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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Betty and Lloyd Davidson, February 2 and 15, 1979. Interview H-0019. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Leisure activities of working people

Betty and Lloyd Davidson describe the type of leisure activities they enjoyed as newlyweds during the 1930s. In particular, they stress their enjoyment of day trips to the mountains or to go fishing. In addition, they describe the types of sports they enjoyed playing and watching. Their comments are indicative of the type of leisure activities working people enjoyed during those years.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Betty and Lloyd Davidson, February 2 and 15, 1979. Interview H-0019. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

LLOYD DAVIDSON:
Well, we'd leave here real early Saturday morning and get up there about noon and we'd have all the afternoon to sightsee, spend the night and come back down through the Valley on Sunday. It was a real good trip. And we'd go through——we used to go deep-sea fishing right much. That's another good sport.
ALLEN TULLOS:
Back before World War II?
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
Yeah.
ALLEN TULLOS:
Where would you go?
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
We'd go to Morehead mostly. Get about three or four couples. You could rent a boat for twenty-five dollars then, and split it up four ways, you know, you could afford it.
ALLEN TULLOS:
What are some other things that you would do?
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
Well, that's mostly what we did, was going deep-sea fishing, going to the mountains.
ALLEN TULLOS:
Where would you go to in the mountains?
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
Well, mostly to Asheville.
ALLEN TULLOS:
And what did you do there?
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
Well, just drive up there and back, see the mountains. It wasn't a whole lot to do. We didn't have all this big, modern things, you know, like skiing.
ALLEN TULLOS:
That sounds like a good bit, though, to go to Washington …
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
Sky-lifts and things like that. We didn't have all those things then.
ALLEN TULLOS:
Did you all go to any ball games or anything?
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
Oh, I went every chance I had.
ALLEN TULLOS:
What kind?
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
Well, semi-pro.
ALLEN TULLOS:
Baseball?
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
Yeah. And football. Course football then, you know, we didn't have anything but Broad Street High School. And you'd go over here to Hillcrest, wherever they played at, just walked up and down the sidelines with them, you know. Maybe you'd have a hundred or two people there. Two hundred was a good crowd. Didn't cost you anything to get in, you'd just go over there and watch them, walk up and down the sidelines. As they went from one end of the field to the other the crowd would go with them. You didn't have these stadiums like they do now, you know, with all these conveniences.
ALLEN TULLOS:
Do you remember any boxing matches or anything like that?
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
Well, we used to have wrestling down at the City Hall. That was the only indoor place they had for any kind of sports.
ALLEN TULLOS:
And this would have been back before World War II?
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
They'd have wrestling matches down at city hall.
ALLEN TULLOS:
Did you go to the wrestling matches?
BETTY DAVIDSON:
Only thing I went to is bowling. I used to like to bowl.
ALLEN TULLOS:
Oh really? When did you first start bowling?
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
They had bowling alleys when we first came to Burlington. And I bowled a lot. She bowled right much.
ALLEN TULLOS:
How often would you go bowling?
BETTY DAVIDSON:
Maybe two or three times a week. And I had a Sunday school class and they let us take the children bowling. We really enjoyed it.
ALLEN TULLOS:
Did you go at night after work?
BETTY DAVIDSON:
After work, at night.
ALLEN TULLOS:
How big of a place was the bowling alley? Several lanes?
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
They had one on Main Street upstairs. I think it had eight alleys. Then they moved around to the old Chevrolet Building and I believe there was twelve alleys there. So bowling was a real good sport then. Her father was a great bowler and I reckon she probably liked it from watching him bowl.
ALLEN TULLOS:
When did he start to bowl? Was he bowling in Danville?
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
I don't know where he started but he bowled till he was in his eighties. He was eighty-nine when he died, and he bowled until just a few years before he died. And he was real good at it.
ALLEN TULLOS:
This was popular among people…
LLOYD DAVIDSON:
It was a real good sport. You know, you didn't have too much to choose from, ball games and bowling and pool rooms. That was just about the extent of it.