Grand Junction, Co.
This used to be The Cooper. A movie theater where I saw, to name but a couple, Ben Hur and Gorgo. As a matter of fact, I sat through Ben Hur twice and was so disoriented when I left that I walked the wrong way home and got lost. By the time I got home my parents were frantic. My mother (Elaine) didn't know whether to hug me or beat me with a broom. I think my father got in trouble on this one also. You could buy really giant boxes of candy back then, and I had eaten an entire box of Pom Poms. I remember this because I remember being quite ill.

It is, and was, a darker and more ominous theater than the Mesa. Now it is The Avalon - a theater for plays and what not. Leaving it as the Cooper would have been truer to the spirit of the town. The artsy fartsies won out.

I particularity recall seeing a Jerry Lewis movie on Christmas eve of what must have been 1958 or 1959. It is one of my finest memories. My mother had a profound hatred of Jerry Lewis and tried to dissuade me of my misguided enthusiasm - I would have none of it. I performed Jerry Lewis impersonations for weeks after this movie which quite probably drove my mother to the brink of insanity.