Drugs, Alcohol, And Cigarettes

John Bush was raised in Martinsburg and graduated from Central High in 1961. He spent most of his adult life in the Pacific Northwest. He has many memories as a boy in the 1950s that give some insight to the people and culture of Martinsburg in the 1950s. John likes to tell stories and over the years he has repeated the stories of his youth many times. His belief is that those years in Martinsburg influenced him all of his life. Some of the stories are historical in nature, some are colorful, and some are personal. He wishes that you enjoy them.

Drug use in the Cove was unheard of by me and my friends in the 1950s. Alcohol consumption by minors was rumored, but I can only recall one instance, at the end of my high school years at graduation time, when beer was consumed. Cigarettes were tried out and smoked by many. They were available to kids at a young age, and boys smoked mostly to be cool, but some, like me, became hooked in my early teens. I cannot blame my parents because neither smoked. One second cousin, Kenny Schubert, had two older stepsisters who smoked, but we did not visit them often. One of Kenny’s sisters, Virginia, and her husband visited every summer. Both smoked at family reunions. Both died at a young age. Uncle Bob Claycomb and his wife Penny both smoked and they also died at a young age.

Supposedly, it was illegal to sell cigarettes to minors, but there were three places in town that had cigarette dispensing machines that were easily accessible: one at the airport, another at the Penn Mar restaurant, and a third at the bowling alley. I suspect there was one at the pool hall, but I never went inside as I knew I would get in trouble at home. Because I had so many relatives and friends of my mother, it was too risky to attempt a pool hall visit without being seen and reported! The vending machine at the bowling alley was in a dark hallway between the bowling alley and the cafeteria. It was easy to slip in there unnoticed and get a pack of Camels, Lucky Strikes, Winstons, or Marlboros. Since pinsetters close to my age worked at the bowling alley, any adult just thought you were a pin boy or that you were visiting a friend. Older teens bought cigarettes from places in Duncansville and Altoona and at the Holiday Bowling alley which all had accessible machines.

To be cool, we even tried something stupid. Once, on a campout in a woods on the south side of the airport runway, we tried to smoke dried cornsilk wrapped in coarse toilet paper. That did not go so well. Some of my friends smoked on a regular basis. Generally, most lit up on trips out of town with the band, to a movie, or just hanging out at Meadows. I recall once at a Penn State Band Day, four of us boys were walking abreast across campus, all smoking cigarettes. I guess we thought that was all college boys did and we wanted to fit in.

I became hooked but never was caught with a cigarette at home. I had several hiding places for my cigarettes around town, including the enclosed fire escape at the Borough building, near a corner of the Little League baseball field at Memorial Park, and just inside a culvert at the end of Spring Street. I also figured out how to store a couple of cigarettes inside the ends of the handle bars of my bicycle. The last time I spoke with Monty Gerhart, he said he got caught at home. His mother had found his cigarettes in one of his toy train boxcars. She made him smoke a whole pack at once until he got sick. Throughout my junior and senior years in high school, I walked most evenings to the library and to visit Bill Reese. He was a smoker at that time, and beginning in the eleventh grade he and I would drive out to his father’s horse barn just outside of town to clean it out in the evenings. Worried about a fire, we would stand outside to smoke.

As older teenagers we often smoked when we went to Altoona, but with the exception of Glenn Drake’s and Monty Gerhart’s cars we didn’t light up in an automobile on our way there. Glenn’s dad always had a pipe in his mouth and Monty’s mom smoked in their ‘49 Plymouth, so neither would ever notice the odor after we had returned their vehicles.

Many of the men on my Uncle Floyd’s construction crews smoked, and some allowed me to smoke. The most common smokers were World War II vets who had acquired the habit during the war. Many of these men smoked while working and some lit one right after another. My wife says her father spoke of how one of his junior high teachers told them it was better to save their ten cents than buy a pack of cigarettes; one could save up a considerable amount of money if they never took up smoking. Her father blamed the government and large tobacco companies for the proliferation of smoking that dominated in the 1940s and ‘50s. According to him, military rations included free cigarettes; those who did not smoke traded them to those who did, so there was a continual supply for the soldiers who were hooked.

Alcohol consumption by adults was well hidden in the Cove, or maybe there was less drinking than today. Dad, who was a buyer for supplies used in his brother’s construction firm, received many fifths of liquor as presents at Christmas time each year. Once I saw him in our backyard with a whole box of fifths and watched him drain each bottle onto a trash pile. My mom lectured against drinking, although not to me as a teenager; she associated anyone who drank to their poor economic status. Martinsburg was in a dry township and a sign on Tussey Mountain Road read “Welcome to Morrisons Cove, the Home of 42 Churches and No Taverns.” However, my friends noted that there was more drinking than met the eye. The VFW, within town limits, sold alcohol to vets, and the parking lot was often packed on weekend nights. There were two drinking establishments just outside of the Cove: at McKees Gap and in East Freedom. Car ownership was easy to identify in those days, and it seemed like there were a lot of recognizable cars from Martinsburg in the parking lots of those bars. I recall one embarrassing night when we seniors convinced ourselves that the Broken Nose would sell us a six-pack. Steve Dilling and I, and I think Harry Brubaker, walked inside. Steve and I were short for our age and still sported peach fuzz. Steve boldly went up to the bar and ordered a six-pack. The bartender just laughed and sent us packing. That was not the embarrassing part. As we made our way out, we recognized many faces from Martinsburg and realized we had been seen. As the years went by, I began to realize that I really did not have any idea how much alcohol was consumed by the men and women of Martinsburg.