It must be winter. Well, not officially yet, but when the RinkWorks forum goes to endless discussions of movies, it's winter. What we need is someone who lives in a tropical climate. I post on a Cushman forum and when we all start moaning & groaning about how the weather isn't fit for scootering, the guys from Florida and California start rubbing it in.

Frankly, I like it. Florida Larry starts telling about jumping on his scooter to go down to McDonalds for coffee, and I can just picture him on that little red scooter, riding along beside a row of palm trees in his shirt sleeves. It's the next best thing to being there.

Maybe if we had some of those warm-climate people tell us about a day at the beach........

Now don't get me wrong. I like movies, but I don't go much, considering that they haven't made a good one since Bogart died. When Nat King Cole died, music went to pot, and when they stopped making Cushmans and Volkswagen bugs, the world was left without decent transportation.

And these new telephones, where nobody ever says anything besides, "Can you hear me now?" Shouting of course.

And who needs color TV? Much less 67 channels of it.

What ever happened to those good old 3 cent stamps and 5 cent cokes.

And in the good old days traffic lights came in red, green, and yellow with no arrows. The left turn lane hadn't even been invented yet, but we got along OK.

Worse yet, most states won't let a new driver carry passengers until they are 18, and have two years of driving behind them. So what does that accomplish? Well, for one thing, all the high school girls are dating older guys. Progress?

I got my driver's license in 1949. In those days you could ride a scooter at 14 and if you didn't live on a school bus route, a special license would let you drive the car at 15. You could carry all of your brothers and sisters and half the kids in the neighborhood if you wanted to. Seat belts, hadn't been invented yet.

In those days, I used to go fishing with a cane pole and a can of worms. Now it takes a bass boat with at least 100 horsepower, a tackle box with six trays on each side, two spinning reels, a casting reel and a fly reel, all with carbon-fiber rods attached. You also need a depth finder, and a water temp thermometer, a weather radio, two-way ship to shore, a four-wheeled boat trailer and an SUV with a towing package. Also a driver's license, a boat license, a trailer license, an SUV license, a fishing license (which in Tennessee, includes a hunting license)and cash for launching fees. Did I mention that there aren't any fish left? Ah yes. Progress.

Back to movies. I paid 10 cents in 1948, 35 cents in 1951, 50 cents in 1953, and by now they are probably over a dollar.

Speaking of 1953, that's the year I started college. I needed $40 for registration and $32 for a dorm room. That left me with $68 for books and meals from September until December. Then I had to start looking for another $140 or so for the next quarter. I got a job at 75 cents an hour. Easy money. I could even go to the movies about once a week.

Remember the MGM musicals? They would take a Broadway play and put it on film. Sometimes the plot got lost, and they used a lot of that new-fangled technicolor, but they were interesting. I mainly went for the music. It was a complete shock when I found out that most of that stuff had been performed live, onstage in a mythical place called New York. Did you know that there really is a street called 42nd Street? Bogart was still living then, but he was no singer.

Do you ever watch retro-soap operas, like Dallas? Watch for a tall, distinguished actor named Howard Keel. I think he married Jock's widow, but I can't remember what they called him on TV. Anyway, he is a darn sight better singer that he ever was an actor. He sang bass when he had a solo and baritone in a duet. He sang with Jane Powell in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and with Doris Day in "Annie Get Your Gun." He was in a bunch of those musicals. Maybe even "Showboat."

So now I have come full circle. I'm back to endless discussions about movies. It must be winter.
Howard