Comments from mustrassa

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mustrassa
mustrassa commented about Capitol Theatre on Apr 14, 2007 at 6:13 pm

OMG! I am simply blown away by stumbling upon this site.And many thanks to you Bob for posting such wonder pics to re-kindle fun, warm and exciting memories of days gone by.

As for me I truly remember the days of the Capital Theater. Looking at those pics reminded me of standing in a long line early to see the wonderful what they called back then “Stage Shows”. We would see everybody form James Brown to the great entertainers of Motown. My all time favorite was going to see Jackie Wilson, I can remember jumpimg on stage and assisting in the ripping off of his shirt lol.

Maaaaan! I must have hung on to the sleeve of that blue shirt until
in dry rotted. The stage shows were always on a Saturday, I would be sure to do my chores all week to make sure my mom had no reason to
tell me no. After standing in such a long line, when the doors would
finally open we’d run down the isles taking our place up front, I
remember it would always start with a movie and then the show and
this would repeat itself all day long until around midnight. I can
remember seeing movies like Cool Hand Luke, True Grit and Whatever
Happen to Baby Jane which (scared me to death)…..we’d see such movies like these before the show would begin. I’d often times get so rapped up in the shows that I would forget that I was to be home before dark and you know what that meant lol. I remember Wimpy's
next door where they sold those good little hamburgers with the shoe strings fries on those little white paper plates. Does anyone remember Walgreens it was on the corner of 79th and Halsted? They had really great hamburgers and milkshakes too. My mom would send me to Walgreens to buy those 5 pints of icecream, I think they were something like one dollar for all 5 pints. When I think about it now
we live on 76th in May St. just before Racine Ave. When I think about it now maaaan! that was a long walk but we’d take that walk several times a day. My mom would send me to Frank’s Dept. store, Woolworth’s and there was a shoe store called Big Ben’s you could get shoes for something like $5.00. I also remember there was a place directly across the street from the Capital called the Sunset
Ballroom you had to go upstairs. We’d go there on Sunday evenings from 4:00pm to 11:00pm. where you could dance the evening away and as usual I’d alway stay past my time and would often times look up and see my mom coming to get me. I tell my kids that those were the days and that they have no idea what good clean fun was.

I also remember when Operation Bread Basket began to use the Capital
Theater for it’s meetings. I remember also getting into trouble by the Rev. Jesse Jackson for talking doing a service. It was an afternoon when the guest was Clarence Williams III from Mod Squad was there. Rev. Jackson made myself and my friend pick up paper in front of the Theater needless to say I when outside place the can on the ground and ran lol. Again, I say thank you for the wonderful memories and I know I’ll visit again.