I’m Fixing to Go to the Picture Show

I’m fixing to go to the picture show.

That’s what we called it back in the 1950s, the “Picture Show” instead of the “Movie.’’

And back then every little town had a theater where you could see a picture show, but you couldn’t do it every night, only on Friday night, Saturday matinee and evening, followed by another matinee on Sunday afternoon after church. For a couple of months during the summer it would also be open on Wednesday nights.

When I first began going to picture shows the cost of admittance was only a dime. That was about 1953 when I was about 10 years old. And you got a lot for your money back then because for that thin dime you not only got to view the feature movie, but preceding that there were also a cartoon, a news reel and the continuing serial that lasted all summer. I remember my favorite had been Mysterious Island, which featured aliens from outer space, Confederate soldiers and my first peek at Captain Nemo and the Nautilus.

I was so taken with the theater that I wanted to see every movie that came to town, but a dime was hard to come by back then. Then it got worse, and it left a bad taste in my mouth when I got my first serving of inflation. The price of admittance went up to fifteen cents!

That was bad news of the worst kind to me because the only source of income I had was picking up drink bottles beside the road and selling them for two cents each, and the occasional nickel my parents could spare, or from the generosity of one of my uncles.

But fortunate for me, the combination of my entrepreneurial spirit and my hunger for the arts provided the way for me. What happened was that I hung around the theater so much that the manager took pity on me and offered me a job.

My duties consisted of taking down the old posters from the frame outside the theater, which advertised the current film that was playing, and replacing it with the new one. Those posters were beautiful, with vivid colors that depicted action scenes of every movie star in Hollywood.

I cringe with regret as I remember that we threw those old posters away. If I had only rolled them up and saved them until today I would be writing checks instead of this column.

But advertising was only one part of my new job. The other part was maintenance, which consisted of sweeping the floor of the theater after each show. This wasn’t an easy task because you had to go down the rows and pop your broom, sweep hard in order to sweep the stale popcorn under the seats to the next row, and then do it all over again.

So I found a way to beat inflation because for my efforts I got to see every movie that came to town for free.

I also discovered another benefit. Sometimes when you swept the floor, besides the faint rustling sound of the popcorn there would also be the clinking sound of money! These were coins that had fallen out of people’s pockets during the movies, enough to keep in funny books—that’s what we called comic books back before political correctness had raised its troublesome head. At the time, my favorite funny book hero was Captain Marvel. I wish I still had a few of those, too.

By the time I got to high school I was managing the concession stand and had seen every movie that was ever made since 1940, some of them several times.

Then something terrible happened. They called it progress, but what it was, was television.

It seemed like overnight that every household had one, and people stopped coming to the picture show. It was a sad time in my life when they locked the theater doors, and even more sad when I watched them gut the building and turn it into a furniture store where you could buy televisions.

It’s been the same ever since that magical time of my life—every time I discover something I truly love, progress seems to be fixing to come along and destroy it.