My heart is full of memories of home. Growing up in the 50's in Huntington was the best of times.

The busy downtown shopping...Lawrence, Walgreen's, Humphrey's and Gallagher's Drug Stores...where the teens would gather.

The wonderful fantasy windows at Anderson Newcomb and Bradshaw's Dept. Stores at Christmastime.

Dreaming in front of Spencer's Jewelers and O'Shea Jeweler's glittering window display.

Remember Saturday's at the Keith-Albee, Tipton, Palace, and Orpheum Theatres?

I remember the boys selling newspapers on the streets and the crowds waiting for their bus at every corner bus stop.

Ward's Donuts, Silver's and McCrory's Five and Dime with lunch counters, Stewart's and Midway hotdogs, and Wiggin's...couldn't be beat!

Ritter Park, riding my sled down Gobbler's Nob (or is it Knob?) in winter, picnics in summer, and the Rose Garden.

The East Side, Ceredo, and Chesapeake Drive-in movies?

Cammack Elementary and Jr. High. filled with pony tails, page boy, and duck tail hairdos.

Huntington and East High Schools in the annual parade with their beautiful high stepping majorettes!

Roller skating on Friday nights with your friends at the various rinks around the city.

Dancing on TV, after school, at Huntington's own TV station version of American Bandstand.

And last, but not least, going swimming at Dreamland and the Olympic Pool...with the handsome tanned lifeguards, including the many high diving show-offs embarrassed by their belly flops, and the green acres filled with teens and beach towels, bodies dripping with suntan lotion, while portable radios were blaring out the Platters, and the Coasters top hits.

Most important are the many friends with which we enjoyed it all.

It makes one wonder where they are today and if they are sharing their own memories on a web page somewhere on the internet.

Yes, I remember growing up in the 50's, I remember it well.

Wanda, I want to say thank you for sharing that story about Huntington with me. Brings back a lot of good memories. I also have some wonderful memories of growing up in Huntington. I was born and raised on the west end of Huntington. Growing up in Huntington in the 70's and 80's was so great. I went to school Jefferson Elementary, and West Jr. High School, we moved before I got into high school. As a kid, my sister, some friends, and me would ride the bus uptown to Keith-Albee. We also went to the new Huntington library and looked at books. We always took enough money along to eat at the dime store. We always went to the Olympic Pool, and like you, we went to ride sleds and inner tubes at Gobbler's Nob. Boy wasn?t that just the greatest days of our lives growing up??

Hi Wanda,
Thanks for this interesting group of pictures. I have lived in Huntington all of my life. Going to Jefferson, Monroe & Lavalette Elementary, West Jr., Huntington High for one year and graduating from Vinson High School in 1964. My girlfriend and I would ride the bus to town and go to the dime store and get a 1/4 pound hamburger and pick a balloon to see what the cost would be for our banana split, or we would go to the movies. Going downstairs at the Keith-Albee still looks the same. And of course the best of all was going to Camden Park.