Hitch McGrath Takes a Day Trip
By ice rivers
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Went to Mendon Ponds this afternoon. Checked out the fairy houses, and whatever these stick teepees were about, then fed some birds out of our hands. First time my daughter has had success and I was reminded of doing that same thing for the first time when I was around her age at the same park.
Next we used up some Regal movie passes we’ve had for ten years and took the kids to see the new Dumbledore movie. (I didn’t realize it’s actually the 3rd movie in a new offshoot series, but we managed to follow it ok.)
I have not been to a movie theater in a very long time. My daughter is going to be 8 this year and we can’t remember a time when my wife and I and my daughter all went at the same time. Certainly not also with my Son. I can’t even really remember being in a movie theater in a decade or better. I got too cheap a long time ago and we always forgot we had the gift certificates.
If not for the $30 off we would have spent over $70 to see a movie and have popcorn and sodas and a water. I just can’t justify that. Especially when I could not even leave the house and still see the same movie on my huge TV and decent Klipsch soundbar with sub and be able to pause and rewind and all that too.
I’m apparently not the only one on that trip. Things have really changed around here, around me, around us.
I recall 20 years ago and more when, especially on a crappy weather day during Spring break from school the line at the movies would be out the doors… parking was a chore or you ended up way back in the side lot.
So many times in that building and in the old theater which was next to Marketplace Mall, I would get dropped off with a friend or meet them there and there were lines for the lines. Most of the seats were full. Sometimes we even saw one movie and then snuck into see an extra one on our “way out.” We called that a "slide". Nobody cared because the theaters are supported by concession stands not the attendance at a particular movie. There were always several movies I wanted to see or wouldn’t mind giving a shot. Sometimes we saw other people we knew there too, usually the same people who seemed to live in the place. Plus we knew the projectionist cause we knew his daughter Julia who sometimes came to school dressed as Scarlett O'Hara,
Seeing a movie in the theater was still like it’s own magical experience - especially back when our main TV in the house was only 19” and had 3 knobs! (The TV my dad bought before I was born so he could watch Lou Ferrigno as The Incredible Hulk turn green instead of a different shade of gray. I threw that TV out in perfect working condition in 2008 or 2009. It weighed as much as a Buick.) In that era, we saw it in the theater or had to wait over 6 months for it to come out on video and risk someone else telling us what happened before we got to see it ourselves.
Today there were less than 10 cars in the entire lot. I parked right up close to the front doors. The ticket booth was closed and you paid to see the movie up at the concession stand where you buy your $9 large popcorn and like $6 medium Pepsi. (Yikes!!!)
Tickets are no longer tickets, just a receipt. I remember saving stubs or finding one in a jacket pocket months later… Nobody takes one part of your ticket to let you in anymore.
There was no line anywhere to be found. Not for tickets, or snacks, not even for the urinals. The entire theater showing the movie we saw had the 4 of us and two other older folks seated a couple rows in front of us. That was it.
It was kind of cool mostly having the whole place to ourselves, but also like some post apocalyptic version of the world where we were some of the only humans left. Again not that I’m a big movie theater guy anymore to begin with, but once covid happened I was definitely not interested. (Though I figured lots of people still went to the movies. Had I known it would be empty I could have been swayed.)
When we walked out to get in my truck there were only 4 vehicles in the whole lot.
We had to decide today because my daughter is still so young between the wizardry/ magic movie and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I figured the Dumbledore movie would be cooler in the theater and Sonic would be fine another day back home on the couch.
But if I was there alone with my now adult Son (who once fell asleep there sitting in my lap and then peed his pants and also mine during “Superman”) or if it was just my wife and I, the options for other movies weren’t all that interesting to me either.
I’m left with an odd feeling. The nostalgia for a time when going to the movies was one of the great American pastimes. When even as prices crept up over the years, we still went and paid the ticket fees, or occasionally caught a matinée to save a few bucks. When we still snuck in snacks and cans of pop from time to time, but you HAD to get a tub of butter with popcorn in it .
Those feelings mixed with the recognition that those days are long gone and my doubts that movie theaters will survive much longer like this, and then a feeling of content that next time I probably don’t have to leave the couch and I can see the same movies for a whole lot less dough.
And I personally take it a lot better if a movie is kinda shitty or boring or just not that great when it’s on TV as part of one of the several streaming services we pay for instead of cable and I can fall asleep and pee my pants in peace if I get the urge which always depends.
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You took the words right out
You took the words right out of my mouth ice. I can't recall the last time I went to the cinema, the magic for me has gone away with all the rest of civillisation as I remember it. Kids growing up today don't know any different, but we do, and it becomes sad when you think of the fun we had and how life was so much easier back then.
Pubs closing, nightclubs closing, shops closing, in fact all kinds of night life closing. We have a ghost town, which for me has nothing left to offer, except the few shops that don't appeal to me. But I suppose we're lucky enough to have our memories.
Jenny.
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