THEE-ater. Pronounce it to yourself
before you start; say it out loud. Not like the THEE in My Country ‘Tis . .
., but like you’d yell, “THIEF!!” when he was running off with your
purse---only leave off the “f.” THEE-a-ter---now you’ve got it.
Paxton's was on “Main Street” and was a one-aisle little affair, with maybe a
dozen rows down, six-on-each-side, with the far side chairs butted right up
against the wall. When you got in a row, you were in. The whole place seems
narrow now, with the ticket-lady facing you through her big window in that
glass room out front. She sat behind the glass with the round hole and the
scallop in the bottom for our hands to make the exchanges. We slid in the dime,
she tore a flimsy bit of numbered cardboard off a big spindled-roll, and slid
it back through the gap.
If we’d been lucky, our parents would have parted with a quarter, and so the
quarter-in, dime-and-nickel out was a wonderful exchange. An about-face took us
a few steps to the bigger window, with its big glass pull-down, through which
the crackly little slick bag of popcorn and cups of Co-Cola were passed.
Another dime bought one of each, and with your hands full, you waited at the
double-door for someone to pull the heavy handle.
And walking into that
dim cave, that flickery, same-air-as-last-week darkness, with the sound
blasting and the flitter of action on the screen---next to Heaven on a Saturday
afternoon. If you held the door for a moment, perhaps with your hip, so others
could pass, the upsurge of dust motes in the dark glittered in the glare-path
of the sun. Goodness knows what we breathed in there---and at one theater in a
nearby town, the smoke in the place practically obscured the screen before the
last THE END.
We settled down, chatter at a minimum (Mr Redding had a BIG flashlight, and
when he said SHHH, from the back, you'd better, or you'd be picked out in the
beam like a spotlight while everybody laughed). The usual Saturday rustle of
fifty lively kids accompanied newsreel, serial, cartoon, previews, and whatever
cowboy black-and-white was the choice of the week. We were on friendly terms
with Roy and
Dale and Trigger, with Hoppy and Gabby and Rex Allen (my, wasn’t he handsome,
and could SING!!) and Whip and Lash and Johnny Mack Brown, as well as Gene
Autry and Frog Milhouse and his alter-ego Smiley Burnette.
We cheered Tarzan and Boy and Sheena, booed the Leopard Woman and anybody who
gave any indication of being an owlhoot, drygulcher or double-crossin’
double-dealin’ scallywag.
And
that was just Saturday---Sunday afternoon was a technicolor singing, dancing
free-for-all, of wonderful costumes and elaborate show numbers. There were the extravaganzas:
The Ten Commandments and The Robe and The Silver Chalice, and
anything featuring Charlton Heston, Richard Burton, or Anthony Quinn was
usually a three-hour epic that left us breathless.
We’d stay all afternoon, as the huge square cone of light came magically out of
that little window in the back, just going and going, with a smooth segue from
newsreel to cartoon to serial to feature. Then we’d stagger out into the bright
heat or the coming darkness, drunk with action and sound, our ears ringing from
the audio assault and our chests swelled with great swashbuckling and riding
and shooting ambitions that took us swaggering home and up trees and onto
rooftops in all our young energy.
Those WERE the days; those days of free time and things to do and see and run
after. We went home to our suppers around the family table, woke to churchbells
and another small-town day.
Our modern generations are accustomed to the bright, garish-tiled new PLEXES
with sixteen vast theaters, with the lights coming on between movies and the
uniformed crew ready to man the little brooms to dispose of every grain of
popcorn before another crowd is allowed into the empty, ventilated room.
I know they’ve all probably heard the phrase, but those generations who have never
twice sat through a continuous run of a movie and all its attendant extras, welcome
to stay on in their seats til the final lights went on to signal That's All Folks---I wonder
how many of them know the real origin of, “This
is where I came in.”
