Looking back on life

By Karin Elton

He stands straight and looks as trim and fit as the Coast Guard man he once was. He also worked as a movie projectionist, flew Cessnas for fun, and was a bachelor until the age of 46 when he married a widow with four children. Now in his late 80s and a widower, Paul Inden of Marshall has a lot of life to look back on while still keeping involved in what's going on today.

With a police scanner making noises in the background, Inden, who now lives at Boulder Estates, recently recalled the various jobs he has had and the many places around town he has lived.

"I was an office manager for the highway department," he said.

"We had a two-way radio between plowing units. I had a radio at home so I could pick up what's going on."

He got used to have a scanner in his house, he said.

These days, with the police scanner, he can listen to the ambulance, fire department, and police.

"It's real interesting," he said.

Before he worked for the highway department, he worked in the movie theaters in downtown Marshall.

He started out delivering papers - the Minneapolis Journal - to the Roxy Theatre, which was built in about 1935, "next to where the Orphanage is now," he said.

Tom Connelly was the manager and he would give Inden a movie pass for a paper.

"I ended up being an usher," Inden said. "Connelly used to get kids to work as ushers. They wanted to see a show, then they'd quit."

Inden worked at the Roxy, the State, which was at 321 W. Main, the Marshall 6, and the Starlite Drive-In as a projectionist and eventually a part-time manager.

"I hated to see that close," Inden said of the drive-in.

At the Roxy, Inden made, at the most, $7 a week working part-time, he said. In the early days, the theaters played silent movies and a piano player would play music to accompany whatever was happening onscreen.

The Roxy theater was "quickly built," Inden said. It had a single aisle down the middle and then the stage. During the flood years, Inden remembers staying there all night to fight the water in 1957.

At the theater, there would be a preview, a news reel, a cartoon and a two-reeler, such as Laurel and Hardy or Charlie Chaplin.

"You'd have to splice them together to get them ready. There were two machines. Every 18 minutes, you'd have to switch over from one to the other."

The audience wouldn't be aware of any switching, unless when the film broke.

"Then there would be stamping and hollering," he said.

After the movie's run, Inden would have to cut the film back to its original state and load the film in a "big steel case," he said. "A film truck would pick it up."

Inden attended Marshall High School for seventh through 12 grades. He graduated in 1938 - "there's still some of us left," he said. "We had our 65th class reunion five years ago."

Inden attended various elementary schools around town in his early youth. He had Miss Anderson for kindergarten. He went to first grade behind the Presbyterian church. He went to fourth grade "where the Independent is now," he said. "It was a little frame house."

Inden also spent a lot of time at the Carnegie Library. He remembers the librarian, Elizabeth Rank.

"She was tall and thin with long, gray hair," he said. "The kids were afraid of her because she was so stern."

There used to be band concerts on Main Street every Wednesday, Inden said. The bandstand stood in front of where the Gambler is now. At Christmas, they had a Christmas concert.

Inden remembers going to Vergott's Confectionary and the Curtis Brothers Candy Store as a kid and getting candy for 5 cents.

"They made their own candy," he said.

He would go to the movies for 5 cents.

"You could take your candy into the theater," he said.

The cost for the movie ticket was more after 12 years of age.

"I was 12, but I was small," Inden said. "I knew the cashier. She let me in. I was always afraid she'd ask me my age."

Inden still remembers the square tiles in the lobby. The cashier's father was Dr. Bacon.

"They lived on Lyon, in the house behind the post office," he said. "It had three stories. There had been a fire and it was completely empty."

One day three of his friends, two boys and a girl, went roller skating around Marshall. It started to rain, so they decided to explore the empty house. The house had a communication system, and a baby grand piano, Inden remembers. A policeman, Martin Linnan - "we all knew him and he knew us" - shooed them out of there.

Inden moved with his family to Marshall from Watertown, S.D.

"Dad worked at Marshall Food till he was 90 years old, in the office," Inden said. "He still bowled when he was 90."

Inden also worked at Marshall Foods, which was owned by the Weiner family. He made 331/3 cents an hour.

"With time-and-a-half, I made 49 cents," he said.

Inden lived in nine houses around town with his family and as an adult. Most of the time, the houses were rented.

"Rent was cheap in those days. People didn't have any money to buy a house," he said.

One time the Indens lived in a duplex "right across from Perfection Ice Cream," he said. He also lived on 4th Street and Lynd where the Lyon County Retirement Home is now.

Eventually, the family bought a "little house in the Soucy Addition," he said. "The house is rundown now. My dad built the garage and it's still standing."

On May 25, 1942, Inden was drafted. He chose the Coast Guard - "a buddy joined the Coast Guard...," he said of why he chose that branch of the service.

He was in the Coast Guard "two months short of four years," he said. He was released in March 1946.

During those four years, Inden spent 18 months in Greenland. The Coast Guard had a base there in addition to an Air Force base. In Greenland, Inden was an apprentice seaman.

"The wind was 155 mph," he said. "There was no grass, no trees. The gravel would blow off the roads. There were long, low barracks. We would anchor them down."

The men would dig holes, called dead men, "like a grave" and put timbers in them to anchor down the barracks.

Inden eventually became a 1st Class seaman.

"It didn't mean anything because I was not on a ship," he said.

When Inden got back to Marshall, he had to look for a job.

"Oliver Bussard was the city clerk and then the mayor (1959-60). I'd known him all my life. He said to see him for a job, but there were no openings at that time."

Later, Bussard got him a job with the highway department, where Inden worked for 36 years, retiring in 1982.

Inden also worked as an extra projectionist when he got back from service.

For recreation, Inden got his pilot's license and flew Cessnas.

"I flew for 20 years, just for my own amusement," he said.

He was 46 when he married a widow, Maxine, who had four children.

"I don't know what I'd do without them," Inden said of the children.

Max is gone now, but Inden stays busy researching his family's history, e-mailing old friends via WebTV and listening to his collection of music from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. A favorite is the Mills Brothers, "Hey, Good Lookin'."

"I have a big phonograph that I just bought at Shopko," he said. "I can play 331/3s, 45s, 78s, tapes and CDs. I can transfer everything to CDs."

With the police scanner still crackling in the background, Inden put on Roger Miller's "King of the Road" to demonstrate a newly-burned CD of a classic song.