Every Saturday afternoon between kid-friendly movies,
the theater showed serials. The episodes of the series
continued week after week.
The program might include Dick Tracy, Hopalong Cassidy,
Green Hornet or Buck Rogers. Action with a large dose of
moral messages was the premise.
Our hero faced vile enemies who might sneer, be mean
to children or kick dogs. Shouts, of encouragement were
directed to the hero on screen.
The twenty minute chapter always ended with the hero
in a plainly lethal situation. We screamed and hid our eyes,
and hoped our hero endured.
During the walk home we were sure this was his end.
Next week, our plucky hero surprised us,
by skill or luck, amazingly he survived .
Jack, your poem brings back memories not of me but of my daughter Eden. In the 70s, when she was a little girl, we lived across from a funky little cafe that played old Flash Gordon episodes for its Saturday afternoon clientale. Eden used to walk over and slip into a corner seat to watch
ReplyDeletethem every Saturday. We didn't ever have a TV and she fondly remembers her "Saturday afternoon matinees".