Doddridge of the 1920s Part 4

In turning to other matters of the 1920s, it will be found that there actually were a few other things for people to do besides run up and down the road in their cars. For example, the traveling tent shows found Doddridge to be a profitable place to put down their stakes. Western silent movies were their “stock in trade,” with a one-reel comedy tacked on at the end. Comedies of the time featured such inimitable artists as Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Ben Turpin, and the Keystone Cops. On occasion, a tent show would come which featured live stage productions. These would be a series of comedy acts, slapstick, acrobatics, dancing, or a three-act fast moving play. Although the acting was always superb, serious drama or tragedy was never presented in these shows simply because audiences wanted to laugh and have a good time. Perhaps to these audiences’ heavy drama was not entertainment. Life was hard enough without having tragedy piled on top for good measure.

A tent show once came to Doddridge which had a huge calliope mounted on a truck. A calliope was a musical instrument with brass pipes, somewhat similar to a pipe organ, but the sound was very different. The sound of a calliope was strictly associated with shows and fairs. Most calliopes operated by steam blowing through the pipes as the player worked at the keyboard. Such an instrument had never been seen in Doddridge, nor perhaps even heard of by many of its inhabitants. Late each afternoon it would parade all around the community playing its exotic siren songs to lure people to the show that night. Naturally, the people loved it, and they would go to the show.

Sometimes show people would allow young boys to work for tickets. The work would consist of clearing weeds from the show area, helping to raise the tent, set up the seats, and run all kinds of errands. For the boys this was a thrilling occupation, not to mention getting show tickets in the bargain. Cutting weeds at home was a drudgery to be abhorred. Cutting weeds in the company of show people was a thrill beyond compare. The show people knew a bargain when they saw it, for the boys would work their hearts out to please.

Medicine shows also came around, but their performances were usually in the daytime before a crowd that had been attracted by some attention-getting technique such as music or dance, or a fast speech to arouse curiosity. These entertainers were invariably fast talkers. There were stories, jokes, perhaps a comic skit or an act with a trained animal.

One unusually tantalizing act was that of a man who drove a Model T, blindfolded “alone,” from Doddridge to the highway and back. He claimed to have the magic power to do it. He called upon crowd members to put on the blindfold, which consisted of large quantities of adhesive tape.

There was no question that he was blindfolded. He climbed into the Model T, started up and began waving his hand over the hood of the car to cast the magic spell. Occasionally, he would even spit on his fingers as if this gave some added impetus to creating the magic spell. Then he took off, and at a good clip of speed. The crowd was a gasp. Just before the showman got out of town, another driver, coming in the opposite direction met this weird, unbelievable sight and nearly swerved off the road. When the man arrived where the crowd stood, they were laughing uproariously because of the bewilderment in his face. Five minutes later the blindfolded showman came speeding back into town still waving his hand frantically over the hood of the car as if it were about to go out of control. The crowd scattered in all directions. But in a moment he stopped the car in the same spot he had left. The crowd was duly impressed.

Another medicine show featured a rifle marksman who was nothing short of being spectacular. He could shoot targets while aiming through a mirror; he could throw a brick into the air and hit it three or four times before it hit the ground. But his truly dramatic act, his clincher, was the shooting of a potato from his daughter’s mouth. The crowd did some squirming on this one. The girl held the potato from a toothpick clenched between her teeth. The marksman slowly and carefully aimed several times (probably to heighten the crowd’s suspense). At last, he fired. The potato vanished, the girl was smiling, and the crowd breathed in relief.

Gun and machine oil were the products being sold by this marksman. To hear him tell of its virtues, it would do just about anything. He even drank a swallow of it to prove it harmless, and, perhaps to suggest that it would even loosen-up body joints. All country folks had guns and machines to care for, so they didn’t hesitate to buy. Even the poorest of the poor would fork over a quarter (a lot of money) for these magical potions. Besides, it was one heck of a good show.

The Community Picnic One of the ideal unifying activities of Doddridge both before and during the 1920s was the gathering of the entire community at Collins Bluff or elsewhere on the scenic banks of Red River for a fish fry or picnic.

Hundreds of people gathered at these festive occasions, each family bringing the best that the mother’s cooking skill could produce. There was fried chicken, potato salad, home-made pickles, chocolate pies, coconut pies, lemon pies, all varieties of cakes and cookies, and whatever else might be thought of as interesting and delicious. If the occasion was a fish fry, the fish were fried in huge cast iron skillets over an open fire by the men. The fish had just come from the river. There were tubs of lemonade and iced tea People strolled about, stood in groups, or sat in the grass in the shade of large oak trees and talked all day. It was a visiting revival. People liked these affairs so much that one might have believed that the community picnic would be around for all time. However, the activity eventually faded completely from community experience. The last community picnic took place in about 1925 or 1926.