Page 40 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

movies at the St. Johns was “Yankee Doodle Dandy”, the story of George M. Cohan,
but the first long-running while I worked there was “My Wild Irish Rose” with Dennis
Morgan and Arlene Dahl. There were more than a hundred patrons lined up on Forsyth
Street waiting for the next performance. As ushers, we were sometimes assigned to be a
“barker”. We would stand outside the theater entrance and shout things like “The next
complete show starts in 40 minutes” to attract customers. After most patrons were
seated and fewer people needed to be lead to their seats, we would become “runners”.
We were given posters about upcoming movies that we “ran” to the many hotels in
Jacksonville. At the time there were 12 or more. We ran into each one, sliding the
posters into a movie display in their lobbies.

My stepfather, George Stich, was a man with
many frustrations. Being a salesman for
several local businesses, he always felt the
pressure of having to close deals in the
struggling post World War II economy. In
addition, he occasionally experienced an
epilepsy-like seizure that left him temporarily
stiff and unconscious.

When faced with these problems, he turned to
Seagram’s 7 or Southern Comfort. During
evenings when he came home with the brown
bag containing a “fifth”, which is 4/5 of a quart
or one-fifth of a gallon, of liquor. After my
brother and I went to sleep, we would be
awakened by loud music with Mr. Stich
singing and my mother crying.

He would shout at her and follow up by slapping her to become quiet.

My brother and I would lie in bed praying that they would stop and fall asleep.
Fortunately, the fighting was never directed at us. Occasionally the police were called
by neighbors between midnight and 3 AM and we could get about 3 or 4 hours sleep
before having to get up for school.

32