The Walk-In Movie Theater

The walk-in movie. Talk about metamorphosis! Here in my small hometown sits the Lincoln Theatre, two screens now, but about as iconic as you'll find. A single, claustrophobic ticket booth, the same reception area and snack counter for the past half century, and, like a lot of people, old but dependable. A few miles south in Huntsville, Alabama sits the Bridge Street Monaco, where you can have a nice meal, a glass of wine, and watch a movie from the comfort of a recliner.

In the 50s, my town sported two theaters, the Lincoln and the Capitol. If you had a half dollar (now there's a totally different subject) and a free Saturday, you could experience the double-feature at both - had to be a Western involved and don't forget the great previews of coming attractions and the cartoon!-and grab a cola and either a box of Good 'n Plenty or a sack of hot, buttery popcorn. At both theaters! Four shows, two suicides (a mixture of all the different colas), a big box of candy and a big sack of steamy popcorn for fifty cents.

I was a halfway-down kid. I didn't have the neck strength to sit on the front rows and crane to see big screen a few feet away. Plus, there was always the risk of a Jujube whacking you in the back of your crewcut. The back rows were reserved for the kids who were already into "dating" and cared much more about a double feature in the dark than they did what was playing on the screen. So my spot was a center row, on the end, because sometimes you just had the hankering to get up and move around. Occasionally, and it was rare in the days when behaving was second nature, some kids would get loud or rowdy and be visited by the flashlight-wielding usher who was usually some borderline high school nerd.

The seats were worn and dirty, the floor was sticky, and I can't even start to describe all the smells. Mostly good but an occasional whiff of someone unwashed or lathered to the core with Hi Karate, Jade East, or English Leather.

When I was eight, a ringworm epidemic hit the town and the culprit appeared to be the seat backs. In the winter, kids learned to use their coats and jackets as shields from whatever might be lurking in and on the seats. And once in a blue moon, a 3D movie would pop up - and then there was the famous "13 Ghosts" of 1960 that required a special pair of glasses to see the monsters. But nothing could beat a good, old-fashioned Werewolf, Dracula, or Frankenstein film. I learned to run fast in those days. It was probably no more than a quarter of a mile from the theater to my house - via the side roads and alleys - but I bet I made it in under two minutes flat. Yep, if it was dark after one of those movies, my feet were moving in a blur from the point of going out the theatre double doors until I sprung up the steps of my front porch. Nothing like a good, whole out terror sprint to keep you in shape.

"Summer Place" came to town in the early sixties and you had to be either thirteen or fourteen to get in. Oh my gosh- Sandra Dee-the original teen poster girl, before posters.

Segregation took the form of a white section and a black section. Separate lines with the whites sitting downstairs and the blacks sitting upstairs.

The walk-in was the ultimate first date. And the first suspension of reality before you knew what suspension of reality was. And, ultimately it was a warm-up for the drive-in a few years later. Ah, yes...the drive-in...

Hello, Central, give me 384, please...

Yesterday I used my Blackberry on a conference call. I pushed the speaker button and had a nice, comfortable conversation. There were people from different parts of the country on the call. It happens everyday. And yet I can seldom use a cell phone without thinking of the first phone call in my memory. The phone hung on the back wall of Pa Gray's general store in Kelso, Tennessee and I had to stand on a nail keg to reach it. I took the receiver off the hook and moved my mouth as close to the speaker as possible. My grandfather held my hand on the crank and helped me turn it. A bell at the top of the phone clattered and a voice came through the pound and a half receiver - a real human being - and said "number please." I said, "Central, give me 384, please." In a matter of seconds, my grandmother was on the other end. "Pa said we'd be home for supper at 5:30," I reported through the large, oblong speaker.

"Okay, baby," my grandmother said, "I'll see you in a little while."

I stretched and and stood on tiptoes to replace the receiver on the hook and my grandfather lifted me off the nail keg. My little brain was overwhelmed with what had just taken place. My grandmother's voice coming out of that big wooden box! What would they think of next??

Of course, things changed. Like a scene from the movie "Time Machine," these enigmatic instruments morphed their way through the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Phones became more sophisticated and sat on countertops and desks. The lady named "Central" disappeared somewhere along the way and calls became self-serve. Dials appeared on the front. Phone numbers got longer and had letters added to the front of them. The first conference calls were actually snoopy neighbors on party lines. A pink phase came and went just as did Princess phones...I think there were even pink Princess phones. (No self-respecting sweaty young boy would dare be caught near one!) Dials evaporated and became pushbuttons. Phones appeared on walls once again: much more compact and sophisticated. Then, lo and behold, wires disappeared (no way!) and through a process that I've yet to wrap my challenged intellect around, sounds travel thousands of miles in tenths of seconds THROUGH THE AIR!

I don't know, but many times I would just as soon be back in Pa's store, balancing on a nail keg just beyond the heat of the pot-bellied stove, and trying to connect with "Central" one more time. But hold that thought, I hear the ringtone of my Blackberry and I need to take that call. Let's talk again soon...