AT THE MOVIES

AT THE MOVIES

SATURDAY! Mom’s wash day; Grammie & Grampa’s Sabbath; but oh, what a special day for me.

All week long we would collect pop bottles to redeem at Mr. Brown’s store. We never had pop at our house so we had to search for unbroken bottles in the ditches. What joy if I found the larger sized bottle, not broken. It was worth more money to put towards the amount I’d need to get into the "show."

By Friday, we’d usually have enough to go trade them in, after washing off most of the dirt. There was seldom any extra money for a delicious bag of salted peanuts and a cold bottle of Pepsi. If there was, we’d pour the peanuts into our pop and watch the show, blissfully unaware of anything else that may be happening elsewhere in our Universe.

When I got older and went to the show with my friends instead of my brother and sister, I’d have money made from babysitting a little boy whose family was with the U.S.A.F.
Usually, we’d all walk or ride our bikes down to the Goudy Theatre in Barrington Passage, a distance of 5 miles each way, in time to get "a good seat." I remember sometimes leaving one seat beside me empty in case a certain young fellow might choose to sit there. If one needed to use the bathroom, there were 2 outside toilets.

First, there was "News of the World" usually followed by a short clip of "The Little Rascals" or "The Three Stooges"; then they would show Previews of the upcoming movies. Sometimes during the movie, the film would stop or break midway through and a gang of unruly boys would stomp their rubber boots and holler loudly.

Once the show was over, we’d walk the 5 miles home in time to get the mail at the Post Office and hurry in for some Saturday night baked beans, Johnny cake or steamed brown bread. A few times we would hitch-hike home but I didn’t like lying to Mum about why I got home so early so I usually just walked the whole way with the others. It certainly was the high-light of my week and neither rain, wind, snow or ice could keep us away from going to the matinee on Saturday afternoons at one o’clock. "Hi yo Silver, away!"