One of the most beloved locations of my young life was the Roxy Theater in my home town of Rogersville, TN. It had been a showplace when first built, a replacement for another theater that burned down, but by the time I started going in the mid-1950s it had fallen on rough times. The advent of television had hit it hard; the seats were old and worn and there were large patches of plaster missing from the ceiling. One BIG patch was loose and looked like it could fall at any moment, but it never did. (I sometimes sat directly under it, just for the thrill.) The place was run by the daughter of the original owners and she had a fearsome demeanor. I got to know her personally later and found her to be a real sweetheart underneath the pose. I think she adopted it because her clientele was mostly kids, so she pretended to be a meanie to keep them in line. The seating arrangement was very ridgid. Bullies and tough guys sat down front on the left. On the right down front sat the girls who found them dangerously attractive. The faceless rabble, like me, sat in the middle and dating couples congregated in the back row, under the projection booth, where amorous activity was allowed, up to a point. I think the tough guys sat were they did so one of them could sneak to the fire exit and let in some of their friends who didnt have the price of admission. I was in the lobby once when a young girl (Theres one in every school.) came running up to the owner and told her, So-and-so just sneaked in! The owner looked down at her and said, Some kids got to sneak in, if they go. Crestfallen, the girl slunk back into the theater. The best thing about the Roxy was that, every Christmas, the theater hosted the entire population of Rogersville ElementarySchool for the afternoon. The price of admission was an item to be placed in holiday baskets for the poor, but everyone got to go whether they contributed or not. Wed all walk from the school to the theater together and the excitement was palpable. Once we were all seated, we spent the entire afternoon watching The Three Stooges, The Bowery Boys, and those wonderful cartoons from the 1930s and 40s that featured great jazz performances. Thats where I got my first exposure to the genre. This was the 1950s remember, so segregation was the rule of the day. The rest of the year the balcony was reserved for African Americans. I was always jealous because I really wanted to sit up there, but at Christmas students in the 7th and 8th grades got those seats.. I was sick and missed the trip in 7th grade, so I was thrilled to finally get to sit there in 8th grade. There was a bit of sadness, too, because I knew it would be my last time to enjoy the annual event. It was just as glorious as I knew it would be! Toward the end of the day I started to feel ill. I chalked it up to too many vists to the concession stand, but by the next day it was plain that I had a raging case of the mumps that laid me up for the entire Christmas vacation. The strange thing was, not one other student in my class got the disease. Maybe the old Roxie just wanted to give me something to remember it by.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 11:53:45 +0000
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