Submitted by Karl Breckenridge
I bear news this Friday morning to This is Reno readers – when I was just a little kid living at 740 Ralston Street across from Whitaker Park (pictured), I used to send a lot of letters to my mother’s great aunt Lola who was a Maryknoll nun domiciled in Dubuque, Iowa. She regarded Reno, Nevada as a god-forsaken jumping-off point for my parents to move (back) to after WWII; the letters were to tell her that Reno wasn’t a town full of savages… Â
Image: Bud Loomis
Lola passed away many years ago, and twenty years later a valise was discovered with many of those letters and found its way back to me. I might publish one here occasionally. One is about movies in Reno. So we’ll now all go to a movie; here’s what I wrote 70 years ago:
It’s a 1952 Saturday morning in Reno, Nevada; Big John and Sparky were on No School Today for Buster Brown Shoes on KOH radio earlier, and Hank Philcox and I are off on our Schwinns to the Tower Theater!
The Tower is an old theater on the northeast corner of Ryland and South Virginia Street, at the near right in the photo above (in this story, below). It shares a building with a bowling alley, and it’s not too hard to hear through the walls – a dashing young Reno columnist once wrote romantically of the full moon overhead lighting the trailing wake of the ocean liner, the trade winds echoing soft violins as he looked deeply into her yearning eyes in the Tower Theater, just as the half-toasted keglers on the other side of the wall in the Reno Bowl picked up a turkey third strike in the last frame and all hell cut loose.
So much for romance. But this was 10 ayem, it was Saturday morning, and every kid in town, almost all under 15, was at the movie.
Image: Courtesy Reno Chamber of Commerce
We all – 500 of us from all five Reno elementary schools, plus Billinghurst, Northside and a few from Reno High – remembered what happened last week. Our admission was the tear-tab from the center of the paper cap in a glass bottle of Old Home Milk, plus 14 cents.
I’ll get argument about that, but I checked it out. A cap and 14¢, no lie.
The theater had no loge, just a big, sloped floor, with pretty comfortable seats that would stay around Reno in various venues for 75 years, but that’s another story. Most remember that the end-seat in every other row was one-and-a-half seats wide, or wide enough for cuddling with an older gal with a medium-sized fanny. They were in great demand (the wide theater seats, not the narrow fannies.)
(Boy, Mom’s really going to be mad about that line…oh well…)
Our Saturday morning movie always started with two or three funnies – ones that wouldn’t be shown to children in another 60 years – coyotes getting blown up with Acme dynamite, rabbits run over by cars, pigs, (named Porky, at that!) being slapped around by their dates, cats beating up mice, an old guy in an Elmer Fudd hat with a shotgun, blind guys like me getting the raspberry from Waldo – bullying, abuse, violence – we were all surely marred for life. We just didn’t know it yet!
Then we’d get the newsreel, and surprisingly it was pretty-well done – not too much detail, easy to follow, palatable even for a little kid like me – what was the latest on that asshat senator McCarthy and Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss? And the Rosenberg spy trial? Perry Como was singing “Don’t let the stars get in your eyes,” Patti Page – “How much is that doggie in the window?” and Dean Martin “That’s Amore!” Mickey Mantle and Pee Wee Reese lead the leagues in batting (check me on that; it’s been a while!) Thus we got our news…
Now, a serial. They don’t film them anymore.
As we left last week, she was tied to the railroad tracks, the pianist was playing some ominous chords, the locomotive, maybe an old V&T loco once from Virginia City, was bearing down on her full bore with the bad guy holding a six-shooter to the hapless engineer’s skull (ahh, those guns and bullying again) while the good guy is throwing a switch to take the loco out of harm’s way and save the damsel. Would he throw the switch in time? We’ll know in a moment…
And, finally, the main course – a full-length movie, usually a pretty good flick, fairly new, sized for kids – no deep stuff nor heavy breathing. Nor naughty words. Almost. A fun time.
We left – our thespian needs satiated for another seven days – always with the carrot to bring us back next Saturday like a locomotive, having avoided the maiden tied to the tracks, but now left in mid-event while making wide-open-throttle toward the bridge that’s out over the 400-foot ravine to the raging river, the 3,000 nuns and orphans on the train unaware of their possibly pending fate.
Daylight was bright in midday on Ryland Street, but our bikes, left unlocked with 300 others blocking the street, were still there…
So there you have it in 2020 – one of my letters to Aunt Lola. If This is Reno doesn’t get too much adverse mail I might find another one of these mornings – she saved a whole boxful of my writings about Reno. It’s hard to come up with good readable stuff every morning – Herb Caen I ain’t! But I never knew the world would come to this situation in 70 years or I’d have written better.
My new partner, Jody Rice, broke a couple fingers on her right (dominant) hand yesterday – Thursday – and ROC casted it for three weeks. The upshot of that is that you’ll read this weekend a story of Park Lane written entirely with the typewriter keys available on the left hand.
See y’all tomorrow. Be safe, huh?
Submitted opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of This Is Reno. Have something to say? Submit an opinion article or letter to the editor here.
Karl Breckenridge
Karl Breckenridge was slowly going nuts. So he decided to help out This is Reno by writing a daily out-of-his-mind column for the duration of the coronavirus shutdown. Now that it’s over he’s back to his usual antics, drinking coffee with the boys at the Bear and, well, we’re not sure what else. But he loved sharing his daily musings with you, so he’s back, albeit a little less often, to keep on sharing. Karl grew up in the valley and has stories from the area going back to 1945. He’s been writing for 32 years locally.Â
Read more from Karl Breckenridge
Cheers 4 – the Lear steam bus
The latest news on the Lear Theater has Karl remembering some of the Lear’s other projects, including a steam-powered bus.
Cheers 3 – the groceries II
Karl did not limit his column to ten items or less, so get out of the express line to read this history of Reno grocery markets.
Cheers 2 – the groceries I
Karl got a little distracted this week, starting off with a list of Reno’s great groceries of yesterday then slipping on some ice.
Cheers 1 – Of wine and Little Italy
Karl is back, making us all wonder why we didn’t spend more time during stay-at-home orders pressing grapes into homemade wine.
Day 75 – Karl’s retired to the Bear
From the get-go our pal Karl said he’d write “a short squib on a daily basis – nothing political, nothing controversial,” well, except for that one column.
Day 74 – the Truckee’s picturesque islands (updated)
Karl’s pal Jody shares the rich history of bootlegging, decorating, and engineering within the confines of the Truckee River’s banks and its picturesque islands.
Day 72 – Hobos, tigers and leprechauns
Karl recollects the series of eateries that drew diners to the corner of Virginia Street and Gentry Way for several decades.
Day 70 & 71 – in Flanders Fields
Karl shares a poem by John McCrae to mark Memorial Day.
Day 69 – The Nugget shark: John meets Jaws
Karl was talking about baby shark, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, long before the kids these days had ever been born.
Day 67 – What I like about Reno High
Karl, er, Carmine Ghia, writes an end-of-school-year essay to turn in to Mrs. Lehners about everything he likes about Reno High School.
Day 67 – 25 Bret Harte
Karl saddles up and heads to Newlands Manor where Western movies star Reno Browne grew up, and Lash Larue paid a visit or two.
Day 66 – Out for dinner we go
Karl goes out to eat at the El Tavern Motel, a truck stop outside the Reno city limits on the Lincoln Highway.
Day 65 – Dawn Bunker
Karl is back in action with a fresh story of which students of Mrs. Bunker’s class at Jessie Beck Elementary School still won’t spill the beans.
Day 64 – abducted
Karl Breckenridge called in to This Is Reno editors this morning with a hands-in-the-air, what-can-I-do sense of resignation.
Day 63 – Wedding chapels
Karl’s enjoying coffee with pals at the Bear, so today Jody stands at the altar to share the history of Reno’s wedding chapel industry.
 Day 62 – the mansion at 2301 Lakeside Drive
Karl’s 7-year-old alter ego rides his bike down to Virginia Lake to explore the Hancock Mansion, a nifty home complete with a bomb shelter, sunroof and doll collection.
Day 61 – Basque hotels
Karl wanders back in time to 1960, a time when multiple Basque hotels served up minestrone soup, English lessons, banking, and accommodations.
Day 60 – the bygone Greyhound terminal
Karl’s synapses are firing today after hearing mention of Reno’s Greyhound bus terminal on Stevenson Street, now razed.
Day 59 – Don’t tell Mom
Karl rewinds to Mother’s Day to share a story from the archive about Grandpas without a Clue and another ragtop adventure, by reader demand.
Day 58 – School stuff
Karl considers the value of a school name as the WCSD moves to rename one of the area’s older remaining schools and open a new one.
Day 57 – Pedalin’ around Vine Street
Karl rides his bike through history, remembering some of the places and people that helped to build Reno into the city it is today.
