Remember when “talking pictures” first came out? We called them Vitaphone Pictures.
I’ll never forget the night Russell DePrima came to the movies. In the movie, there was one scene showing a man who was putting a sweet smelling shaving lotion on his face. Well, I knew where that part of the film was going to show. So, I bought some expensive shaving lotion and went in the back of the stage. We had at that time a large blower that blew cold or hot air into the theatre. When the actor started to put the lotion on his face, I rubbed some of my lotion in my hand all over the blower. The smell went all over the theatre.
When the show ended, I was standing in the lobby when Russell DePrima came out of the show and said to me: “Nina, I knew that you all had ‘Vitaphone Pictures,’ but I didn’t know that you had ‘Smellaphone Pictures’ as well.”
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Remember when Gus Thorguson had his restaurant on Highway 90 in Berwick? Every day at lunch hour he had a sign on the door – “Closed – Out to Lunch!”
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Remember T-Man Bailey, the mayor of 4-Mile Bayou? T-Man was in the service
against Japan. He was there for years. When the war ended, there were these large jumbo planes taking soldiers back to America. T-Man never liked airplanes. He told them he was going back by boat. They told T-Man that the next boat was a banana boat leaving in three weeks. T-Man said: “I’ll take it.” When T-Man arrived at 4-Mile Bayou, he had a banana rash.
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One day Mutt LeBlanc was going to 4-Mile Bayou to see T-Man on business. He
wanted company so he asked Clyde Stansbury to go with him. Clyde said: “I’ll be glad to go if it’s not too far.” Mutt told him it was a short distance, so they left. After about 7 miles of rough shell road, Clyde said that the next time he went to see T-Man he was going to bring a lunch. He said that T-Man lives so far in the woods that they have to pipe electricity to him.
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I met a lady in Wal-Mart recently. She asked me how old I was. She said she couldn’t figure out how I knew so much about people that left Berwick 75 years ago. I said, “Lady, you don’t ask people their ages.” There are also many other people who have been calling me from all parts of the country concerning this same general question. They say that they have been reading my column “Recollections” in The Daily Review and ask about how I know so much about happenings of many many years ago. Therefore, I will give you a clue about my age. I’m going to name 20 movie stars that played in “silent” films: 5 comedians – Snub Pollard, Hank Mann, Larry Simon, Chester Conklin, Ben Turpin 5 western stars – William S. Hart, William Desmond, Jack Holt, Fred Thompson, William Foreman 5 male stars – Jack Mulhull, Rod LaRogue, Wallace Reed, Milton Sells, Thomas Meighan 5 female stars – Gilda Gray, Mae Murray, Mabel Norman, Mary Miles Minter, Pola Negri.
If you know five of this group, call me and I’ll send you four tickets to the Ber Theatre in Berwick.
* The End *