Native America Past

Fall Color Trip

Spring Mill Indiana

27 Years Married

A New Life

Cmas Letter 2009

Marriage Clay

Lincoln Douglas

just email: The Steve

The Wednesday Night Drawing at the Palace Theatre  

By Karl Taylor

     The date is July 5, 1950.  The time is 9:27 PM.  The place is the Palace Theatre in  Elmwood, Illinois, a small country town, west of Peoria, filled with retired farmers and factory workers.

     The first picture show began at 7 PM, and the second will commence shortly when the drawing is over.  Arwin Archibald, a part-time employee in the projection booth, is rewinding the film:  a newsreel, a cartoon, and the main feature, a mystery movie.  The  scratchy newsreel is about increased tensions along the 38th parallel in Korea and  the cartoon features Road Runner, the strange looking chicken that races cars and motorcycles down dusty roads.  James Cagney, the little man with the big part, stars in the feature, his latest gangster movie, “Public Enemy.”

Korea 1950 JULY

24th Infantry Division troops of Task Force Smith at Taejon railroad station on July 2, 1950. Photo: U.S. Army. Source: D.M. Giangreco, War in Korea: 1950-1953 (Presidio Press).

     As the stage lights come on, 20 or 30 kids, from 6 to 16, crowd along the waist-high edge of the stage, as Eddie Hahn, the proprietor, pushes a homemade drum made of chicken wire to the center of the stage.  He gives the drum a spin, and then another, as the cards with names, addresses, and telephone numbers tumble, end over end.  Almost immediately the children raise their arms high and begin chanting in unison:  “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.”

       Eddie looks down the row of children, mostly young boys in crew cuts, and points his skinny index finger at Jack Jordan, who jumps up on the stage, facing the audience. Momentarily he is blinded by the stage lights, but he tries to find a friendly face in the audience,

Top HatClick to Read Next Page