The Irving Theater

There was a theater in town on Main Street, it was The Irving Theater. When I was six I started going to the indoor movies there. My Mom had gone to the movies there as a teenager. It smelled of many years of popcorn, giant pickles and spilled sodas. I had only been to the Drive -In movies before, but that is a story for another day. I have mentioned I was addicted to television, but that was nothing compared to the movies. Back then you saw a cartoon, then a news reel, then a feature film then there was an intermission and they showed you a new cartoon, news reel and feature.
Every week I was either scared to death by Vincent Price, Peter Lorre or Boris Karloff or falling in love with Elvis, Frankie Avalon, Kurt Russell, Moondoggie, or Dwayne Hickman. I can't leave out Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson, James Gardner or Cary Grant., though I knew them more from the old movies on TV. I remember my sister jumping up in Mom's lap during "The Tingler" and breaking her belt. That was a creepy movie. There was a talent contest during intermission and I liked to enter. I was so proud when I won a years free passes to the theater AND an Elvis "Fun in Acapulco" album for doing my Elvis imitation and singing "Return to Sender". Some weeks I twisted. some I sang, once I won a limbo contest. That wasn't hard, because I am shorter than the tallest hobbit...haha I stopped growing at 4'11" and was always a very small person. I got my second kiss at the theater by my sister's friends little brother. ( I also was felt up and felt up a boy for the first time here, but that was much later) He was so cute, dark headed with green eyes and he was exotic because he went to a private school, which was unusual back then. I was eight. I take it back it was my third kiss. The first was Mike Trammell when I was five. He lived down the street and he had his Mom buy me a locket. It had blue flowers on it. He pecked me on the slide. The second kiss was Harry Don Rowe, an older boy, he was in 3rd grade and I was in first, he kissed me in line for the playground. This third kiss cost me. My sister was a bully. She told me if I didn't do five favors for her that she would tell Mama that I kissed a boy. I did them. Then she said I had to do five more favors or she would still tell. I did them. She tried it again, but I may be dumb, but I ain't stupid. I had a nice lesson in paying blackmailers. I called her bluff. She called me back. She told Mama. I got a heck of a lecture, which I hated worse than a whoopin'. Mama sure could make you feel shamed. If she only knew what my neighborhood best friend and I did. My sister and I had become best friends with Mama's best friends daughters. No choice. The older one was very irritating, always slapping my leg over and over rapidly and calling it "Love pats" It hurt. The younger one and I had a lot of fun playing nasty, I don't know how we knew how. I am so glad we never got caught. I know almost everyone does it as children, but things were not liberal back then and I would have been shamed badly. Later on there was an entire group of us girls. We would meet in the attic and see who had learned a new nasty word or we would strip tease with scarves. I had seen a movie I wasn't supposed to called "Promises Promises" about strippers and was also a huge Natalie Wood fan and she had done Gypsy Rose Lee, so I taught the others. Back to the theater. On Wednesdays it was free pass day. You could go to any of the local stores and they would give you the free passes. The Mom's would drop us all off for four hours and have a little time to themselves. Thursday was Pepsi Cola day. You could get in for 6 Pepsi caps. The regular price was 50cents. I went Wed. , Thurs. and Sat. afternoons. I grew up there. We had a new theater come to town when I was about twelve, The Chateau, it was new and cool, but nothing will ever be as fun and cool as The Irving Theater was.