When we were growing up my
mom liked to go to movies regularly and we went to one every month it seemed
and sometimes had to turn in soda bottles to have enough for everyone. Our
sister's admission was free, as I don't recall them charging for babies or toddlers.
At the time our parents were newly divorced or in the process of divorcing. We
subsisted on a very limited income, but always went to the movies as a five
some (Mom and her 4 kids). Most often we paid with a few dollar bills and
fistfuls of change as several of us would hold mom’s purse open and dig to the
bottom for more as one of us would bounce our baby sister Ellen on our hip.
We always (ALWAYS) came in
at the end or middle of the movie and then had to sit and wait for the movie to
start back for the next showing and watch it all over again as the endings
never really made sense until you saw the whole movie. I have to say, knowing
the ending never spoiled the surprise, because it was still a fresh story and
confusing until we saw the whole film.
We did that 99% of the time
and I remember thinking it was crazy when movie theater’s started making the
audience line up for a show. How could that be? We always got in whenever we
darn well showed up and watched the movie sometimes twice. Or maybe they just
felt sorry for the lady with a purse full of coins who brought her baby and
three pre-teens. Maybe they understood the challenges of corralling this bunch
and how it's possible that a mother could get some peace and quiet in a dark
theater where her kids sat glued to the flashing images on a giant screen.
Or maybe they just let Mom
in rather than make her sit in the lobby for an hour or more with us? Because
we'd likely chase each other around the lobby if we weren't watching a movie.
Most often we had to walk to the theater and our sister transported in a
borrowed Pantry Pride shopping cart that we conveniently kept at our house. Mom
didn't drive and we gave up on strollers as we couldn't carry many groceries in it and sometimes one of us would catch a ride in the cart.
And don’t get me started on
Mom’s movie magazines! She bought a Silver Screen or Rona Barrett’s Hollywood Richard Burton, Richard
Harris, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Charlton Heston,
Audrey Hepburn, Lucille Ball, Rex Harrison, Elvis Presley and more. I was lousy
at every subject in school, but I knew who the major entertainers of day were
romancing.
So it seems that eventually our family's fascination with Hollywood would lead to someone going West and it turned out to be our daughters Blair and Marquel. So far they haven't appeared in any magazines, but their work has appeared in film festivals and on TV.
