The Liberty Theatre (pronounced thee-aye-ter, with the accent on the second syllable) was on Main Street, across from the Ben Franklin store and Olive Brothers' grocery in downtown Heavener, Oklahoma. It changed my life.
As a child, I intuitively knew that outside the circumscribed boundaries of Heavener, a world of wonder was waiting. My curiosity about that other world was endless. The global community was so far removed from the frame of reference of most of the people leading uneventful lives in Heavener that no one seemed curious about the rest of the world. Sitting in the darkened theatre, I glimpsed an exciting plane of existence and vowed that I would someday become a part of that other world just as soon as I could grow up and get the hell out of town.
Henna haired Fanny May Langston sat on a high backed stool, always with her sweater stylishly draped over her shoulders, in the glass ticket booth in front of the theatre. I wasn't tall enough to see what magic levers she pushed and pulled to make the movie tickets spew from the metal mouth of the ticket dispenser but I thought she had the best job in town. She had power. Admission was 10 cents for kids, 50 cents for adults, and she was the sole arbiter of when you had to pay that full adult price. For two months after my 12th birthday, I continued to pay 10 cents and then she caught up with me. She skewered me with a sharp eyed stare from behind her rhinestoned cat's eye glasses and put me to the question. No one ever lied to Fanny May, only lies of omission were allowed. If I didn't have the dime for admission, I collected empty pop bottles which I returned for a deposit of 2 cents each at Henry Ryburn's grocery store and then I was off to the movies with my 10 cent passport to that other world.
When you went to the show at the Liberty, you were treated to more than just a movie - first there was a cartoon, sometimes more than one, followed by the MovieTone News, often there was a serial thriller (Rocket Man!), then a Short Subject, previews of coming attractions, and finally the featured film. One of my favorites was the sing-along cartoons, "Just follow the bouncing ball", and the entire audience joined in the fun. I learned to read and do sums in the Heavener school system, the rest of my education came from the wonderful little one room public library and Hollywood.
Margaret presided over the refreshment stand and her brother was the projectionist and factotum, climbing a tall ladder late at night to keep the marquis up to date. Margaret was, to be kind, a plain woman. I once heard a grown-up say that Margaret was so bucktoothed she could eat a persimmon through a picket fence. I remember her sitting stoically in my mother's beauty shop on a sweltering summer day, hooked up to an electric permanent wave machine, looking like a modern Medusa with coils of cords sprouting from her head leading up to the main brain of the machine and smelling of singed hair. She looked exactly like a Geiger portrait. As the clamps heated to an uncomfortable degree and her hair began to cook, she looked over at me sitting cross-legged under the air-conditioner reading library books and said profoundly, through her awesome teeth, "Beauty mutht thuffer".
Ray Hughes, owner of the theatre, brought several movie stars to our little town. Teachers dismissed school and accompanied their pupils to see Roy Rogers, Chill Wills, Montie Hale and other luminaries riding their silver saddled horses on Main street in front of the Liberty Theatre. Montie Hale's horse was the best, he could count with his forefeet, then he bowed gracefully to the admiring crowd, his shining blonde mane sweeping the cracked asphalt of the street. I always wished he would bring Francis the Talking Mule so I could hear him speak but he must not have been cowboy enough for an invitation to appear in person at the Liberty Theatre.
Polio was the AIDS of my generation of children, a dreaded disease that left its victims entombed in iron lungs and imprisoned in iron braces. Fund-raisers for the March of Dimes were held at the Liberty Theatre and once the owner even had an iron lung on display in the theatre lobby. Beside Margaret's popcorn machine and soda fountain, there stood a big glass container with a picture of stricken children on crutches, silently pleading with their eyes, "Don't buy the popcorn, give your refreshment money to help us". I was always torn but usually bought the popcorn. We had no television at that time so we saw the advent of Jonas Salk's lifesaving vaccine on the MovieTone news and we all cheered this pioneer and savior of children everywhere.
This same theatre stage was where I first saw a Negro Minstrel performed. Mr. Tambo, Mr. Bones and The Interlocutor were my introduction to live theatre and I was electrified by the walkaround and the songs of Stephen Foster. And where did they get those wonderful costumes? After the show, I took my penny loafers to Shorty Taylor's shoe shop and had him put metal taps on both the heels and the toes so that I could play at being a tap dancing minstrel. Imagine my chagrin when I learned that none of the minstrels were really Negroes - or Coloreds, or Nigras, as we were politely taught to say.
Sundays at the Liberty Theatre were reserved for biblical pictures and movies that encouraged good Christian morals. The Baptists held that going to picture shows on Sunday was sacrilegious but my sinful Methodist and Presbyterian friends were happy to accompany me on Sunday afternoons. I was all too familiar with bible stories and knew the ending before I went into the theatre but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of Victor Mature and Hedy Lammar in Samson & Delilah, Gina Lollabridgida and Yul Brynner in Solomon & Sheba and, my favorite, Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward as David & Bathsheba. And, oh, the costumes!
I watched the coronation of a young Queen Elizabeth from the back rows of the Liberty Theatre in the early 1950's. What a spectacular display of wealth and power, tradition and pomp it was. And where did they get those wonderful costumes? In the MovieTone news we saw the oddsmakers taking bets on the names she would choose for each of her children as they were about to be born. She chose not to name her children Bobbie Jo, Donna Kay, Jerry Don, Jimmy Dale or Ima Jean, very popular names among my friends.
After the Saturday matinee at the Liberty Theatre, my friends and I went home to reenact the movie we had just seen in our back yards. There was always a tussle about who would be Tondaleah or Rocket Man or Rex Allen but we were democratic then (now we're all Republicans) and switched roles back and forth throughout the afternoon until we tired of the game. Tarzan and Bomba movies were very popular and we had some trouble recruiting extras to play the bloodthirsty natives but everyone clamored to be Cheeta, the chimpanzee companion to the jungle hero, because it was a part you could really play over the top. Evening always came too soon when I was a child, when the street lights came on, it signalled the end of playtime.
But the brightest star of my childhood movie memories was the beautiful Esther Williams. It must have taken a giant leap of faith for a movie maker to see a swimming champion like Johnny Weismueller or Esther Williams and assume their talent would extend to the screen. I couldn't swim because my mother wouldn't allow me to go near the water because I couldn't swim, that's the solid reasoning she gave me. So it followed that I was fascinated with Esther Williams and her spectacular swimming ballets. And where did they get those wonderful costumes? I took my big new wristwatch to one of her shows and I personally documented that she held her breath for over 17 minutes during one unforgettable underwater extravaganza.
I was smitten with George Nader and John Derek. George Nader's career reached a nadir and John Derek continues to marry and manipulate the world's most beautiful women. If he had played his cards right, he could have had me and today we would be happily raising chickens in southeastern Oklahoma.
It saddened me to drive down Main Street in Heavener recently. The streets are now somewhat sad and the prosperous stores of my memory long ago are no longer in business. The Liberty Theatre building has housed several businesses since the Liberty permanently closed its doors and it's glory as a showplace is gone but I will always remember it with fondness for it showed me the world as it could be.
MY TIN ROOF MANSION
By Mary Lou Birmingham
Retirement is like Heaven on Earth to me in many ways but, as I surround myself with nature, it reminds me of the things in life that should really matter. Maybe I should have set higher standards when it came to material things. Maybe I could and should have been more than I am and have.
My house is an humble abode but it speaks out - no, really it screams out to me of just how important peace in life must be. Maybe I could have lived in that two storied house I dreamed about with a Lincoln parked in the three car garage. But who would be feeding the stray dogs that come by every morning to see what morsels that li'l old lady by the lake left for them and Batman the cat next door is expected to earn the one-half cup dry cat food he gets every day. Batman is old now and needs a little comfort and petting that he would never get if I were not here.
The Squirrels entertain me any hour of the day with their bravery if only I stop to relax and dream for awhile on one of the many decks my husband built for me. I was so shocked when I realized it was a love affair getting warmed up when birds appeared to be fighting.
The noises that wake me during the night can be so annoying until I turn the light on and see an entire family of raccoons scurrying up the nearest tree. We trapped some of them after friends told us you could carry them five miles out in the country, release them and they would not return to the area. But something doesn’t seem right because last night their next of kin came to visit those lost cousins, aunts and uncles.
Something about o’possums gets on my last nerve though. I stepped out the back door in my pajamas to check on Batman before bedtime and, to my surprise and his, there was this slow moving, lazy as a hound dog, ugly, unfriendly, droopy-eyed species who knew he had better find an escape and fast. However, o’possums can’t hurry and, as much as I wanted to stop him in his tracks, I chose to scare him away.
Well, if you have ever met eye to eye with one of these creatures, you will know they have no fear. He began to stare at me and waddle a little sideways as if he was trying to humiliate me for invading his space. I did finally get very convincing with the broom handle but he left through the crack in the gate (that is when it really could have gotten exciting) but, thankfully, there is occasionally peace in the animal kingdom
Batman was very understanding with the o’possum. He fears the coon, he detests the squirrels and he sees a meal at the birdbath. The dogs keep close watch as they scout out the area. Sometimes they can graze and other times you can only wonder what the chase is all about.
I so miss my Baby Buffy cocker spaniel but as much as I miss him it would have been difficult to care for him in this phase of my life. That’s why I think everything happens to us for a reason. We can replace most of our losses and those we can’t, it seems as if time turns those into the most precious memories.
So when I look back at what I may have accomplished, what lifestyle I may have had or what vehicle would have made the woman, I can only be thankful I chose to be here today, this moment, right now, 2:45 a.m. listening to the rain fall on a tin roof, coffee brewing in the pot and believing in my heart I am truly happier than the neighbors across the street who have two of everything I may have dreamed of having, but they don’t take the time to see the love and friendship I share everyday with my friends of nature and my loved ones.
So if you stop by for a visit, I hope you will slow to the snail's pace and enjoy what has become truly my Happy Home.
March 28, 2004
Grand Lake o' the Cherokees
Oklahoma
Copyright 2004 - Ansalee. All rights reserved.