Late Nights, Early Mornings

I couldn't wait for summer. The pure freedom of it all. There was something magical in the air on that last day of school. You felt lighter and the air was fresh and the sunlight seemed so much brighter. The possibilities were endless now in a world without structure. No bells to tell you when to come in and when to go home. No special time to get up and you don't really have to go to bed until you're tired. Sure, I had chores and now I was mowing lawns, but that wasn't every day, so my time was pretty much my own.
No matter how much fun I had in the daytime it was the late night/early morning hours that were special to me.
It was cool to be up late at night watching the Tonight Show. I felt like I was in on something that most kids had no idea was happening, like I was privy to the world of adults, listening in on all their jokes and conversations. In my mind I was current, I was hip, even though in reality I was just another 12 year old goofball with a crew cut living in a small town in South Jersey.
As good and as fun as the Tonight Show was, my favorite late-night pastime was watching movies. The Late Show and The Late Late Show, and especially the Schaefer Award Theater.
The Schaefer Award Theater came on at 11:30 on Saturday nights. It was different from the Late Show and the Late Late show in that it only had one or two commercials. It was a movie lover's dream come true: hardly any interruptions, and a kind of intermission which allowed you enough time to go downstairs to the bathroom and/or get a bowl of ice cream. The other thing about the Schaefer Award Theater was that it showed some of the best movies ever made. It was my introduction to actors like Gary Cooper and Humphrey Bogart and Gregory Peck and Katharine Hepburn. War movies and baseball dramas, comedy and tragedy, and all without all those annoying commercials every fifteen minutes.
"The Pride of the Yankees", "We're No Angels", and "Some Like It Hot", just to name a few, and I was bathed in the blue-gray glow of the television into the wee hours of the morning.
The best nights were when the programmers of the Late Show in Philly would show movies like the animated version of "Animal Farm" or "Lord of the Flies". These were movies no one had ever told me about and I felt smarter just watching them.
Of course we all had to stay up and watch the Johnny Weismuller versions of Tarzan, and I kept hoping for a repeat of the one where Jane swims naked. The Tarzan double features were the best, and I would be up until 2:30 or so wrapped up in the jungle adventures of my favorite ape-man fighting African tribes and wild animals.
It was in these early morning hours that I learned of the Marx Brothers and their zany anarchist humor. I acquired my taste for sarcasm and rebelling against the norm watching Groucho and Harpo and Chico and also W.C. Fields.
They were special nights, those summer nights, with my eyes glued to the tube, never knowing what special adventures awaited me.
Great stories, great actors, and a bowl of ice cream.
No better way to spend a summer's eve.