I know I’ve mentioned before that to me one of the most puzzling aspects of the archives is what passed at different times for comedy. Without the context it’s often just gobbledygook, but last week I actually understood a joke I found in the back of the 1934 Campanile. It turns out not to be a great joke, but it’s not completely without merit either.
The picture caught my eye because it’s girls playing basketball. But where are they? They most definitely are not in the Rice fieldhouse.
The caption reads “Jump higher, girls! We want our quarter’s worth!”
Now, part of the joke is obvious, right? Just guys leering at girls in shorts, which is, of course, always entertaining. But what’s this “quarter’s worth” business? It just so happens that I know the context for that because of these two flyers I found a couple of years ago pasted in a student’s scrapbook from the mid-1930s:
I’m not sure this information makes the joke any funnier, but we’re now able to kill two birds with one stone–it cost a quarter to get in to see the girls play and the girls played at St. Paul’s gym across the street.
(For the curious among you, I’m posting early because I’ve got an all-day meeting today.)
That would be the old gym at St. Paul’s Methodist Church, right? If I recall correctly, you used to be able to see it from the windows on the Binz/Bissonnet side.
The short history of St. Paul’s at http://www.stpaulshouston.org/history
was interesting:
During construction, St. Paul’s Sunday School classes met at San Jacinto High School and the congregation worshiped in the synagogue of Congregation Beth Israel.
How would the IRS and the ACLU attack this nowadays?
And why do the American people allow it?
At least in the Houston suburbs, it is VERY common for churches which don’t have their own building to use school facilities on Sundays. They pay rent, as would any non-school organization. Most districts have pretty strict rules and anything that’s not a school event has to pay rent. Sometimes there are other restrictions, but Sunday church services are often allowed, space permitting.