Imperial Valley press. (El Centro, Calif.) 1907-current, 1937-01-31

NEW YOf(kf Jan. 3U.-lilere was
an upward flutter of memories, like
the sudden soar of pigeons in st.
Marks, when I read in the home
town paper that Aunt Annie Adams
had started on her ninth annual
trip to Florida. Aunt Annie, one
recalls with a Jingle of pride, is 80
years young.
She is not real aunt. But one
of those comfortable family friends
youngsters like to knit into closer
tie. Aunt Annie, before they built
| the porchy. pleasant home on Third
avenue. lived upstairs over Uncle
Charles furniture store on the
main business street.
] 1t was a high adventure for me
to spend day at the Adamses,
especially during those GONZALES
ences from periodical surgeonings
in Cincinnati Aunt Annie was a
subscriber to Puck and Judge and
I could cut out pictures by Zim and
F. Opper to paste into an enormous
and highly romatic-scrap book
Then on star shimmering band
nights we could sit on the balcony
overlooking the Ohio and the pub
lie square and hearken to Prof.
Pausey Lawson's tooters. Too. those
Aunt Annie dinners topped with
French pancakes spread with cho-
colate sauce! And taking me home
Aunt Annie would stop at Kerr's
for sodas.
I have watched royalty drive
through the Victory Arch in the
Tiergarten approach to Inter den
Linden. the venerable French aris-
tocrats in their dog carts, back to
back with grooms, in the Bots,
morning elegants on their caracol-
ing chargers in London'S Hyde Park
and Mrs. Belmont's fabricated coach
and four avec trumpeteer swaying
down 5th avenue. But none had
the glamour of the procession circl-
ing the square on band night.
There was Charles Gentry, the
dapper town tailor. II his snic yell
low wheeled Stanhope so high in
the air There were Billy Taylor,
the livery man, and his lightning
sorrel Myrt. Mr.. and Mrs. Alfred
Henking, the banking people, who
went TO Europe every year. and
their carriage with the fringed
canopy. Beetle Newsome, the town
belle, who brought back from a
summer excursion to Atlantic CITY
that new fancy-and many thought
sissified-game. lawn tennis. Slut
tering Joe, a beloved blackamoor,
who lived along that shady scum
merry mentioned only in whispers
as Dog Ham and delivered washing
for his mother. Joe was victim
Of what psychiatrists call logorrhea.
iabbering necessarily out loud his
thoughts about our citizenry, some
times amusing, often embarrassing.
90
Our public square on band night
wove an epic pattern of small town
nobility. Set in the human after
glow that comes along with aching
lonliness OF sunset TO contented
| people. And not without seamy
threads as dark relief in the tapes
| try, There were the shanty boat
girls oiled doves" grandma called
fhem--buxom lasses, not as yet tar
nished by the erosion OF vice. Girls
we. were to see later in criss-cross
silhouettes through the bars OF the
county jail. Girls the gossiping old
pelicans then as now sometimes
never gave a chance.
90
Our town was settled by quixo-
tic band of artists and .dreamers
| history records as The French Five
Hundred It's name Gallipolis means
City OF Gauls and the Gallo i'm
lpress of architecture prevails. Houses
flush the sidewalk with platform
like porches, steps up one side and
down the other and often brick
| walled gardens in the rear. Band
night the square came out TO its
porches Miss Liza Sanns with her
Paisley throw. Col. John and Mrs.
Emily Vance at the shaded old
Cruezet corner where Lafayette
curtsied in the minuet. The Silver
mans who "set the best table" here
abouts.