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By Sharon Stockdale

It is all Jim Haney's fault. This retired science teacher from Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School mentioned to me one day (while he was subbing) that he and his wife, Janet, ordered and had been watching the old Ma and Pa Kettle series of movies. They are vintage movie buffs, as am I.

So I had to order some of the films, too. During my sister Eloise's visit, I plunked her down and made her watch "Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town" with me. It's one of the funniest of the nine movies made with Percy Kilbride (replaced in 1955 by Parker Fennelly) and Marjorie Main.

New York City in 1949 still looked good to me. (I have a thing for all things NYC.) My sister (although she claims she was too young to remember) and I saw all the movies with our family at the local Barco Drive-In in Lamar, Mo., back when it was a dollar a carload.

Ma and Pa Kettle movies were usually paired with Francis the Talking Mule; those were the days when it was always a double feature plus cartoons plus a newsreel. Anyone else remember those?

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