Memories of Movie Palaces of My Past

               I thought at first it was déjà vu, then I realized it was just old memories flashing back to my mind.  It was a cold sunny Sunday afternoon at around 1 p.m. when I opened the doors to the lobby of the recently renovated Capitol movie theatre in downtown Lebanon, Tennessee.  My better half and I were on our way to man the registration table for some live auditions for an upcoming show.    I was alone when I entered the theatre lobby and it was quiet.  But there it was-- a lobby like many of the old movie theaters I had entered on a sunny Sunday afternoon in my youth.  The marble floors and wall, covered with posters for upcoming movies such as Hopalong Cassidy, Shirley Temple, olds westerns and even James Bond.  To the left was the abandoned concession stand with its popcorn machine.   What was missing was the smell of the popping corn.  The old memories surged through me as I recalled the joy of my youth by attending a Sunday matinee in one of these small town movie palaces of the past.  I remembered the Alhambra Theatre in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, the Columbia Theater in Paducah, Kentucky and the theaters in Murray and Mayfield Kentucky whose names I can’t recall and of course those magical movie theaters in downtown Nashville, Tennessee.  All the places I had visited as a kid.  These were the places of pleasure for a young guy growing up as an avid fan of the movies. I closed my eyes and those old childhood memories were back.  I opened them and realized I was just in a newly renovated, but memorable, theater of my past.  Not déjà vu, I guess, but it brought a warm feeling in my heart and a smile to my face.