1948 Brookville, Indiana

Charles Johnson

Born 1933

Brookville, Indiana

Interviewed on 1/28/2024

by Jack Lloyd

I grew up in Brookville, Indiana. It is a small midwestern town and had a population of 2,000 back in the day. To jog my memory, I have a book with some facts and key events of the 1930s and 40s. Franklin Deleanor Rosevelt was president for a majority of my childhood. He seemed like a king since I didn’t know any different. When Truman came into office, I didn’t know what to think. Looking through this book, the price of living is shocking. The average income was 1,550 dollars a year, a new house was 6,000, a loaf of bread cost 7 cents, and a gallon was 10 cents which was especially expensive with the war rations. 

Growing up the youngest of 13 kids, it makes me appreciate the sacrifice my parents made to raise that many kids on such a small amount of money. We didn’t own a car, but Brookville was small enough where we could walk or bike everywhere. I would always do the paper route on my bike to earn a bit of money. That was my first job, but my next job is where I finally got the opportunity to go to the movie theater. It was called the Morin Theater.

The theater would give me a flier with the movies for the month and I would walk up and down the streets delivering them. It was a small town, just 12 blocks long and 8 blocks wide, so everyone got the monthly movie schedule. My payment for this job was that I could go to the theater and watch the movies. 

My first memory of a movie I went to is a funny story. I can’t remember the name, but a friend offered me a ticket to go see the weekend movie with him. I had never been so I said yes, and I met him at the theater. We sat in our seats and he handed me a bag of popcorn. Once I finished my popcorn, I got up and left. I can’t remember exactly why I did this, or if no one explained what you were supposed to do at the theater, but my first theater experience was not a success.

Since I was getting free admission, I started going back. My favorites were always the westerns. Roy Rogers was one of my heroes because he was frequently a big star. The movie stars were always handsome and successful. You could read all about them in the movie magazines. The big Hollywood life seemed like a dream. They were pretty special people and their lifestyle seemed so distant. It was hard to connect with them, but oh I could imagine. I always wanted to be a cowboy. The main star who is riding around on the horse gets the girl. Only one or two people in town had a horse, so it added to the fantasy. 

In the westerns,  the big stars were always the sheriff. If someone stole a horse, there was a shootout, or a bank robbery, he would go catch the bad guy. There was also music and singing interwoven. They always showed the westerns on the weekend. The theater was usually full to see the thrilling and romantic cowboy story. Roy Rogers never failed to sweep Gail Davis off her feet. I can’t recall too many of the specifics, but The Far Frontier comes to mind.

My favorite movie snack was popcorn. Sometimes on a special occasion or if I had a few extra cents that week, I would get some milk duds. Usually, I just went with the classic popcorn. To this day, popcorn is one of my favorite snacks, and making popcorn for my grandchildren has been one of my favorite memories of watching you grow up. 

Relationship to Interviewee: Grandpa