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Youngest Twin City Opera House Employee Ever
Thoughts on McConnelsville, Ohio
by Coleen Armstrong
As a child, I spent up to a month each summer in McConnelsville with my grandparents, Clyde and Edith Murray. There was no television, and I knew no other kids my age, so it was a languid, leisurely existence. Most afternoons, I curled up in an armchair and read over and over Grampy’s third, fourth, and fifth grade McGuffey Readers, which, although certainly ragged, had somehow survived 70 years and were still stacked within easy reach on the lower rungs of a living room table. I didn’t need to be cautioned to handle them gently; I’d been taught to be respectful of other people’s property. So I never tired of those moralistic tales which instructed children on how to behave.
My first visit took place in 1954 when I was nearly eight. I stayed two weeks. Over the years the time frame lengthened, first to three weeks and then finally to four. Grammy was a renowned seamstress, and she worked on sewing projects which demanded her full attention. I loved touching the silks and satins, the netting, the sequins, and the beading. Of the many things she made, ranging from draperies to doll clothes, I was most enthralled by the frilly dance recital costumes and the formal evening gowns.
Grampy was a retired livestock dealer. He listened to his radio a lot, mostly serials and baseball games, and sometimes strolled uptown to sit with his friends on the Courthouse ledge for an hour or so. Occasionally I’d coax him into playing a game of checkers, but that was always a hard sell, since he could beat me so easily. I’d set up the wooden board on the living room rug. He’d sit in his rocker and push the pieces around with the tip of his cane. He always won in record time and only rarely consented to a rematch.
In those days children didn’t expect to be entertained. So I was allowed to do pretty much as I pleased––read, sit in the porch swing and glide back and forth, stare at the trees and the sky, daydream, get up, wander around the block––and visit Celia.
Celia Mercer (later Parrish) lived right behind my grandparents on Bell Avenue. Around the time that her husband Bernhard died in 1956, she took over the movie theater at the Twin City Opera House. That was how I became its youngest employee.
Celia had a large, yellow cat named Oliver, whom I adored. Because I hung out so often on her back porch petting him, it made sense one day for her to invite me to ride along to the theater to get ready for the evening’s show. It soon became a ritual. The auditorium always needed to be swept, something which I did eagerly. The candy display needed to be restocked. The coconut oil dispenser inside the popcorn machine needed to be checked. After we were finished, I was rewarded with the chocolate bar of my choice.
New movies were introduced on Tuesdays and Fridays. The titles didn’t matter; like most McConnelsville patrons in the 1950s, I would happily watch anything that moved. Grammy and I would attend as soon as I could convince her to take me. Luckily, admission was only twenty-five cents for children and forty-five cents for adults. By the time the introductory slide show of advertisers had finished running, my small bag of popcorn would be empty.
Once in a while, on other nights, if someone scheduled to work was sick or otherwise didn’t show up (when Celia hired teenagers, she found some more reliable than others), I’d get to man the ticket booth or the concession stand. I was fairly good at math and had no trouble making change. Then, once the movie started, I’d stand in the back with Celia and watch a film I’d already seen at least once or twice before.
Some of them, like “Carousel” (1956) with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, “A Farewell To Arms” (1957) with Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones, “Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison” (1957) with Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr, or “Bell, Book, and Candle” (1958) with James Stewart and Kim Novak, were a bit over my head in terms of content. But now that I’ve seen those movies again on television or bought them on DVDs, I’ve often been surprised at how well I followed and how accurately I remembered them. Even more amazing is that although the subject matter was sometimes a little racy for its day, no one seemed concerned about the impact on a preadolescent. Only once did I hear Celia voice any unease. Based on advanced publicity and several requests, she had booked the controversial “Suddenly, Last Summer” (1959), starring Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, for later in the season. She didn’t enjoy risqué movies like that, she admitted. She didn’t like the new direction, in fact, that films in general were taking.
I left McConnelsville and returned home before that movie ever ran. I would not discover until decades later what all the fuss was about. But I too could already sense that my world was teetering. That fall my junior high friends would be bubbling with excitement about a new teen dance club’s opening. My parents would not allow me to attend. That was okay. I still looked forward to seeing my grandparents much more than going to a club where older boys would be present.
But that preference would soon change. My final summer visit took place in 1960, when I was thirteen. By the following year Grammy wasn’t feeling well. She died in December, 1961. Grampy hung on without her for a long time, until he died in November, 1975. By then his three elderly sisters who lived a block away, Maude Maxwell, Nellie Arrick, and Eva Buchanan would also have passed. By then I would be married with a two-year-old, teaching high school English, writing stories and trying to get them published––and thinking only rarely of McConnelsville and its Opera House.
When I did look back, though, on those serene summer days, it was with warm nostalgia. Life had once been simple, predictable, especially in a small Ohio town where isolation provided a barrier against oncoming cultural storms.
One July day in 1986 I decided on impulse to return, this time with my two daughters, ages twelve and seven. At the end of a three-and-a-half hour drive, I found the town looking exactly as I remembered it. Except the Opera House had a new owner now, and movies ran only on weekends. We stopped at the cemetery to place flowers on Grammy’s and Grampy’s graves. Then we headed toward Bell Avenue. As we pulled into Celia’s driveway, she rushed outside and then eagerly hugged both girls as if they were her own grandchildren. I finally had the chance to tell her how much her kindness had always meant to me. (She would pass in August, 1994.)
Today, as a grandmother myself, I still carry an enduring love of reading, and an insistence on reserving plenty of time for it. I’m also an avid re-reader, always discovering something new. I therefore own an extensive private library––including, of course, my grandfather’s McGuffey Readers, now well over a century old and stored inside protective plastic bags.
I’ve published hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles and even several books, many of which I have ghostwritten or edited for other would-be authors.
I cherish a lifelong fascination with fashion and fine fabrics, an appreciation of impeccable tailoring, and a disturbing tendency to keep a much nicer wardrobe than I will ever need.
I also have an intense interest in all elements of filmmaking, including screenwriting, and have a massive collection of DVDs, which means being able to watch my favorites (like “Carousel”) over and over––while resting on a sofa, rather than standing at the back of a theater.
Everything fits. The groundwork for my most enduring adult traits and habits, I realize now, was laid long ago during those solitary, unhurried weeks in my grandparents’ house. Perhaps children are molded better by free, unstructured time filled with introspection than by constant activity.
Something else that’s also revealing: In June and July, as long as it’s not too hot, I still sleep with the windows open, so that when morning arrives I can hear the birds and smell the freshly cut grass. For a moment, when my world seems too frantic, I lie there, pretending I’m a child visiting McConnelsville again. I can feel the early sun already baking the room, see the lace curtains billowing in the breeze, hear both the prickling static of Grampy’s radio as he twists the dial and the steady hum of Grammy’s sewing machine as she seams together yet another new dress.
Once again, life becomes calm, safe––predictable.
LeilaN |
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