The Wild Bunch Plays Havoc
It wasn’t normal for the Renton Cinema to play Warner Brothers films. They were normally exhibited at the Sterling theaters. But for some reason in June of 1969, we opened…
The Parade’s Gone By the Stationery Store
A New Hometown My parents finally found a home for us in Renton. It was in the Kennydale area, up alongside of Lake Washington. We had no view of the…
The Usher versus the Seat Hopper
Keep On Ushering As I’ve mentioned one of the jobs of an usher is to periodically check the auditoriums. Usually this would be some time after the feature started. You…
Swiss Family Critic
THE DISNEY STRATEGY Disney, through Buena Vista, their distribution arm, had a strategy in place since the fifties. You never saw their animation or live action features on the small…
You Say Potato, I Say Desoto
Necessity Speaks Since Evergreen High School in White Center was so far away, there was no school bus service near us. My folks would drop me off in the morning,…
THE RENTON CINEMAS OPEN
The New Cinema As I stated previously, having my father on site was a real boon for his company, General Cinema Corporation. He kept an eye on things (like wrestling…
Living Under Runway 2
Temporary Housing A lot of homes in the immediate vicinity of SeaTac airport had been bought up by and were now available for rent from the Port of Seattle, one…
Munitions in the Woods
When we rolled into Seattle that summer of 1968, my dad had a place to work, but no place for us to live. There was a bit of a housing…
Seeing the (Upper) USA in a Chevrolet
PUBLIC RELATIONS – CINEMA STYLE It was early in 1968. We were still running the Sound of Music in Cinema 2 and my father was called to the box office…
You Deserve an Escape from New York
SUMMER JOURNEYS AND BURGERS It’s funny (read strange), the things you remember out of all the things that happened in a certain time. What you are left with is a…