From the pages of the Havre de Grace Record dated Thursday morning, Aug. 31, 1961:
It was back to school time as well 50 years ago this week with about 17,500 students set to go to school when they opened Wednesday, Sept. 6. That compares to about 38,000 attending Harford County Public Schools when they all finally opened this week.
Back to school called for a large double deck head spanning the front page that pointed out that Child Safety Week coincided with the reopening of schools. There was a brief story quoting Havre de Grace Police Chief J. Earl Walker about various safety matters underneath a picture of a police officer wearing a heavy coat leaning over to talk to a young boy who was wearing a winter coat and hat. Though I began first grade 50 years ago this week, and had a coat that looks very similar to the one the boy is wearing, it clearly wasn't me in the picture. Nor was it anyone else from the Havre de Grace or Harford County areas in what was a stock file photo from somewhere else.
The other big front page news, the circus coming to town notwithstanding, was Chief Walker getting rid of the night watchman and the school crossing guard, a move approved by the mayor and city council that would allow the chief to hire another full-time officer.
The move wasn't without pain – Clifford Santmyer, the soon to be ex-night watchman, told the newspaper he had been doing that job for the past 35 years. The story never said exactly what he was watching at night.
And, yes, the Mills Brothers Three-Ring Circus was coming to town as a fundraiser for the Havre de Grace Lions Club. The circus, with its 3,000 seat Big Top, would be doing two shows Sept. 8 "at the circus show grounds on Post Road." That was all the information about the circus, but if a tent seating 3,000 people was set up on Post Road, even today, it would be hard to miss.
Havre de Grace High School was getting ready for the football season that would begin Sept. 16 with the Warriors on the road at DuVal, with their first home game Sept. 29 against Caesar Rodney. Aberdeen was going to open its season at home Sept. 16 against Claymont, De.
The big professional wrestling show, a fundraiser for Joseph L. Davis American Legion Post 47 and the Boys Baseball Association of Havre de Grace attracted a crowd that would help each of those organizations net several hundreds dollars.
"That ain't hay," wrote Charles Pasqualini Sr. in his "In the Dugout" weekly sports column. "Billy Smith, post commander, had expected more, but all in all, everything went fine.
Benesch's Department Store, at 224 N. Washington St. in Havre de Grace, was advertising a "First Time Ever!! Sale" on Sarong Criss-Cross girdles and panty girdles that "win the battle of the bulges … without feeling girdled." The most expensive were on sale for $8.99 instead of the regular $10.95 and the more reasonably priced were on sale for $4.99 instead of the regular $5.95. It was one of the biggest ads in the paper that week, after the A&P and Acme grocery ads and the full-page Back to School ad for Read's drugstore.
Playing at the movies 50 years ago this week, Richard Widmark was starring in "Secret Ways," and John Drew Barrymore was starring in "Pharaoh's Woman," in a double feature at the Harford Drive-In in Aberdeen. At the State Theatre in the 300 block of St. John Street in Havre de Grace, Irwin Allen's "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" was playing in "CinemaScope and Breathtaking Color by Deluxe."