I wrote a song from very similar memories. We had an old movie theater in town called The Hitching Post, that showed double feature "B" westerns, with a serial every week... Nyoka, Queen of The Jungle, Gangbusters and all the others you mentioned. The Hitching Post had been a vaudeville theater, and it had a very low balcony. When you walked in front of the projector, the silhouette of your head (or other body parts) was projected onto the screen, with a roar of insults and catcalls.. We would bring our cap guns, and when there was a shoot out, all the kids fired their cap guns. When the smoke cleared on screen, it still hung low in the air in the theater..
THE HITCHING POST
Bob, you take the left side, and I'll take the right My gun is ready-loaded and I'm itching to fight There'll be a few less hombres going to live to see tonight When we get down to the Hitching Post Better load up your guns and tie your holsters down Round up all the boys, we're heading in to town And the first man that moves, we're going to cut him down When we get down to the Hitching Post
We'll meet Hoppalong Cassidy and Lash LaRue Roy and Gabby said that they would be there, too And when we get together, nothing we can't do When we get down to the Hitching Post With our cap guns blazing, it gets hard to hear But when the shootings over and the smoke has cleared We'll have Jordan Almonds and a cold root beer When we get down to the Hitching Post
When we're back at the bunkhouse and the battle is done We'll all be swapping stories, how the battle was won And though the fighting gets tough, we've never lost a man When we go down to the Hitching Post When the sun goes down and all the Mothers call You better hang your holster back up on the wall 'Cause you never know when you're going to get the call To go down to the Hitching Post
C... some things are the same all over. We used two bolts and a nut for a bomb, too, although we used the head of what we called "Kitchen" matches... the big wooden stick matches. We'd pop the heads off with our thumb nail, and load up the space in the nut, and then screw 'er down tight. Made a Hell of a bang... better than caps, and a lot cheaper... a whole box of Kitchen matches only cost a nickle, so you had a few afternoons of delightfully wasted time in one box.