Here are snippets from the memoirs of the late DuVal Hicks Jr., Fredericksburg native, attorney, big-band founder and husband to Elizabeth "Beth" Young Hicks (see adjacent story). Their son Ben, who lives in Fredericksburg, provided the memoirs related to his parents' high school years and Fredericksburg's dancing social scene.

--Jennifer Miller Strobel

Thursday, May 7, 1936: A Day in the Life of a Fredericksburg High School student: DuVal Hicks Jr.'s account reported: "Got up unwillingly again as I got in very late last night, or early this morning. I went to school and in the morning had a very nice time. After lunch, the whole school assembled and we marched downtown with balloons which failed to get back. We did exercises 'til 3, then I went home and rested. I went to the play and it went off wonderfully well!"

Those notes were apparently from his diary, because in his 1994 memoir, he states: "The events of May 7 have escaped into my oblivion, and so I have turned to my scrapbook for some assistance, and found the program of 'Mixed Pickles,' a breezy musical comedy May 7 and 8, 1936."

The program listed him acting as "one of the hotel guests," and his wife-to-be as one of the "dancing daisies."

He wrote in his memoirs that he was struck by program advertisements by businesses mostly gone in 1994: Nehi Bottling Co.; Farmers Creamery; the Brent Store; W.A. McGhee; Sanitary Grocery; W.T. Grant Co.; Judson Smith, Photographer; and Horton's Filling Station, to name a few.

Dancing in 1930s:"I never forgot that [Elizabeth Young] was an invitee at my fifth birthday party. She was only one grade behind me at school. We had to see each other at school in our going and coming from and to home, and from and to classes, study hall and assembly. We both went to the same Methodist church. I knew her father in the furniture business and later as the real estate partner of John W. Allison.