Recollections of a Southern way of life...

                                                          The Jukebox

One Saturday morning early in 1942 Mama, my stepfather Holly, my sister Betty and myself all walked downtown to catch the bus to Lynn Haven, a little community about forty miles to the south, near Panama City.  My sister Louise was still a baby, and had to be carried.  I recall that it was a beautiful, brisk morning, and the freshness of spring was in the air.

We were going to visit Holly's older brother, Henry, whom we children had never seen.

On arriving in Lynn Haven we got off the bus and went inside a juke joint, a restaurant that served beer and had a Wurlitzer juke box, where we children and Mama waited while Holly went to find where his brother lived.

By that time it around twelve or one o'clock in the afternoon, and a slow, drizzling rain had set in.

We waited there for most of the afternoon, during which time two new country songs were played, first one and then the other, over and over, on the juke box.  They were by the new country music star Ernest Tubb.

 

One side of the record was  Walking The Floor Over You.  The flip side was  Be Honest With Me.

In those days it cost a nickel to play a tune on the jukebox, or three for a dime.

Eventually Holly returned, and we took a taxi to Uncle Henry's house.