"My First Visit to the Movies", by Donna Lethal

Donna Lethal, Lethal Dose (and PCL contributor!):

"I have so many movie memories - movies that have shaped my life,
movies seen at incredible theaters like the Ziegfeld and the Coolidge
Corner and the Brattle ... many Saturday nights in the late 1970s and
early 80s at the drive-in in Massachusetts ... but my first movie
memory is one of sheer exhaustion, heat, and disappointment.

I'm not sure what movie it was - a revival showing of "Mary Poppins"
or perhaps "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" but it was the early 1970s and
it was very warm and sunny. One of my teenage aunts volunteered to
take us for the afternoon and my mother dropped my brother and I off
at the local "Route 3 Cinema." What my mother didn't realize was that
on a hot Saturday afternoon, every parent in town was doing the same
thing. We waited in line for tickets only to have the ticket window
close without even getting nearer. What to do?

My aunt decided the best thing, after endless phone-booth calls to my
mother who hadn't returned home (or did, and was enjoying the empty
apartment) was to walk home with us. A mile. With a 5 year old and a
three year old. Not only were we exhausted and thirsty, I knew that on
Monday everyone would be talking about the movie, and redheaded
(step)child that I was, I'd be left out - again.

Maybe that's why movies played and continue to play such an important
part of my life - I think I made a secret vow to never again miss a
movie. I once feigned illness to stay home and watch "The Bad Seed"
on TV and when I lived in Cambridge, MA, went to the Brattle Theater
at least three times a week. Between my Netflix and movies I've
tivo'd, I couldn't watch all of the movies I want unless I was out of
work (which I am, quite a few times a year.)"

--Donna Lethal--

Note: Click label: "My First Visit to the Movies", to read more first-movie-stories.