Going to the Picture Show

John Penney          Post Office Box 214          Vienna, Georgia  31092                    [e-mail]

         Cell – 229-942-0857            office – 229-268-5345

         

Title:  Going to the Picture Show

1861 words

         My earliest memory of going to the picture show was when I must have been about four or five years old. It was the Woods Theatre in Cordele down on Eleventh Avenue right down from the Pool Room. My Mother must have made my brother Tony carry me and Al, cause he was the oldest except for my other brother Mickey, and nobody could make him do nothing at all anyway.

         I remember it was kinda creepy in there and you couldn`t carry drinks or popcorn down where you sat at. As I got older I did go to the Woods a few times, but all of my Picture Show days were spent mostly at the Crisp Theatre, around the corner down over a block or so on Twelfth Avenue. Seems like they had another one down on Eighth Avenue close to Gabe Singers Store, called the Cordele Picture Show and all I heard was that when you paid to get in, they would give you a big stick to fight off the rats with ! I never went there.

          Now my most vivid memory was when my Mother and my MaMa and everybody else in town went to see “Gone With The Wind “at the Crisp Theatre, this had to have been early 1950`s but I`m not real sure if it was the first time it was shown in Cordele or not, I do remember having to sit on the floor next to a row where my kinfolks and neighbors were sitting.

         My MaMa had a lady friend named Dot Brown who must have had to get weighed over at the Peanut Mill because she was large, not tall but short, and big around! My Uncle Joe claimed she was a Number One Heavy and if she had to haul butt in a hurry she`d need to make two trips. It took me a while before I caught on to that one.

         Anyway, every time old Rhett Butler would show up on the screen all the ladies would make this strange noise like blowing all their air out at the same time and I could hear Miss Dot muttering something about his shoes at the foot of her bed. I always wondered about that.

         Them little old ladies didn`t like Yankees at all. When it showed the part where all of them shot and dying Rebels was laid out in Atlanta, I`d  bet you ten Confederate dollars that you could have heard a pin drop. All quiet except for the ones crying there in that picture show that night. It was unreal how it affected that crowd of folks.

          I spent a lot of time at the picture show. On Saturdays me and my brothers would have certain chores to do and usually after lunch we would sometimes get enough money to get us in the show. Most Saturdays I`d stay all day long unless nobody much was there, after you saw whatever was playing once, then you`d just watch it again. I loved the movies a lot and never got tired of the westerns because that was what all of us boys wanted to be like.

          Then as I got older a strange thing happened. Girls became somewhat fairly important. Movies just turned into a reason and place to meet up with your buddies, have a little social time and talk to girls. Well, talking was relative, if you were just friends you talked, if you really liked them, then you had your buddy or your friend do the talking for you. As you got brave and moved up a notch to being cool like me, then you would set in the row behind and act like you was watching the show so you could check out the ones you might want to talk to. Then make your move. That way you got more of a yes than a no when you asked if you could actually set beside them, this was a sure sign to all the boys that you were cool. I was pretty good at this. I managed to meet one of the prettiest, sweetest  girls in the world right there in that picture show. We still hold hands sometimes.

         There was a period in between going to the show to see Gene Autry and Roy Rogers and going just to see girls that was very stressful to me. I`ve only told this story to a select few and only then in moments of extreme emotional distress. It`s not considered the manly, brave thing to come right out and say that you are scared. Several times when I was a young lad I would watch a movie that really scared the crap out of me but I never, ever let any of my friends suspect that me, Johnny Boy Cool, could possibly, remotely think about being the “ S “ word.

         It all started one Saturday. It was this lazy, beautiful, not a cloud in the sky, summer day. I had played some baseball that morning with the usual suspects, my brother Al and his band of merry dudes; I owed him five dollars so he was collecting the debt with my uncanny ability to play the best third base in the entire world. We beat the Losers from the South side by a score of nine to five. After my penance, I boarded the old Red Ryder Bike at approximately lunch time and pedaled cross town to the home of my buddy and good friend, Ronnie “Roho” Robitsch.

         We had some yard work to be done for Miss Elizabeth Fortner who lived just up the street from us on Second Avenue. This would provide us with the funds to eat chili dogs at the Pool Room and still have enough money to get into the Picture Show where we would be able to see this brand new movie we had seen the previews for called “ I Was A Teen-Age Werewolf “. Boy, we could hardly wait!

         That movie was so scary that in the middle part Roho went to the bathroom and never came back! Later on I discovered he had forgot to take out the trash or some such and needed to rush home to see about it. It didn`t matter none to me cause I set there and watched it one more time just to show anybody who needed to know that I was not scared, not even a little bit.

         It was scarier the second time around ! I almost wet my pants. Then it was over. As I calmly walked up the aisle leaving I noticed that nobody my age was still in the show. By the time I reached the lobby my knees had started knocking so bad I thought I was gonna trip and fall.  I pushed through them double doors to the outside and stopped dead in my tracks. It was too dark outside already! I checked behind me to make sure that my old buddy Leewood  Wright had not witnessed my shock.  The ticket taker had closed up the concession stand and gone, so there had been no real witnesses, just a couple of old folks.  Not that I was really scared, I could see down to the red light on Main street where Nippers Cafe was going strong and the street light  right next to Bobby Gray`s ramshackle two story house lit up that whole corner as far as I could see down toward Sixth Street.

Everything appeared to be absolutely fine. My house was straight up Sixth Street North. It was only eleven City blocks away. I was quietly subdued, not scared or nothing close to it, if you know what I mean. All of a sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks, one of the reasons I could see pretty good, was looking real ugly all at once ! I removed my  old beat up Strickland-Legion baseball cap, leaned my head back and looked up at the biggest, brightest,  fullest, Full Moon ever to shine in my short twelve year lifespan!

         All of the kids my age were long gone. My trusty old Red Ryder looked mighty humble parked there by the curb. I nonchalantly wheeled that bike around and made one of those running mounts like all the big cowboy stars used to do when there was trouble coming, only they had horses, but you get the picture. By the time I made the turn headed North on sixth street I had my lip whistler going and was riding carefree and ready to rock and  roll.

          But my butt cheeks had a good solid grip on that bicycle seat because I knew there was a long dark stretch of bad road ahead. I had a terrible feeling I was in for a wicked ride. It was a downhill run most of the way home from where the Werewolf started following me so I give most of the credit to being here today telling this tale, to the forces of nature. Between the lay of the land and a powerful urge to mess in my britches, I managed to arrive safely home.

         If you rode a bike much as a kid, then you understand that when your eyes blur over and your pedal speed is so fast that the chain starts slipping, you have reached maximum acceleration. Not only had I reached that state, I don`t have any recollection of crossing over the double set of railroad tracks just before you get to the Coca Cola plant or of passing several carloads of unsuspecting potential Werewolf victims. I honestly believe that the Werewolf was so hot on my trail that he never noticed all them other folks. I also had brains enough to stay in the absolute middle of the road and I knew if I looked back I`d lose my concentration and wind up deader than a door nail. . I could hear him right up close behind me whenever I tried to coast some.

         He almost got me between the ice plant and where they ground up that corn meal down close to the big ditch but I caught my second wind about that time and just before I went under the street light up by Striplings Grocery I heard him howling mighty loud, so I sneaked a peek back over my shoulder and I swear I seen him just plain as day, easing off to one side of the street and beginning to change back into a person. I happened to think to look up and by golly, that big old shining moon had went behind some clouds! To this day I believe in the forces of nature.

         Most people don`t want to call me a straight out liar to my face, but I can tell when they think I`m full of you know what.  They claim there just aint no way a scrawny little kid like me could ride a bike that fast. Go figure.