I just came across this in my archives.

Such a life I had.

"What Saturday used to mean to me means to me."
Another mostly real life story,...Once upon a Time.
Reading comics doing chores. The basic Norman Rockwell fantasy. Which in this case was real. Traditions used to be important. One could tell the time of year by them. Even the time of week.

Saturday Movie Matinees for kids. Once an iron tradition.

I was a solitary lad. Some few pals, but mostly on my own. It was in this state I went to the movies. 'Back in the day each 'hood had a movie house. These in them gleeful long ago days of "duck, and cover" segregation, and the .10 cent comic books. Ours was the "Carroll Theatre". It died the usual death of these beloved places as a porn grind house in the grim 1970's.

A moment.
I'm thinking of our dog "Brownie", and a half remembered cat named "Tippy". Them, and the rabbit we somehow ended up with. She was kept in a wire box under the back porch, and one day was found dead. I'd imagine of a broken lonely heart.
She wasn't given a name I remember, and no one I can recall played with her...she was just there. So died. She has haunted me to this day.

But I digress into unresolved sorrows, and mysteries.
Well to the movies, and their place in my kidhood. It was a thing we did an experience that we had for ourselves...it was ours not our parents not the nuns just ours. That, and those arbitrary authorities ceded it to us.

So on Saturday were free to wander to dream of other worlds free to imagine escape. Free to have what should be the birthright of every kid, but ain't. We were free for one day to have fun. The movies wandering around doing insane bleep that we should have been doing 24/7 365 through our whole childhoods.

...but were forbidden to.

On Sunday if you were Jebus fans. You were sent to be indoctrinated into false, and heartless cosmologies. ...religion.
Fill in the blanks if you were trapped in other cults.

On Monday,...the beatings resumed.

'But Saturday our Holy Saturday.
Well I recall watching a profoundly swell holy film called the "Atomic Submarine". It started out with hundreds of ships mysteriously sinking all over the place, but especially around the North Pole,...this back when it had ice.

The good guys that is the United States Bleeping Navy sends one of their brand new Atomic Submarines,...hence the title, to deal with shit. One thing leads to another, and them Navy guys finds a giant ship eating UFO hanging out under the ice!

Intermission.
Or where the Theater makes their real money.
Oh the prices of them days. A hot dawg with a coke .25 cents. When it went to thirty it was like the Great Depression again. We had to hit up our folks for an extra five cents...a hard negotiation!

Anyway loaded with candies mutated hot dawgs drowned in plastic mustard, and bubbly sugar water we were ready for anything them Alien bastards could deal out!

The flick grinds into action, and we gets a good gander at the Alien boss. Good grief! He looked like a deep fried rubber ducky! ...with gravy. The maniac immediately starts melting sailors...the black one first of course.
That bleeped up Alien guy had the traditional heat ray going like crazy. He even takes out two other subs...both British. Some sort of message there...I think.

Of course in the end the smart Yanks,...the good guys of all history,...ahem, figures out everything, and sends them Alien jerks packing.

They tries to escape the deranged might of the US fucking Navy by taking off back to "Planet X". This so they can tell their guys how weak stupid, and over taxed everybody is on earth. That, and they better get over here pronto to wipe us out before we wise up, and come knocking on their crib. Youbetcha we blows them space jerks,...with gravy to hell!

Anyway after having a swell time watching that film classic. Drinking several gallons of soda pop, and scarfing down ten pounds of candy.
Off to home I go to tell my mom that the earth is safe.
I told my dad too,...he was much relived.

My dad was a kindly neat guy that loved us almost as much as he loved the electric train layout he constructed to my mother's horror in the basement that he also finished. Not with that pine-board crap. Which as most know are just roach, and mouse motels in waiting.
Rather he being strong smart, and cool smoothed off all the walls with plaster, and re-cemented the floors. Installed panel lighting, and built a giant railway system that was the second home to all the kids on the block.

He also got the whole sweaty lot of us ice cream when the damned truck finally came. Our Ice Cream guy was Mr. Irving. Every 'hood had their special guy...he was ours.

Dad was a good guy. I loved him to bits. He was an island of calm in my otherwise ironic hellish childhood. This because I imagined myself a Colored Holden Caufield,...Google 'em.