As theaters (again) reopen - and at full capacity! - my mind wanders back to various incidents that have occurred to me over the years as I entered or was in the lobbies of theaters. Nothing particularly big or outrageous but small events, often humorous and bizarre, that have stuck in my mind….For example, there was the time long ago at the beautiful, then new and spacious Parkway cinemas in Windsor, which met a premature demise as retail took over that plaza at the corner of Tecumseh Rd. E and Lauzon Pkwy. (i.e., a Winners store). That's when I tried sneaking in with a bag containing my evening's dinner - a Big Mac, fries and a pop - under my jacket. After paying admission and walking up the hallway to the one of five cinemas, the bag dropped to the floor and splattered, just in front of an usher walking towards me…..A few years ago, I was at the recently closed and very lamented Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak, when I casually made a comment to the clerk behind the concessions stand. I’d been a devotee of the Main for decades but noticed that the lobby, with a lounge to the side, always seemed kind of empty. Expanding concessions including, say, hamburgers and other foods, or even beer, would be ideal. In short order I was denounced by the clerk for promoting hateful meat-eating values…..Then there was the once influential Montreal World Film Festival in one of its final years, where I gathered in the lobby of the Imperial Cinema where some major star of the film was meeting the public. A friend and I moved in close. Then I heard someone behind me say, “The nerve of some people” referring to us blocking her getting close to the star; we didn't even know she was there! The next day I spotted this same woman and approached her, explaining what had happened. Without hesitation, she replied, “You’re insane!”....There was also the time at the once iconic but now closed Cumberland theatres in Toronto’s Yorkville - where you took an escalator to get upstairs to the cinemas (photo) - when, waiting my turn at the concession stand, I opened my wallet. I had just been to the ATM and it was stocked with bills. A guy standing behind me saw this and said to his friends, “We should roll this guy!”.....There was also the time in Paris, France, when I wanted to see the film, Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe. I was catching a bus for Germany that night so I toted along my suitcase. I was immediately told by an usher that I couldn’t enter the theatre. This was in the immediate aftermath (a year later) of the Bataclan nightclub terrorist attacks and I suppose a parked suitcase posed a threat. This was the only time on my European sojourn where I lost it, angrily showing my displeasure.
