It was predictable I guess that after more than 70 years – too much of it sitting empty – that the building would finally have been torn down. Still, I had hoped to show my wife the place that had been my sanctuary on so many Saturday afternoons so long ago.
In 1943 the Princess Theater of my home town was as close to heaven as any 10-year-old boy was likely to get. It was a safe haven from the brutal realities of school, chores and a frightening world war. It was here that we lined up on the sidewalk clutching our dimes in fevered anticipation of imminent immersion into a double feature, three serials, and four cartoons.
In its entire history, the Princess showed nothing but Westerns, although back then we called them cowboy movies. There wasn’t an Oscar nomination in the lot, and the plot of one movie was predictably like the plots of all the others. The bad guys wore black hats. The good guy came out of nowhere, always wearing a white hat. Townsfolk or hardworking ranchers victimized by the gang were powerless. Then the good guy showed up, saved the day, waved farewell and rode off into the sunset.
As we sat there, hunkered down in our seats, every kid in the place knew what was going to happen next. We knew, but we didn’t care. The point was that every Saturday these movies proved to us that good would always triumph in the end.
We moved away from that little town and the Princess Theater just before the end of 1943. A couple of years later the war ended, and the country set about the business of building a future, a future that didn’t include places like the Princess Theater. After all, prosperity glowed brightly on everyone’s horizon, and we didn’t need to be reminded anymore that good would prevail over evil. After awhile they stopped making cowboy movies like that, and all the good guys rode toward the sunset one final time and disappeared.
At some point the Princess Theater closed down. I heard it was a frozen food locker for a while, later a meat market. After that it sat empty.
Most folks would probably say its past was irrelevant. But as I stood looking at those empty steps and crumbling foundation, I just wanted to prop my feet up on the seat in front of me one more time and let some guy wearing a white hat show me once again that good will always triumph in the end.
