Day 104 (Written Sunday March 25) ~ My love affair with movies began a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. When I was about five my grandmother would take me to the Moon Glow Drive In, where I would watch Star Wars while sitting on a paint can in front of her car. I still have a love for the drive in because of Memaw taking me to the Moon Glow. I’m sure my memory has embellished things a little, but I remember how good their concessions were, and I was fascinated that you could hang the speakers on your window and blown away all together when they started tuning in the radio dial to listen through you car speakers. I loved driving by at night and straining to see over the fence to catch a glimpse of the movie. For the first 12 years of my life the only movies I ever saw were at the good old Moon Glow Drive In. The first movie I ever saw there was Star Wars and the last movie I saw there was called House. In between was Footloose, Top Gun, The Empire Strikes Back and a dozen more that I can’t recall just now.
Around the time I turned twelve, I went to my first indoor movie theater. It was the old Crockett Theater in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. My cousin Clayton and I went to see The Goonies. I was fascinated by the indoor movie theater and did not attend another drive in until I was an adult. Throughout high school we either went to Shadybrook Cinema in Columbia or the new Crockett Theater in Lawrenceburg. I saw Return Of The Jedi and Rocky IV at indoor theaters. There were a few experiments with 3D movies, which I never really liked as a kid, at least after the first five minutes, and still don’t like as an adult.
When I was a student at the Memphis School of Preaching we started going to a very cool drive in here in Memphis. It was a four screen drive in that showed a double feature on every screen. You had eight movies to choose from and it only cost us about ten dollars to get in. We would bring frisbees, footballs and coolers filled with drinks and hot dogs. We would also set up a portable play pen for the kids so they could go to sleep while we watched the movies. Many night Jade and I would sit side by side with our lawn chairs facing in opposite directions as she watched a “chick flick” and I watched something action or sci-fi. I can’t tell you how many times we, and other students would spend a summer night at the drive in. It is still one of my all time favorite theaters.
I was so happy when, a few years ago, Pulaski finally got another movie theater. Many years ago the Sam Davis theater was on the square (long before my time), and then there was the Moon Glow, which shut down when I was 12 (there is a car lot there now, even though the screen is still standing). Finally a little theater was opened on the campus of Martin College. It only has one screen, shows only one movie, and is only open for four showings (Friday night, two Saturday and one Sunday), at least we have a theater again. It is so nice to be able to hop in the car and drive five minutes to the movies and five minutes back when its over. Plus they have really cheap concessions, which is awesome.
Nowadays you mostly just have the megaplexes. Giant theaters that have 24 screens (although five are usually taken up with 2D, 3D, and iMax 3D versions of the latest Harry Potter or Twilight) and zero character and personality. Not to mention the fact that they are so expensive you need to save up for a month to spend a night at the movies. Still, after all these years, there is just something magical about that giant screen, those booming speakers, an auditorium full of people and greasy, buttered popcorn. I guess when I go to the movies, in my heart I still fill like the five year old little boy sitting on a paint can with his Memaw.
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