In the throes of the Great Depression, every kind of strange stunts had been placed on to assist take Americans’ minds off the distress affecting nearly everybody.

“Into this land, already beset with marathon dancers, flag pole sitters and jig-saw puzzle fiends comes a new type of personage – the flag pole dancer,” reported the Sun newspaper on Feb. 23, 1933.

The evening earlier than, a pair of high-altitude aerialists – Betty and Bennie Fox – ascended a 50-foot pole atop the Fox Theater in San Bernardino. On a 30-inch-wide platform with none railing, the pair started a quick jig to launch their 48-hour nonstop dance exhibition.

“Well, that’s one way of getting over the Depression,” noticed Sun author Robert Walton.

For two days, the pair – they claimed to be brother and sister – danced collectively, enduring a scarcity of sleep and wintery wind and chilly, with solely a weight loss plan of milk and bread. At the conclusion of the dance marathon, they climbed down and twice appeared earlier than Fox audiences answering questions and describing their expertise.

“Sure, we like it up here. It’s just like home,” Bennie Fox yelled to a reporter whereas wiggling the pole throughout their aerial stunt. “But a lot of homes are that way anyway now.”

The solely little bit of relaxation for the pair got here when one in every of them bent over and the opposite laid on the opposite’s again. “But imagine doing that on a 30-inch platform at an altitude where birds are birds and a fall means a grease spot on the sidewalk,” marveled Walton. (The author feels like somebody who solely attends auto races to see the crashes.)

Their look was a part of a barnstorming tour that went on for years involving Bennie Fox, who referred to as himself a “human fly” and in addition did stunts climbing the edges of buildings. Some articles indicated that “Betty” was initially Bennie’s spouse, although at instances she was changed by a minimum of two different ladies.

The act later helped promote struggle bonds throughout World War II, and the aerialists additionally placed on exhibits for sufferers throughout a tour of greater than 100 navy hospitals in Europe. Bennie and a associate continued the stunts, although for shorter instances on smaller platforms, till the Nineteen Seventies.

In the 1933 occasion in San Bernardino, there was numerous promotion in the course of the Betty and Bennie dance expertise. An advert within the Sun for the Towne-Allison Drug Co. on Feb. 24 marketed Cara Nome Cosmetics which had been “used by Betty Fox to protect her skin from the weather.”

And the pair admitted the wind and a menace of rain made issues somewhat harder.

“Let’er rain,” shouted Bennie to a reporter’s query. “Betty would like it, I know. A little rain might freshen her up a bit for her stage appearance.”

At the top of the 48-hour ordeal, the pair descended from their perch, with Betty briefly collapsing atop the theater roof. A couple of minutes later, they acquired the applause of the theater crowd as they appeared on the Fox stage.

“Hot baths and a new finger wave for Betty and the two returned to the theater at 9 o’clock to tell the second show audience how they felt,” wrote the Sun on Feb. 25.

Betty conceded “a lot of people think we are crazy.” She supplied a narrative of a person who sat on a curb throughout their efficiency in Sacramento and watched them for 7½ hours.

“He went to the police and told them we were crazy dancing up there for 48 hours,” ‘I know they are crazy. I sat and watched them 7½ hours.’

“‘You sat on the curbing and watched them 7½ hours, and you call them crazy?’ asked the officer. That ended that.”

Palomares Adobe excursions

The Historical Society of Pomona Valley on Sunday, Oct. 22, will host excursions of the Palomares Adobe, 491 E. Arrow Highway, Pomona. Tours start between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. Tickets, that are $5, have to be bought prematurely at https://www.pomonahistorical.org.

Halloween cemetery excursions

The Historical Society of Pomona Valley has additionally scheduled its annual Halloween nighttime excursions of the historic Spadra Cemetery, 2850 Pomona Blvd., Pomona.

The fashionable historical past excursions of the cemetery are between 7 p.m. and midnight on Friday, Oct. 27, and Saturday Oct. 28, in addition to on Halloween, Tuesday, Oct. 31. Flashlights and durable strolling sneakers are really useful.

The cemetery excursions aren’t designed to be scary, until you carry a hyper-active creativeness with you.  Tickets are $20 and have to be bought prematurely at https://www.pomonahistorical.org.

Reaching a milestone

I used to be shocked Thursday to comprehend that it was the twenty fifth anniversary of the primary native historical past column I’ve composed right here. The collection of columns began Oct. 12, 1998, within the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. They now additionally seem in The Sun, The Press-Enterprise and the Redlands Daily Facts.

Nothing in my working newspaper profession, and now in retirement, has been extra satisfying and enjoyable than producing this column through the years.