Another bag of popcorn, please

“For me, there is nothing more valuable about a movie than how people feel in a movie theater.”
— Will Smith, American actor, entertainer, and film producer.

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Forget taking me out to the ol’ ballgame, I want to go out to the movies.

Nothing makes me feel finer than a good flick. However, movies worth a couple of hours of my life are films experienced the way they were intended to be enjoyed.

Sitting in a movie theater with people. On the third or fourth row. With a bag of popcorn.

Research reveals entertainment films debuted in 1894 in Berlin, and the first commercial, public screening took place in Paris in 1895. They were black and white, short (around a minute), and silent.

Which is sad because they lacked memorable movie quotes we enjoy repeating today. “Surprised, Eddie?… If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn’t be more surprised.”

Tell me you don’t know the name of the movie.

Movies gradually grew into an industry perfecting “new” techniques. Editing, lighting, and camera movement. Creating the captivating “credits,” which were until the mid-1950s, at the beginning of the movie. More on that in a moment.

“Talkies” entered the picture in 1927 when television was but a faint vision. In 1933, the comedy-mystery “The Crooked Circle” aired on the half-dozen or so homes with a TV set in the Los Angeles area at the time.

It would still be a while, however, before Hollywood successfully romanced TV. Not until 1956 when the 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz” became the first network television feature film. Which left movies to be enjoyed, for a little longer, where they were intended to be viewed.

Sitting in a movie theater with people. On the third or fourth row. With a bag of popcorn.

Around 1956 or 1957, both my parents’ and my grandparent’s households were introduced to the phenomenon of black-and-white TV. Dad and his father watched Friday night boxing matches together. Grandmother watched Art Linkletter. My mother watched “Queen for a Day.” None of them were frequent movie goers, but I was becoming one.

Beginning during early grade school years at Crockett, when I walked from Perry Brothers, where Dad worked, to the Ritz Theater. Becoming mesmerized by 1950s B-movie sci-fi flicks on Saturday afternoons. The Blob, Them, and It Came from Outer Space.

After moving to Seymour, my film focus became the 50s epics. The Ten Commandments, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, and Ben-Hur. It didn’t hurt either, that the Texan theater was just across the street from Perry’s 5-and-dime store.

Once we arrived in Mount Pleasant, the Martin Theater on Third Street was great for Saturday bicycle trips to town. High school and my first car soon shifted my movie preference gears. 1960s film classics like The Pink Panther, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Dr. Strangelove, and high-tech gadget spy films such as the James Bond films Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Thunderball.

Sitting with a date in a movie theater. In the back row of the balcony. With a bag of popcorn.

In 1963, Hollywood movies on television propelled cinema into regular weekly TV with NBC’s “Monday Night at the Movies.” Which became Wednesday Night at the Movies. Before it became Tuesday Night at the Movies. Another movie story for another time.

Today, movies experienced any night in a theater are still my favorite. The big screen visual. The bold theater sound. Laughing with friends one minute, crying the next.

Oh, and those credits? I am always the last to leave after the very last line. Watching the gazillion names and job titles. Marveling at how many people it takes to make a movie. Scanning the music score. Where was that movie filmed?.

Wondering … what in the world is a “best boy” or a “gaffer” anyway?

All of this, I can enjoy in Center, Texas. At The Rio Theatre. A genuine 1920s “walk-in” that’s within walking distance of my house. A movie theater that retains it’s work-of-art neon facade and marquee.

The Rio Theatre turns 100 next year. The local icon on the downtown square remains a movie theater where owners still sell tickets themselves, welcome moviegoers as they arrive and thank them for coming as they file out. Like Mike and Nita Adkison have been doing at the Rio for almost 50 years. 

It’s a place where anyone can experience every movie the way it was intended to be enjoyed.

Sitting in a movie theater. With a friend. On the third or fourth row. With a bag of popcorn.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

A monument to the ‘taste of flight’

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
— Leonardo da Vinci (1452 –1519), Renaissance artist and inventor who documented theoretical flying experiments.

– – – – – –

As a licensed pilot, granted one who hasn’t taken the controls of an aircraft in many years, I can still feel da Vinci’s intoxicating longing for flight.

Even as a kid, my young eyes were turned skyward. Dreaming of a day that I might taste the feeling of flight.

That same longing obviously lingered in two little-known, long-ago aviators from Shelby County in East Texas. Their flying adventures were reportedly the subject of family reunion stories for many years—into the 1980s, for sure.

Standing for a long time as a “monument,” of sorts, to their tastes of flight was the abandoned frame of an old airplane in the Southern part of the county known as the Dreka community.

I first saw what was left of the rusty remains in Florence Duncan’s yard on a dirt road some 40 years ago. A stop at Mrs. Duncan’s house, while visiting family friends nearby, introduced me to her and to the fabled stories of the flying machine. Even then, it was already slowly succumbing to grass and weeds.

“It’s been there since ‘bout 1947,” she said of the old airplane’s skeletal parts. “I keep it there for sentimental value.”

“Two of the boys (family members Ernest Duncan and Duncan Rolland) bought the airplane and wanted to turn one of our fields in front of the house into a runway for it,” Mrs. Duncan reminisced. “My husband, Dean, and I told them ‘No.’ But you know what? They cut my persimmon tree and flew it there anyway.”

“It was an old airplane,” she continued. “Duncan said he gave $150 for it.

When they lit it out there that first time, they hit a terrace and broke one of the wheels.

“They fixed it with bailin’ wire before they decided to go to Center in it,” Mrs. Duncan continued. “They came back in a little while, but they didn’t set down on the field quite soon enough. The wheel they wired up didn’t hold, and the airplane crashed, almost flipped over.

“I was scared to death,” Mrs. Duncan recalled. “I went runnin’ out toward the field. The whole family was right behind me. When I got close enough, I heard Ernest say, ‘I told you we should have lit it down in Center.’ That’s when I knew they were all right. I couldn’t believe they crawled out of that airplane and walked away from it.

“After the crash,” she said, “Van Bertherd, a young man just down the road, thought he could do better. He worked on it and headed down to the corn patch with it. The corn was just coming up at the time, and the plane got stuck.

“We wound up havin’ to take the mule down to the field,” Mrs. Duncan continued, “then towed it to a level stretch on the road. Van got it off, just barely clearing the fence and the pine trees, but came right back. Said it needed lots more work.”

According to Mrs. Duncan, the wrecked aircraft was eventually dragged to a corner of the yard where children climbed and played on it. “Pretending to fly,” she said. “I went out there once and asked where they were flyin’. ‘Way up high over Dallas,’ they said.

“Duncan was shaken up for a long time by that wreck , but he admitted later to wishin’ the airplane had been salvaged,” Mrs. Duncan recalled. “Said it would be an antique now, worth a lot more than the $150 he paid for it.”

When I saw it in the 1980s, the wreckage of the Dreka flying machine had reportedly  spent years serving as a kid’s playground, target practice, and neglect. By then, little remained but the bare frame, which had once been covered in fabric that had long since rotted away. There were no wings or motor. By appearance, it was a small plane with a cockpit just large enough for a pilot and a passenger in tandem.

A visit to the area last week revealed no trace of the old airframe. I couldn’t even locate Mrs. Duncan’s residence in the heavily forested region. She reportedly passed away in the early 1990s.

I do remember her closing remarks during our visit back then, however.

“I’m glad Duncan and Ernest weren’t hurt in the crash,” she said. Then added, “About the only thing I’m still mad about is my persimmon tree.

“It never did come back.”

—Leon Aldridge

(PHOTO ABOVE — Mrs. Florence Duncan standing next to the Dreka airplane wreckage in her yard about 1981 or ’82. Photo taken by Patricia McCoy, a reporter for the East Texas Light during my first tenure at the newspaper as publisher.)

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Those temporary losses of good judgement

“It seemed like a perfectly good idea at the time.”
— T-shirt the guy in the next cell was wearing.

– – – – – –

I got a ticket. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

The aged and torn City of Los Angeles traffic citation dated August 17, 1967, was exhumed last week from its cardboard crypt of misfiled memories. A vivid reminder that havoc happens during those temporary losses of good judgement.

We all have them. Tell me you don’t!

Flashback to that year, a couple of weeks before the end of the spring semester at Kilgore College. I arrived home on a Friday afternoon. Mom was in the kitchen on the phone with her little brother in California. Everyone talked on the phone in the kitchen. Because that’s where the phone was, and the cord wasn’t long enough to go anywhere else.

“Tell Uncle Bill ‘Hello’,” I hollered.

Before I could drop my laundry bag by the washing machine, Mom called, “Come talk to Bill.”

“Do I want to come work for you in California this summer,” I responded to my uncle? “This a trick question, right?”

And just like that, I was Southern California dreamin’. Hot rod cruising nightly at Bob’s Big Boy drive-in. Beach Boys on the radio and the juke box. Dune buggies running the sand hills at Pismo. Surfboards and bikini watching Saturday afternoons at Malibu.

Reality, however, was centered on summer jobs to afford school. Not on a 19-year-old’s daydream coming true. This was a job offer. Uncle Bill was the body shop manager at a Volkswagen dealership in the Los Angeles suburb of Canoga Park.

Now, fast forward a few weeks. I’m balancing college money budget with that California dreamin’ thing when I spot a newspaper ad at my uncle’s house. “FOR SALE: 1929 Model A hot rod, 1946 Ford chassis, 1954 DeSoto “Firedome” Hemi V-8 motor. Needs finishing and paint.”

Visions of one cool car for cruising kept me working on it at nights.

Finally mechanically sound and finally prepped for paint, Ralph Kyger, the incredibly talented auto painter at the shop where I worked was called on to apply the bright red enamel.

Ralph painted VWs by day, and high-end, classics, and custom cars by night. He was my mentor for skills that I would use to finance the rest of my college career back home at Sandlin Chevrolet and Olds, and Surratt and Heimer body shops.

Granted, these are great memories. But here is where this one lapse of good judgement reared its ugly head. When I failed to transfer the old car’s registration at the courthouse.

Mount Pleasant friend and classmate, Ronnie Lilly, made the trip from Texas with me calling on his ’57 Chevy to make the journey. In a brief delusional lack of good sense, we decided that transferring the front plate off Ronnie’s car to the old Ford was a good idea to drive the 15 miles for painting. Done, I headed for the shop on back streets while Ronnie stopped to gas up his car.

That was well and good until the one turn required onto a busy street to reach my destination … just as a black and white Plymouth passed with LAPD on the door. I knew I was busted when the cruiser lit up doing a U-turn.

Standing streetside, the officer silently inspected the car and my driver’s license. “I can’t believe you drove this thing all the way from Texas,” he said suspiciously. Choosing my words carefully, I simply said, “I’ve done a lot of work on it. Taking it over to Thousand Oaks for a paint job tonight.”

Then just as I began to breathe again, Ronnie caught up. The Chevy’s brake lights came on, he pulled over and backed up to meet us. The officer’s eyes went to the Texas plate on the back of Ronnie’s car, then to the matching plate on the hot rod.

“Registration, please,” he said.

It was a different day and time back then, even in California. Issuing me citations for “no proper registration” and “no valid plates displayed,” all the officer said was, “Cool car. Go get it painted tonight, then get it registered tomorrow.”

In today’s California, or even in today’s small town anywhere, what seemed like a pretty good idea back then would likely mean jail time today.

Wearing that T-shirt.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

You’re that newspaper guy

“Every bad situation will have something positive to offer if you look for it. Even a broken clock has the right time twice a day.”
— Author unknown.

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You’re the newspaper guy, aren’t you?” That question came at a social function last week.

“I used to be … who wants to know?” I smiled, turning to face my questioner.

“I read your column every week,” the kind soul said. “It’s the best thing in the paper.”

“Bless you,” I responded, clutching her hand in both of mine. “You are too kind.”

“Everybody knows you,” commented a friend in the conversation. “That’s the second person here who has complimented your newspaper work.”

“I’ve done nothing,” I said. “I owe much to many, especially those who oiled the hinges for me when doors of opportunity opened. I tried to learn from every experience. I leaned what to do from some great people. And,” I hesitated for a moment. “I also had learning experiences from some individuals better to have been avoided.”

Later that evening, I reflected on those thoughts and experiences. Good fortune smiled on me decades ago when I met Morris Craig at The Naples Monitor up in Northeast Texas. He took a chance on me during a crossroads moment in my life. He taught me how to produce a profitable hometown newspaper with a faithful following. And we became lifelong friends along the way.

A few years later, Jim Chionsini in Center challenged me to use that knowledge and grow it into something larger than my dreams. Likewise, we too, forged a lasting friendship.  

Even with good mentors, however, there are always potholes and risky detours. Times when hearing, “you’re that newspaper guy, aren’t you,” made me look for the nearest exit. Like the long-ago time I found myself up to my newspaper assets in shady alligators at a small weekly. A job I took as a young editor promised “financial gain and professional growth.”

It seemed unusual at first when the owner was rarely around during business hours. “He’s just busy selling advertising,” I assumed. Turns out he was busy all right. Working at night. Playing cards and partaking of spirits with friends after hours at the newspaper office. Hiding from bill collectors.

“Hey, buddy,” he called out the night I popped in to get my camera. “Sit down, we’ll deal you in.”

“Pass,” I responded as politely as I knew how. “Got pictures to take.”

Then I noticed the day’s cash box receipts shrank on game nights. Deposits dwindled. Finally, things got really bad when employees came to me for help with our “rubber” paychecks.

One day before card game night, money in the cash box covered the paychecks. And thus, my plot to keep employees paid was devised. Deciding I had learned all I needed to know there, I dropped my resignation letter in that same cash box knowing that was the best place for it be read.

“Where ya’ going, buddy,” the owner called the next day. “I need you.”

“Sorry,” I said calmly. “You know … seekin’ that financial gain and professional growth.”

“Just give me time to find somebody else,” he replied.

Two weeks later, he was singing the same song. “Give me just a couple more weeks.” That scenario was repeated until the afternoon that nicely dressed lady walked into the office. Business attire and a briefcase. “May I speak to the owner,” she asked, presenting her business card. “IRS” was all I saw when I looked at the card.

“What is your position,” she asked?

“Editor,” I stuttered. “But I’ve submitted my resignation. Waiting on the owner to find a replacement.”

“Do you sign checks?”

“Just pay checks to ensure employees are paid out of the cash box,” I stammered, beads of sweat breaking on my brow.

“I advise you to stop immediately.”

“No problem,” rolled off my lips. A quick call found the owner at one of his known hideouts. “Hey buddy,” he started. “I’m still looking … just a couple more weeks.”

“That’s not why I called,” I replied. “Someone here wants to talk to you. But since you brought it up, I’ll be leaving as soon as I hand her the phone. Oh … and thanks for the learning experience. It’s been real and it’s been fun. Just not real fun.”

I asked the IRS agent if she needed anything else from me.

“No, but thank you,” she said with a smile. “Better luck in your next job.”

Yes, I’m that newspaper guy. But I’m no different from anyone else. We all have a “broken-clock moment” story or two on our road to success. If we’re lucky.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

That’s when I work in a nap

“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”
— Old saying attributed to many sources. I first heard it from my grandfather.

– – – – – –

“Do you ever wonder what birds are saying,” a friend once asked. “So peaceful, listening to them.” Her beautiful photographs of feathered species were, as I remember them, consistently stunning.

Listening to a bird’s song while drinking coffee outdoors and naps; seemingly lost regimens of respite from daily routines to which I was introduced as a child. Learned from my grandfather while spending summers with my grandparents in Northeast Texas.

My grandfather was a man of rigid routines, even in retirement. After awakening from his afternoon nap, he retrieved the Fort Worth Star-Telegram from the mailbox and settled into his backyard lawn chair beneath the big pecan tree. There, he spent the next hour or so reading the paper, listening to the birds with his pet chicken, Easter.

Seriously, I’m not making that up. My grandfather really had a pet chicken named Easter. He kept a half dozen laying hens in his backyard, but this one White Leghorn bird bonded with him, roosting on his leg while he perused the paper.

“Hear that Mockingbird,” he would say.

“What’s he saying,” I asked? “Do birds talk to each other?”

“During the day, they sing to attract mates,” he answered. “But they sing during the spring and summer evenings just because they have a song.”

Supper was at five sharp, followed by some old-fashioned front porch rocking that included casual conversation and evening serenades from the many birds in the trees that filled my grandparent’s yard in Pittsburg, Texas.

Outside sitting continues today at my house in Center. It’s not every day, and it’s also a little different from those childhood days.

Mornings are on my secluded patio with a hot cup of strong, black coffee where I’m typically welcomed by three resident cats. “Lover Boy” wastes no time making his way to my lap. He earned his name for his constant craving of attention. He will purr for as long as you will pet him. Not far behind L.B. is “Fuzzy Butt” who was named … well, you can probably figure that one out easily enough. She enjoys the attention almost as much. And the third feline, Marshmallow? She came with that name. She loves petting as much as the others, but loves the food dish even more..

Bird watching is not my thing, I’m more about the melodies. I seldom see the singers, anyway, something to do with having three cats.

Some evenings, I’ll perch on the front porch. Fewer birds there with more activity on the busy street. Walkers and runners burning calories and shedding pounds. Reminding me that I should be out there with them, looking out for loose nut birds behind steering wheels. A species noted for its lack of intelligence flying faster than the law allows in residential neighborhoods and blowing through the corner stop sign.

These birds are likely the reason why the cats and I prefer the patio.

Patio sitting one morning last week, I recalled another cat that once called this place home. About a decade ago, when I took my longtime weekly newspaper column into the digital age with a blog site. My debut post was observations of a young orange tom “walk on” that adopted me.

Hardly more than a kitten, he spent long periods sitting, looking out the back door. I speculated that he might be wondering what was happening on the other side of that door where the birds were singing.

Which was kind of the way I felt at the time about what was ahead in the digital age of column writing.

My lifelong friend, Oscar Elliott, suggested I not worry about what might come next. That everything would always be all right if I did just one simple thing.

“Relax in your recliner,” was his direction. “Put that orange cat in your lap and take a nap.”

I’ve worked on relaxation in the years since. Trying to be like the birds that don’t sing because because they have all the answers, they sing simply because they have a song.

Working in a nap when I can. And if a cat wants to join me, that’s fine.

Just no chickens. Please!

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Graceful, sophisticated script we all learned

Here is a golden Rule …. Write legibly. The average temper of the human race would be perceptibly sweetened, if everybody obeyed this Rule!
— Lewis Carroll, writer most noted for “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

– – – – – – –

September 1954. First day of first grade. Crockett, Texas.

Scanning new surroundings from my desk in the old brick school building’s basement, my six-year-old brain registers everything it can comprehend.

Small horizontal windows near the ceiling, open for ventilation, allowing sunlight, sounds, and the smell of burning leaves. Inside, like classrooms all across America, the ubiquitous unfinished portrait of George Washington hangs above the blackboard, flanked by the American flag on one side and a framed copy of the Pledge of Allegiance on the other.

Stretched across the top of the blackboard was one of the basic foundations of education. The universal green chart illustrating the ABCs in block letters in elegant, flowing examples of cursive penmanship.

Cursive: that graceful, sophisticated script we all learned to create words for handwritten homework, secret notes exchanged in class, and cherished letters to friends and family.

Who could have guessed that September day, way back when, that cursive handwriting would someday become an overlooked and dismissed skill? Like an empty beverage can, thoughtlessly pitched from a speeding car window toward a “Don’t Mess With Texas” anti-littering sign.

“Holy John Hancock,” I sometimes want to cry in disbelief. How in the name of common sense could we be abandoning the highest esteem for penmanship? Skillfully crafted communication representing education, character, and refinement. It was, after all, one of the three Rs of learning: Reading, ‘Riting, and “Rithmetic.

Some blame the educational system’s Common Core requirements, forcing cursive writing out years ago. Others blame the emphasis on typing skills (excuuuuussse me — “keyboarding skills”), paving the way for educators to quietly take cursive instruction and toss it to the curb.

Trying to heal the painful void of loss over that lapse in judgment, I decided to immerse myself in research. Surprisingly, what I discovered were recent findings suggesting that cursive, once seen as purely decorative, in its absence is now being scientifically linked to intelligence.

Reports released that state, “cursive handwriting can reveal a lot about an individual’s personality. People who write in cursive tend to be creative, artistic, and have a strong sense of imagination. They are also often seen as being more emotional, sensitive, and in touch with their feelings.”

Also found were warnings of current generations losing a link to their past in historical documents. Literally. The Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and millions of letters like those my father wrote home to my mother from Europe in World War II, a plethora of historical documents, all handwritten in cursive.

“Reaching a point where those who cannot read or write cursive would lose direct access to these documents,” one researcher wrote. “Locking generations out of their own history.”

If there were any doubts before, research also revealed employment websites already advertising for qualified individuals to “read and interpret cursive written documents” … including the Library of Congress.

My first fountain pen was a link to cursive writing. I’m talking about “stick your pen in the ink bottle and pull the lever to fill the instrument” fountain pens. “Stain your shirt pocket when it leaked” fountain pens.

Real ink pen writing was not only fun, but it was also fulfilling. More than communication; it was art. Look alike digital documents vanish into cyberspace. But ink handwritten on paper in stylish script remains with the uniqueness of each individual writer.

Signing my name with my favorite ballpoint on any day is a feeling of creative expression. I have signatures for varied occasions and moods. And my ballpoint is always blue ink — never, ever black. I want my signature to rise above a printed page.

So, I’m happy to report that cursive writing’s future holds hope after all. Some 25 of the 40 states that initially adopted Common Core now require some form of cursive instruction. The reasoning? That neuroscience research indicates “writing in cursive activates brain pathways supporting learning and language development.”

October 2025. Center, Texas.

Sitting in front of my computer ready to craft another column, I grab a yellow tablet. Then a cheap ballpoint pen — a blue one. My blood pressure goes down and stress levels diminish with a sigh as I commit thoughts to paper.

In cursive.

—Leon Aldridge

About the photo: The beginning of a letter my father wrote to my mother during the time he was serving in the U.S. Army 276th Combat Engineers stationed in Belgium.

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

My hometown

“Home is not a place … it’s a feeling.”
—Uncredited bit of wisdom I picked up years ago.

– – – – – – –

“So, where’s home,” asked the man whose hand I was still shaking. A mutual friend had just introduced us as we all met for lunch at a local restaurant.

“East Texas,” I replied with a smile. “I live in Center, but I grew up in Mount Pleasant. I claim them both as my hometown.”

Even as I said it for the umpteenth time, that statement still sounded somewhat unusual. Odd that I’ve had a Center mailing address through a dozen presidential terms, and while my home in Mount Pleasant years ago was a fourth of that, I still call it my hometown. And what about the various Texas communities where we lived before settling in Mount Pleasant to stay when I was eleven?

Someday, I’ll examine the paper trail in a cardboard box full of evidence of my parents’ pilgrimage from the time before my own memories began. A collection of letters, receipts, car registrations, repair bills, church bulletins, report cards, and black-and-white school pictures.

It wasn’t until after my mother’s death that I realized she had amassed this veritable family history in her cedar chest. I guess I owe her thanks, or maybe the blame, for my own tendency to hang on to similar seemingly worthless pieces of paper.

My family’s last move to Mount Pleasant was just in time for me to finish fifth grade at South Ward Elementary. But evidence in Mom’s hoarded documents hints at previous addresses in Ballinger, Muleshoe, and Midland. Plus, Pampa up in the Panhandle.

My first and oldest cognitive connections from around the age of three or four are of Pampa. I also remember Crockett where we lived next and where I entered first grade. A move to Seymour, Texas, followed where I completed third and fourth grade, and all of fifth grade except those last few weeks spent in Mr. Mattingly’s home room in Mount Pleasant.

So, I contemplated, what really qualifies one place over another as “my hometown?”

To me, it’s where our heart was first grounded. Places we associate with the “firsts” in life, such as our first friends. Friends remembered from fifth grade in Seymour are tall, skinny Joe, with whom I played basketball at recess. Mike, a neighbor I rode bicycles with to the park. And Carolyn, the first girl I exchanged valentines with in fifth grade.

Many firsts became memories in Mount Pleasant. Some with those end-of-the-year fifth graders from South Ward when we graduated from high school together seven years later. And some of those graduates who became college roommates and long-time friends beyond high school.

First dates, first jobs, my first car, and house—those memories all began in Mount Pleasant.

“Home is sometimes a place you grow up wanting to leave and grow old wanting to return to,” I added to the lunch conversation. I thought about Mount Pleasant, and how after college, I tried to plant roots there twice. But that path just wasn’t in the cards.

I took the path more traveled, rooting in Center many years ago. Enough years to see my children begin school and make their first memories. Enough years to amass many friends and loved ones, and to lose some of both. Enough years to have tasted happiness and to endure heartache.

And even enough years to see good eating establishments come and go. Which is where this missive started. Over lunch.

“So, while my home has been in Center for most of my life, I also consider Mount Pleasant my hometown,” I concluded, thinking about some of my “trips home.”

I return occasionally. Navigating new highways and bypasses makes driving more stressful than it was when I learned to drive there. And, though the old streets are familiar, the places and the faces have constantly changed over time. while the memories of “firsts” linger there like it was yesterday.

“I never thought about having two hometowns,” my new acquaintance offered as we worked on chips, salsa, and sweet tea.

“Yeah,” I drawled. “I think home is anywhere we leave a piece our heart.

“Because hometown is not really a place … it’s a feeling in the heart.”

—Leon Aldridge

(Photo info: My youngest sister, Sylvia, on the front porch at 206 Redbud Lane in Mount Pleasant, Texas, “home and hometown” to me and my sisters Leslie and Sylvia. There is no date on the photo, but I’m guessing about 1962 or ’63. I have no clue what she was modeling on her head. It may or may not have had anything to do with what appears to be Easter baskets behind her. The house that was our home is still there today, but it’s been extensively remodeled and doesn’t look the same as I remember it. Sylvia moved to her eternal hometown December 14, 2023. )

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Time flies and I’m still looking

“I’m having a hard time remembering names,” my friend’s frustration said. “I can’t remember them like I used to!”

“I can relate,” I offered. “Bad news is, it’s the massive amount of data build up in our brains as the years fly by. The searches take longer. The good news is it will come to you. It does for me. In an hour or two. Or a day … or so. Sometimes.”

“Another frustration,” I continued, “is trying to remember where I put things. Like last week searching for a photo of an airplane I owned. I know I have it … somewhere. How do we accumulate so much ‘stuff’ in one lifetime.”

My searching did, however, turn up photos of other airplanes. And a name lost to memory. Reverend Isaac Newton Burchinal, Jr. and his WWII airplanes.

“Reverend who,” my friend inquired? 

“Better known as ‘Junior’ Burchinal. His Flying Tiger Air Museum was a collection of WWII airplanes at a small Northeast Texas crop dusting strip west of Paris. Not exactly museum pristine examples, but airworthy none-the-less.

A story of Flying Tiger’s P-51 Mustang often repeated recounted a demonstration ride during which Burchinal pulled the old fighter plane up and over in a loop for the thrill seeking passenger. As the aircraft reached to top of the maneuver fully inverted, the passenger reported seeing not only a spectacular view of the earth from an upside down perspective, but also an assortment of nuts, bolts, and small parts falling from their hiding place in the bottom of the airplane raining down through the cockpit. This is the same plane that at the time had stenciled on the nose, the nickname “In God We Trust.”

The ‘refound’ photos reminded me of the day Burchinal flew his B-17 bomber to the old Mount Pleasant airport in the mid 1970s.

While learning to fly, I visited the colorful aviator’s field where he flew them often for local shows, and as a stunt pilot for Universal Studios in movies like “The Great Waldo Pepper” and “Midway,” plus the television series, “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.” 

Not only were the planes fascinating, but I was in awe that anyone could fly the big warbirds off the small asphalt strip that ran uphill on one end with a fence and traveled highway on the other.

Burchinal’s Mount Pleasant visit was at an air show our fledgling Mount Pleasant flying club, the Northeast Texas Aviation Association, staged. I called him to inquire whether we might afford him and one his planes for our show. A deal was sealed; he was bringing his B-25 Mitchell bomber. That was until the afternoon before he called.

“Leon, this is Junior Burchinal up here in Paris,” he said. “I’ve got some bad news. We’re having problems with the B-25. It won’t make the trip tomorrow.”

My heart began rapidly losing altitude. Visions of, “what now,” spiraled out of control. “But, if it’s all right with you,” he added, “we’ll bring the B-17 for the same money.”

“All right,” I stammered, my spirits pulling out of the dive. “Yes sir, that is good news.” He continued to apologize, almost as many times as I thanked him. 

Early the next morning, as club members scurried about working on last minute preparation, I heard the huge four-engine B-17 coming over downtown Mount Pleasant. Mesmerized by the sight and sounds, I watched it make a long straight-in approach to the airport. Just as wheels touched pavement, a WW II “Corsair” fighter made a hi-speed pass over the airport before circling back to land.

Both planes taxied to the ramp. Burchinal climbed out of the single seat fighter, followed by a young lady who appeared literally to unfold and crawl out of a small seat added behind the pilot. He introduced the bomber crew, then the young lady as his daughter, before apologizing again for not bringing the B-25. “But I brought the Corsair to make up for it.”

No one could have dreamed as time was flying by, that the B-25 that couldn’t make the show would later land at the Vintage Flying Museum at Meacham Field in Fort Worth for a few years there. Or that it would decades later find a home at Mid-America flight museum in Mount Pleasant. And I would have never imagined that I saw it in Fort Worth about 20 years ago where I grabbed a fun photo of me in the pilot’s seat, never dreaming I would duplicate that photo just a few years ago at Mid-America Flight Museum.

The good news last week was finding the photo of Burchinal’s airplanes and reminiscing.

The bad news this week is that time still flies, and I’m still looking for that photo of my old airplane. It’s around here somewhere. I’ll find it in a day or two.

Maybe.

—Leon Aldridge

(Photo: Original Flying Tigers pubicicity black-and-white photo from the 1970’s of I.N. Birchinal Jr.’s B-17 Flying Fortress WWII bomber “Balls of Fire” flying above the Red River north of Pairs, Texas. )

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

It all boils down to one thing

“I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.”
— Edward Parker Helms, actor, comedian, writer, and producer.

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“I miss the good ol’ days,” someone said to kick off the coffee klatch last week.

“Yeah? What do you miss the most,” another queried?

Answers from those who had gathered to solve the world’s problems over strong, hot coffee were many. “Drivers who actually understand the concept of turn signals and stop signs.“ “How about people who let you finish a sentence without interrupting?” “Manners. Where did the good old day’s of being a decent person go?” “Courtesy — I remember my mother telling me that if you can’t say something nice about someone, just smile and don’t say anything at all.” “I miss how people could talk about their differences without calling each other names.”

“Yeah,” one of the problem solving coffee sippers agreed, ‘”My grandaddy said when slinging slurs and vulgar names start, be kind and understand that it’s folks who can’t help it. They just never learned an educated vocabulary to have a civil discussion with.”

Thoughts and opinions bounced around before silence fell on my side of the table. Just as I had a story to share.

Imagine that.

“It all boils down to one thing,” I began my two cents and change. “Respect. Years ago, as a young editor, I wrote what I believed was a balanced editorial. Carefully presenting both sides of a controversial local issue before supporting my position with facts. After committing my points to posterity, I sent the piece to press for the next edition.”

In those days, I arrived at the office by 6 a.m. at the latest to get a head start in the morning’s quietness before unlocking the door right before 8. The next morning, a visitor walked up as I was turning the key in the lock. A local attorney, a well-known and respected community leader. He was twice my age, tall and broad-shouldered, and his deep wisdom was matched by his deeper voice.

In his hand was a rolled-up copy of that day’s edition. The one bearing my carefully crafted editorial opinion.

“You got a minute for me,” he asked politely.

I returned his civility with a smile and, “Yes sir — always. Come in. The coffee is on.”

We sat down in my office, and he began, “I’ve read your editorial in today’s paper, and I disagree with your opinion. I think your argument is flawed.”

“OK,” I replied politely. “I did my research, and feel confident in having published it. But that said, with your experience and wisdom, I am eager to hear your viewpoints.”

I listened to him with respect and without interrupting. Respect for my elders, respect for authority, and courtesy in hearing out the opinions of others were virtues my parents instilled in me at an early age. My father summed it up by reminding me that a wise man learns more by listening than he does by talking.

When my morning visitor concluded, I expressed my gratitude to him for taking the time to share his thoughts and views with me. I also told him that I fully respected his opinions and would research them further, but for the moment, I still felt strongly that I was on the right track with mine.

He was quiet for a moment. I likewise sat silently. I had no idea what he might say next. That’s when he smiled and said, “Well, I thank you for hearing me out. I wish I could have persuaded you otherwise about your views, but I respect your right to your opinions, and I support your right to express them. Even if we can’t agree.”

Then he said something that I have come to understand more fully as the years have passed. “If we ever fail to respect each other’s freedom to express an opinion, I fear, we will have lost our country.”

With a hearty handshake and a smile, he rolled up the newspaper, put it under his arm and said, “Feel free to stop my office anytime for coffee.” Then he walked out the door.

“I recall that conversation often,” I started to wrap up my story. “Usually when I consider lifelong friends who might hold views on topics ranging from ‘politics to pole cats,’ as my grandmother used to say, very different from mine. And I value them knowing that our mutual respect exemplifies our belief that true friendship outweighs our differences in opinion. That hate and differences of opinion do not have to travel the same path.

I ended last week’s coffee shop commentary saying, “I had good parenting examples. My dad was a lifelong Democrat. My mother was an unrelenting Republican. Each voted their convictions, effectively canceling the other’s vote in every election. Yet, they were happily married for 63 years. Through love, they respected each other’s opinions, even when they disagreed.

“It worked then,” I said with a shoulder shrug. “And I believe it would work today. If more people just realized that with love and respect, we can salvage some of those good old days.

“Before they are completely gone.”

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Write so that memories live on

“Tell me facts, and I’ll learn. Tell me truth, and I’ll believe you. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever”
— Native American Proverb”

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We became gas pump neighbors one afternoon a few days ago.

You know, people we meet while watching numbers on the gas pump climb higher than an August afternoon heat index. Exchanging smiles with strangers at the pump while we’re trying to remember where we needed to be ten minutes ago … before remembering that we forgot to gas up last night.

That’s what we do because we were raised to be kind; to be friendly. “Don’t be stuck up,” Mom instructed. Friendliness mission accomplished, I returned to watching pump numbers escalate.

That’s when my new gas pump neighbor engaged me. “I enjoy your stories in the paper.” I did the next thing we were raised to do. Be polite … and don’t let on like you don’t know who they are. “Hey,” I said, buying time. “How’s it going. And thank you, I appreciate you reading my weekly ramblings.”

You have more stories than a book has pages,” he laughed. “I love ‘em. Are those all of those stories real?”

“Sure,” I scoffed. “You can’t make up stuff like that. “Mostly memories,” I added. “Things that happened growing up. Something I remember from a few years ago; a few days ago.”

“Well, I enjoy reading them,” he smiled. “Keep it up.”  

“Thank you,” I said again. “We all share many of the same basic memories. Only the people and the places change. All stories just waiting to be told. I’ll bet you have a story.”

He laughed, and we parted ways going in different directions. The exchange was another reminder of the importance of memories and the value of capturing them. Documenting them. Sharing them as often as possible. Something that didn’t dawn on me until a long time after I had been getting paid to write them.

I probably owe the credit for that to one of my journalism students at Stephen F. Austin State University, a generation of young writers ago.

Charged with imparting writing skills, tools and techniques to aspiring journalists, I enjoyed challenging young minds to find and write their first story. “Everybody has a story,” I offered one day to end a lecture period. “They may not know they do, but that is your first challenge. Strike up a conversation and just listen.”

“That’s easy for you to do,” countered one student. “You have age and experience, and you know a lot of people. It’s not that easy for someone our age.”

“Listening and understanding have no age requirements,” I replied. “Ask questions about what they remember from growing up. About their proudest moments. What they hope to achieve in the years to come. Talk about dreams. Then, be quiet and listen with appreciation. You’ll hear more stories than you can write.”

Long time newspaper mentor and friend Jim Chionsini executed the storytelling technique to a fine art. For instance, when asked for suggestions on the best way to tackle a tough situation at work, he often replied with a story rather than an explanation. “Well, let me tell you how Les Daughtry down at the Galveston News handled issues like that.”

It was also Jim who distinguished between memories that made good stories for publication from the few that are often better left unpublished. “Just because something we did was a bad idea doesn’t mean it isn’t a good memory,” he would laugh. “Just keep those kind among friends.”

Our stories, whether published or simply shared with friends and family, need to be told. And that’s where the value of memories takes root. We all should be writing. Preserving snapshots of our past, moments in our minds, tidbits of history that go untold and lost to time unless we write about them.

That, in my estimation, is the most significant challenge that has no limitations in terms of experience or age for writers. Everyone has a story. Most of us have many. I write as many as I can for weekly columns. And I write some of those just for my personal files, too. But I write so that memories will live on. For family and friends after I’m no longer able to write them.

We all have stories. Even my new gas pump neighbor had one. I’ll be writing his, too.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.