Growing up on Circle Drive three miles out Fish Creek, provided a lot of entertainment in my youth. One of the most important parts of the week was Friday night, “SHOW TIME”! And I don’t mean the one you see on cable TV either. I am talking about the downtown theater that still stands on Main Street. Each Friday evening, our parents would take turns hauling kids to town for our weekly outing. I still remember my mom saying,” Now you hold your little brother’s hand so he would not get lost.” Yeah right, in those days I would have traded him for a bag of colored beans. I still can hear his words to me each time I left him as we went into the dark theater, “I am gona’ be tellin’ Mom”, and he always did!

In the sixties the theater looked a little different than it does today. Out front there was an area set back much like a porch. We figured it was made that way so kids did not have to stand in the rain, waiting for the show to open its doors. In the middle toward the back was the ticket takers booth. The waiting area was our first glimpse of the evening’s entertainment lineup. Behind glass along the walls were show bills for that evening’s movies. To kids, those signs appeared to be eight feet high. The glass was designed to protect us kids from the pictures of scary monsters, army men; and cowboys on horseback. Our imaginations would run wild trying to figure out what the movies were going to be about.

In those days, it was great entertainment for kids who did not live in town. At home we received one good channel on black and white TV. And two more if Dad would adjust the antenna just right. Kids in town were lucky, they had cable TV and could get all the best channels… all nine of them. That didn’t bother me, but I would have liked to have gotten Chilly Billy on channel four each Friday night. He had the best monster movies of all times. Every Friday Godzilla destroyed Tokyo, or a werewolf would attack some dumb guy who walked in the woods at night alone. It still gives me goosebumps just thinking of those great old movies.

When the lady opened the glass viewing window to begin selling tickets, each kid slid their fifty cents under the glass and told her through the chrome speaking port, “One Please”. Without a word she would slide you a ticket. As you then entered the lobby, a guy took the ticket you just traded fifty cents for. Like the gate master of a hidden entertainment world, the guy in his slightly oversized red usher coat used his flashlight to look over the ticket to make sure it was not counterfeit. Why else would he act so formal in his job. His flashlight was a cross between a searchlight and a star war’s lightsaber. Truth was, in reality he was just a freckled face high school kid working at the movies. Inside you were surrounded by the smell of fresh popcorn. You remember how I’ve said each downtown business had its own unique smell. The smell of fresh popcorn in the Lincoln Theater is hard to forget.

Next you enter through two doors that kept street lighting from entering the main darkened theater. Inside was just enough light to find the perfect seat for the evenings show. A perfectly selected seat depended on the evening’s movies. Monsters and possible blood… six rows back. Cowboys and Indians, front and center. When you were our age, you wanted to be right down front looking up at the silver screen. The cowboys were bigger than life and you could almost reach out and touch them. As you got a little older, selecting a seat moved to the back. It was darker and you were not sitting with your brother or buddies. You were probably holding hands in the dark with a shy young girl wearing an angora sweater, smelling of Evening in Paris. The aroma of fresh popcorn and warm 5&10-cent hot peanuts made the evening perfect. It may be hard for some to believe today, but the Lincoln Theater was the center of our cultural world of entertainment.

For fifty cents you saw two movies, ate hot buttered popcorn and warm roasted peanuts from the 5&10. We sat on velvet seats, holding hands with a girl we figured was the prettiest girl in the world, at least at that moment. If you were adventuresome, you may even place your arm around her shoulders. Two hours later your arm had gone numb and fell off, at least that is how it felt. Today, sixty odd years later, I still can see the twinkling theater lights and kids waiting for the big screen inside the Lincoln Theater on Main Street come to life. It took us kids to places we only dreamed of, looking back Through the Lens.

CUTLINE: Earl Yost painting of by-gone days brings back memories for kids of the 50s and 60s who enjoyed the weekly movies supplied by the Delish family. A time when downtown was the center of our community. Times have changed, and those of us who remember, can help keep that time in our lives around for a few more years.