7 Brainerd Snapshot

Brainerd Snapshot

My world growing up, after my grandparent’s home and neighborhood, was Brainerd, Chattanooga. It was dominated by Brainerd Road, so I will help my reader understand what it was like:

On the corner, at the traffic light, where buses stopped, was the Brainerd branch of the Miller Brothers’ department store; the Krystal cafe, with its fascinating doughnut machine, was across the road; on the same corner; across the street (on which was also Sunnyside elementary school where I attended) from Miller’s, was the May Brothers’ Esso (later Exxon) service station; next to May Brothers was Jack and Joe’s garage.

Next to Miller’s were the Brainerd Theater (this cinema, with its weekly changed movies, was our cultural center), then Loveman’s department store branch and a shoe store, the Brainerd Bootery

The Brainerd Theater, as I said, changed its offerings weekly, and we often went there to see new movies – among others, I remember “Gone With the Wind”, “Quo Vadis”, the Demetrius movies, “The Robe”, “20000 Leagues Under the Sea”, “The Racers”, “Trapeze” and “The Vikings”. They often had five cent “kiddy matinees” on Saturday afternoons, usually with an old movie and a serial western – we watched Roy Rogers, Red Ryder, Gene Autry, Randolph Scott, and Hopalong Cassidy – but my favorites were the “all-cartoon” shows – including Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and others of the Walt Disney entourage, Woody Woodpecker, and Tom & Jerry, also Tweety & Sylvester, and Porky Pig. There were occasional talent shows, and demonstrations by Duncan’s “Mr Yo-yo” (a Filipino expert with that toy who sold them, decoratively carved for the kids). For a few weeks in my teens I was an usher there and changed the marquee, a scary job because of the height.

Across Brainerd Road, in a plaza on a little hillside, was the Kroger grocery supermarket with the adjoining FW Woolworth’s five cent and dime store, and Eckerd’s (later Rexall) drug store. Up from plaza and around the bend going up to the ridge was a car parts store which as a teen driver I frequented; then was the Amoco station (we seldom bought their unleaded gasoline, but they sold recycled motor oil cheap, in glass quart bottles).

Farther up was the Laundromat, which my mother used weekly to do the family’s wash, then Brainerd Drug Store, where we were well known, and the barber shop (I remember getting my first haircut there, and the Old Spice “Pacific Surge” aromatic liquid). At the top of the hill was the tunnel (later became “twin tubes” which allowed for traffic in separate directions).

Down from the shoe store was the Southland Roller Rink, where my sister was a regular patron, and she became an accomplished skater under the tutelage of their pro; I went there, too. I remember the “Conga Line” dances, “Crack the Whip” and “Boys Skate”, “Girls Skate” and “All Skate”; they had a turning ball with glass chips, with a light shining on it.

Across the street, down from the Krystal, were two bank branches and Ault’s hardware store, which was owned by my uncle’s Belvoir neighbor. At that store I was befriended by a salesman, who was also a Boy Scout leader, who sold me (used) a .22 caliber rifle (I think it was a Winchester model 69, bolt action, 5 shot magazine); I blued the barrel in our bathtub and lovingly sanded the walnut stock and applied linseed oil to it. Down from Ault’s was the Kay’s Castle ice cream shop, where we sometimes got ice cream cones on week-ends.

There were several other establishments as well, on both sides of the road, but we didn’t frequent them.

My sister had a friend with a horse at her country home in Brainerd, where the two young teen girls used to go riding; that probably explains my sister’s life-long fondness of horses, and why she prominently displayed her friend’s drawing in the hallway leading down to her apartment in our mother’s duplex.

My mother drove me out Brainerd Road to fish from the wooded shore of diminutive Chickamauga Creek, where I caught a few 1-pound drum (bottom-feeders) using worms for bait. When in 1958 I was preparing for my Tennessee driver’s license, my mom taught me to drive her standard-shift Ford on Brainerd’s “Gunbarrel Road”, so named for its straightness; at that time it was quite rural, so people were safe.