Dale Ensor, Lafayette County Treasurer, grew up on a farm near Butler. His family went to town every Saturday afternoon and sold their eggs for enough money to buy groceries for the upcoming week. Dale said after selling the eggs his mother went to the grocery store, his dad went to the feed store, and he went to the movie. The movie cost a dime, popcorn was a nickel, which out of his quarter allowance left him ten cents for a comic book. When he was old enough to buy a car, he continued to come to town every Saturday night where the young people had a square dance on the square. The band for the square dance consisted two guitars, a fiddle, banjo, and a caller on a flatbed wagon. Later in life, Dale said his mother got tired of looking at that big stack of comic books he had purchased every Saturday afternoon and threw them away. He figures if he had them today, they would be worth at least a new car.
I’ve had several people tell me Emma and Grain Valley had a free outdoor movie shown on the side of a building. The farmers at Emma went to Concordia to buy their groceries and the farmers near Grain Valley went to Oak Grove.
In Oak Grove on Saturday night, there were two barber shops which were so full it would take two to three hours to get a hair cut. Every once in a while, a town resident would be in the shop so he could hear all the gossip. My dad would be beside himself, saying “So and so could get a hair cut anytime during the week, why did he do it on Saturday night?” Looking back he was probably mad because by the time he got out of the barber shop, my mom would be ready to go home and he never had a chance to drink a beer a Vic’s Café.
Please let me know the Saturday night tradition in your home town.
Jack can be reached at PO Box 40, Oak Grove, MO 64075 or jackremembers@aol.com
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