15 Years ago...

So I was one of those teenagers that didn’t really have to start working. As far as my parents were concerned, school was my job, But I learned more about people (customers, bosses, co-workers alike) than I ever did being confined to a classroom. Maybe because of the simple fact that you can apply and choose where you want to work, and that school is just forced upon you. I dunno.

My first job was as an usher at Oak Lake 6. These six movie posters were the six movies we had playing there when I started working fifteen years ago.

Okay, maybe not fifteen years EXACTLY, but it was Thanksgiving weekend 1995.

It was the opening weekend for a little movie called “Toy Story.” I’ve had a deep-rooted connection with that movie and I’ve been fascinated with Pixar movies ever since. (Kids today can’t even fathom that yes, there was a time when feature-length animated movies were only hand drawn. Now, it’s the opposite.)

As an usher, I must have heard the ending to that movie a thousand times. I don’t think I ever got tired of it. I remember not even needing a watch to know what the time was. As an usher, there’s a kind of Pavlovian conditioning at work there: from the lobby, whenever you heard the “BANG/THUD” of the U-haul truck ramp slam on the street, you knew it was time to find the rolling garbage can and find your broom and dustpans. When you opened the door and heard Andy yell, “Oh boy! A Puppy!” you knew it was time to Velcro the stop sign to the theater door and prop them open. Toy Story was a game changer.

Don’t even get me started on SE7EN. That warped my impressionable mind in a different way.

The Oak Lake would close its doors a meager year and a half later. I made a lot of fond memories that I’ll always cherish forever in that small window of time.

The old Oak Lake 6 is currently the WCTV news station. Completely remodeled.

I can always revisit it in the Ashley Judd movie “Ruby in Paradise.” While not the EXACT same theater, the movie has a scene shot in an identical clone theater in Panama City.