I've been doing alot of thinking about the Mar-Va Theater lately, Especially after the response Mr. Torres made concerning the comment in the delmarvaNOW. The Grapevine commentor seemed to have the opinion that our new Mar-Va was still a weekend movie house. Mr. Torres, of course, did not agree. Neither do I and neither do most people.
If you have lived in Pocomoke all or most of your life then you recall vividly the importance of that old musty theater on Friday and Saturday nights for the local kids. For almost two hours our children had a "safe haven" and were left in the hands (whether they liked it or not) of people parents trusted. These people welcomed them back week after week for many years. And these same "babysitters" were the people we would see on the streets, have a conversation with, and they would never mutter a word as to how horrible your child may have been. Miss Hattie, Mr. Dawson, Jeannie, and Roger along with others, were names that everyone knew for years......maybe for a couple of generations.
When the theater closed its doors for a while there was a silence down town on those nights and nothing crowded the Mar-Va doors except dead leaves and old paper cups. Along came Tom and Tom opened those doors and once more the theater was alive. The children came back! And the parents gladly drove them! My daughter got her first job there. She was one of the many projectionists who on open nights sat in that tiny cubicle of a room running the projector. And I am sure in that tiny room she had her first heart attack the first time the film snapped. But she loved it.
Then again the theater stayed empty. Those children grew up. Those children went on to adult hood with those memories of the movies on Friday nights. For years that old theater was under some pretty heavy and extensive changes. What many people don't know is that the people of Pocomoke knew things would be okay and that the end product would be as amazing as it is today! Why? Because we kept hearing the familiar names being linked with handling the process. Names like Glovier, Lippoldt, Blake just to name a few. And I'll even thow in the name Isabelle Leach because I know in my heart that if she were alive she'd be in the mix too. All these names and the ones I can't seem to recall are names that all of us have trusted and looked upon for many years. It's part of that Pocomoke pride we have, I guess.
And look at what we have today! Pocomoke has something to be so very proud of and if you don't believe me go to their facebook page and see how many fans there are. Or stand outside of the Mar-Va on a night when it is open. Better still, if you haven't been to the Mar-Va theater yet, by all means go see for yourself how wonderful it is.
What makes this theater MORE than a weekend movie theater is the fact that the generation that once ran the aisles on weekends has grown and those parents that once drove those now grown children can take their grandchildren and talk to them about the "good old days" and watch a show too. I guess it's what could be called a "Pocomoke Moment". Just ask anyone that has grown up in Pocomoke.
2 comments:
Does the popcorn machine still work? Is it still a dime?
Anon 8:31, somewhere I read that the popcorn machine has been converted into a donation box. I believe it may be on the MarVa Theater website.
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