Last week I wrote about a nerve racking experience that happened to me, when I was a very young man, at a movie theater in Santa Fe called The Santa Fe Theater. I also stated that the theater no longer exists. Well as I took my usual walk this morning, I was reminded of several other movie theaters that no longer exist today. One of those theaters was named the Alley Theater which was across the street from the present Lensic Performing Arts Center on West San Francisco Street. The Alley Theater was named after a famous street in Santa Fe, called Burro Alley.

I remembered when I was very young, it seemed that most of us kids in Santa Fe went to the movies every Saturday morning at the Alley Theater. They started at 9 AM and it cost ten cents of the twenty-five cents that my mother would give me and I still had enough left for whatever treats I wanted.

The program usually started with a serial that was very much like the present day soap operas that are so popular today, only it was a western. Cisco Kid and Pancho was my favorite. The two of them would get in some kind of trouble and just when something bad was about to happen, the serial would end and all of us would have to come back the following Saturday to find out what happened.

Another theater called The El Paseo Theater was a couple of blocks east of the Alley Theater on San Francisco Street. One afternoon I went to a double feature there and the first feature was a Roy Rogers movie. After it finished, Roy came back on the screen and told us that he wanted to introduce a new cowboy to us. Then, a cowboy started riding his horse, at full speed, towards us on the screen and just as it appeared he would ride right into the audience, the movie projector was turned off and out on stage walked Rex Allen. BOY were we kids excited, even though we had never heard of him before. After he introduced himself to us and then gave a demonstration on his shooting ability, the second movie started. This of course featured none other then Rex Allen and his horse Kokomo. They also became a favorite of all of us kids.

The third theater was The Arco Theater. It was located on west Hickox Street. The movies had to be really good for the kids in my neighborhood to go. The reason was that it was located in a different grade school district other then the school I attended and anytime any of my school friends or I went to the Arco Theater, we were out of our territory. Stepping out of our territory meant that we were in Joe's territory and the story about Joe, we never knew his last name, was that he was a golden glove boxer and boy was he mean. Yup, Joe was a legend in his own time. We never met him, we never saw him, but he put the fear of God in us.

I know that the whole concept of movie theaters has changed, but I wonder if the youngsters of today are having as much fun as we did when I was a kid?

I want to tell you one last story about an experience my mother and I had at the El Paseo Theater and then I promise never to talk about Santa Fe movie theaters again. This happened during World War II, when I was very young. I saved this story until last because you might want to throw up after I finish. My mother surely thought about it.

During the War, my mother worked in a military hospital in Santa Fe. The site, where the hospital was located is now The College of Santa Fe. Many commodities were rationed at the time because they were being sent to our military personnel. Sugar was one of those commodities. Because of the rationing, chewing gum had very little sugar. One day my mom came home from work with a whole sack full of gum balls that a soldier had given her. Boy was I excited. Since the gum had very little sugar, I would chew a piece for a little while and then I would add another piece and continue the process until I as had this huge lump in my mouth. Well my mother put a stop to that and started rationing the gum.

One Saturday, as was our custom, my mother and I went to the movie. It was usually my choice, but this particular Saturday a romantic film called "Chained," starring Betty Davis was showing. My mother really wanted to see this movie, so she talked me into going and because I agreed, I got an extra allotment of gum. We always went to lunch at a restaurant first. That day my mother and I were in a hurry to get through lunch for different reasons. She wanted to get to the movie and I wanted to get to my extra allotment of gum. We finally got through lunch and headed to the theater, which was just a short distance from the restaurant where we ate. In a few minutes we were settled into our seats for an hour and a half of pleasure. As the lights in the theater were dimmed and the screen lit up, I was immediately into my bag of gum and my mother was well absorbed into what she knew was going to be a great romantic story

After about an hour or so, of romantic movie, I was probably out of gum. Not that I remember this, but I'm sure by then I was squirming from boredom of all that kissing and stuff. My mother tells me that I tapped her shoulder and said, "Mom, do you want this gum?" By that time, she was so engrossed in the movie and not knowing what to do with her child's gum, she put the little hard ball in her mouth. After a while, I again tapped her on the shoulder and asked her the same question and again she put the gum in her mouth. A few minutes later, I tapped her on the shoulder again. This time, the movie was at it's crescendo and my mother did not respond to my tap. I tapped her shoulder again. This time with more authority and again she did not respond. Finally, with a child's persistence, I shook her shoulder and in total exasperation my mother turned to me and as I was about to hand her another piece of gum, she said, "Do not give me anymore gum!" This was at the moment in the movie when the leading man was about to say, "I love you Roberta," or whatever leading men told the heroin in movies in those days. At that moment, I told my mom, "Why not? There's lots of it under here," as I pointed to the bottom of my seat.

My mother immediately spit the gum in her mouth into her hand. A little late I'm afraid. She ran to the ladies room and spit into the sink and then cupped her hand under the faucet to get water to rinse her mouth. Thinking that water wasn't enough and in total frustration, she put her hand under the powdered soap container that hung on the wall and push the plunger to release the soap. She put her hand to her mouth and took in the powdered soap. You can imagine the taste. She added water to her mouth and sloshed the combination back and forth between her teeth.

About fifteen minutes with me wondering where my mother was, she returned. Even after having rinsed her mouth several times with water, the heavy taste of soap remained. To top off the whole ordeal, the climax of the movie had long passed.