It caught my eye

Published 9:00 am Wednesday, June 8, 2016

I am sort of jumping out of the regular trend of relating news out of the past. So far I have covered the last 50 years, from 1966 to the present. This week I decided to check and see what was happening in 1946, 70 years ago.

Wo-rld War II was over and the world was trying to get back to the regular way of life, but it was surely different from today. Several things caught my eye in The Brewton Standard in the early part of June.

East Brewton Missionary Society was sponsoring a “Tom Thumb” wedding. Now I can only guess what that was. I believe it meant that all the actors were children, but I could be all wrong about it.

Mayor C.C. Fountain was investigating reported infractions of the local country club setup. Now the newspaper did not note what sort of infractions.

Paratrooper Pfc. Gaylop Minchew of Brewton was promoted to corporal in Japan. Remember the time. It would have been soon after the war ended, leaving Minchew and his fellow servicemen in occupied Japan. It couldn’t have been a fun time to be in that country.

Brewton police recovered a car that was stolen from a man in Evergreen.

A notorious dance hall was destroyed by fire. The fire department had to get permission from the mayor to go outside the city limits to fight the blaze. I don’t know just where the dance hall was located. The newspaper did not make a note of that.

There was to be an investigation into the possibility of getting the municipal airport spruced up to draw business and train pilots. There were even plans to use the airport to bring in freight and passengers. Well, we never made it all that, even though we did have the Navy pilots use the airport, just as they do today.

City employees were given a pay raise. From now on their pay would be no less than 50 cents an hour.

That is unbelievable in this day and time. I remember my father talking about the 30s and 40s. He was a worker that never lost his job, but he had told me many times about making 50 cents a day. As he was in highway construction, someone always needed a road built to somewhere. He thought for a while that he was going to become part of the Seabees (construction battalion, but he was a little old to be in the regular military service.

Elim Baptist Church at Bradley was planning a homecoming. I think I am right when I tell you that they continue to do that 70 years later.

An announcement was made that sheer nylons would soon be for sale again. During the war all factories were in the business of supplying the troops with what they needed. Many luxury items were cut at that time. Now ladies were ready to get back in style and deck themselves out again.

The War Department announced that Escambia County lost 60 men in the war from the U.S. Army.

The newspaper announced that July 4 would not be a big celebration in this area and most people would be trying to beat the heat at the local beach or on the Florida coast.

Does the local beach mean Bonnie Beach? I don’t know just when it was in operation.