The French named the sensation déjà vu, and I don’t mind admitting that I couldn’t a done no better.

Sometime back, if you owned two bits, you were well fixed for the weekend.

You could go watch Ken Maynard, Buck Jones or Hopalong Cassidy make life miserable of bush whackers, owl hoots and various other assorted ne’er-do-wells. There was a cliff hanger serial, and a Three Stooge comedy as side dishes, and the whole shebang could be had for nine cents.

Popcorn was a nickel, water was free, and after that you still had eleven cents walking around money.

Weaver’s Drug had four color, 64 page, comic books that could be had for a dime and a wad of bubble gum of coconut dimension usually got my last copper.

Following such an entertainment orgy, I’d gladly do whatever labor was necessary to engage in another such experience the next weekend.

A crisis disguised as my twelfth birthday arrived and with it, the bitter realization that admission to the Liberty Theater automatically jumped to fifteen cents. I was smart enough to figure out that my lifestyle was due for a drastic change should I choose honesty as my policy.

“I don’t know what to do John Franklin,” I confided. “I love them stories, I love that popcorn, and I don’t think I can make it without them funny books. Tell me the truth—what should I do?”

John Franklin pushed his ising class goggles up onto his fleece-lined aviator cap, reached up, placed a comforting hand on my shoulder, and looked me squarely in the eye.

“Kinda hunker down at the window, shove the exact change into the opening, and lie from the heart—if you have to,” he advised.

Edna Merle Stewart sat inside that window, chewing gum and inspecting the endless lines of grimy youngsters each Saturday and it seemed that she could penetrate to the bone with a glance. I took John Franklin’s advice, and was still shoving my nine cents, as full payment, when high school finished me.

It took two hitches in the Army to correct my curvature of the spine resulting from nine sent movies.

I’d might near have forgot about that tawdry behavior—but in the eighties I had occasion to talk with Edna Merle Stewart.

When the visit ended, my back hurt, and I could not stand erect for two days.

Déjà vu is worse than whiplash.

Let me hear from you.

My phone number is 254-893-5063.

My postal address is 333 W. Ayers, De Leon TX 76444.