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Some Stuff I Wrote (2001) H. Morris Williams

for the mother.

It probably never occurred to those kids until they became adults that they had grown up
poor. I like to think they somehow knew that they actually grew up rich.

Besides the double features (two movies for the price of one), the popular serials (a 12-15
episode “continued pictures”) and the ever-popular cartoons, the Grand Theater added another nice

touch for its customers - uniformed ushers who showed people to their seat using small flashlights
to light the way. All this was the custom way back when movies really were better than ever.

The DeSoto Theater was, to me, the uptown, fancier movie. I saw a lot of good movies at
the DeSoto, like “Birth of a Nation” (so good they turned school out so kids could see it), “Gone

With the Wind,” “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” and “Of Mice and Men.” My brother Ernest took
me to see my first “midnight show” at the DeSoto - and bought me my first ten-cent candy bar, an
ice cold “Mounds” that had been chilled in one end of the soft drink cooler. Dee-lishus!

My close friend Cookie Johnson and I went to the DeSoto Theater one night after a boy scout
meeting. Cookie was a nervy prankster and, as a practical joke, he brazenly locked the theater

manager in his own office which made for one very hot tempered manager. When the manager
finally got himself out, he chased Cookie all over that theater until he caught him. But then the ever-

resourceful Cookie escaped punishment by convincing the manager that it was I, not he, who had
done the locking — which was, of course, untrue. But then I became the one being chased all over

the building.
Cookie’s real name was Raymond Eugene Johnson. When he grew up, he followed a
military career, reached the rank of major, and died a hero’s death in Vietnam. His name is now

inscribed on a monument to the war dead in Olustee Park not 100 yards from the location of the old
DeSoto Theater where, as a kid, he had locked the theater manager in his office.

Movies can be realistic, especially to very young kids. I once saw a preschooler run up on
the stage and look behind the curtains after the “Snow White” movie. I guess he figured Snow

White and all those dwarfs were behind there somewhere.

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