I used to live in Racine – for most of my life, in fact. I worked at the Avenue Frame Shop for a short time. The checkout counter where I worked, and incidentally, started the contents of the wastebasket on fire, was the old ticket booth. Back then, I was more selfish than I am today, and so, though I noted the unusual checkout counter, I didn’t care to investigate further the unique history of the building.
About twenty years later, I went into the Majestic to pick over the treasures at the junk store then inhabiting the building. The ticket booth was gone; the quaint, historical ambience permeating the Avenue Frame Shop when I worked there had since been bludgeoned by weak lighting, neglect, and mountains of black garbage bags bulging with moldy, cast-off crap.
I tried to ignore the blight as I puttered down the theatre promenade toward its lobby, in search of the rare find. But something about the promenade refused to be ignored. The plastered walls, the architectural details, even the floor itself, tugged at the hand of my inner being like an insistent child eager to deliver an important message.
I confess I felt a quickening in my spirit. I was compelled to pass through the darkness of the ancient promenade and into the lobby itself, no longer in search of a piece of 1960s flower-power memorabilia, but in search of something else, something I couldn’t quite touch…or, possibly, hear.
In the lobby, I was astounded by the presence of plaster cherub faces. Why had I not seen these twenty years ago? I stared at one neglected face then another and another, unwilling to look away and, thereby, break the spell cast by their historical relevance.
It was there, standing in the lobby as the object of the sad cherub gazes, I heard the deep call of the Majestic. I immediately answered, and all of that aged elegance and potential for rebirth swirled through my inner being like a wild-hair dream that was meant to come true.
Later, I told my sister I had heard the theatre call to me. Did she laugh? Perhaps.
The pictures posted on Flickr by unfogged eyes opens the floodgate of memory. In my mind’s eye, I am in the lobby once again, listening to the voice of the Majestic, and now contemplating the unfolding of God’s providence.
I used to live in Racine – for most of my life, in fact. I worked at the Avenue Frame Shop for a short time. The checkout counter where I worked, and incidentally, started the contents of the wastebasket on fire, was the old ticket booth. Back then, I was more selfish than I am today, and so, though I noted the unusual checkout counter, I didn’t care to investigate further the unique history of the building.
About twenty years later, I went into the Majestic to pick over the treasures at the junk store then inhabiting the building. The ticket booth was gone; the quaint, historical ambience permeating the Avenue Frame Shop when I worked there had since been bludgeoned by weak lighting, neglect, and mountains of black garbage bags bulging with moldy, cast-off crap.
I tried to ignore the blight as I puttered down the theatre promenade toward its lobby, in search of the rare find. But something about the promenade refused to be ignored. The plastered walls, the architectural details, even the floor itself, tugged at the hand of my inner being like an insistent child eager to deliver an important message.
I confess I felt a quickening in my spirit. I was compelled to pass through the darkness of the ancient promenade and into the lobby itself, no longer in search of a piece of 1960s flower-power memorabilia, but in search of something else, something I couldn’t quite touch…or, possibly, hear.
In the lobby, I was astounded by the presence of plaster cherub faces. Why had I not seen these twenty years ago? I stared at one neglected face then another and another, unwilling to look away and, thereby, break the spell cast by their historical relevance.
It was there, standing in the lobby as the object of the sad cherub gazes, I heard the deep call of the Majestic. I immediately answered, and all of that aged elegance and potential for rebirth swirled through my inner being like a wild-hair dream that was meant to come true.
Later, I told my sister I had heard the theatre call to me. Did she laugh? Perhaps.
The pictures posted on Flickr by unfogged eyes opens the floodgate of memory. In my mind’s eye, I am in the lobby once again, listening to the voice of the Majestic, and now contemplating the unfolding of God’s providence.