Comments from mikeb99

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mikeb99
mikeb99 commented about Lewis and Clark Theatre on Dec 21, 2020 at 5:51 am

@seraphina: Any relation to Flora who worked there in the mid-70’s when I was there? I remember her well along with the twins Laura and Lana? And much of the rest of the gang too. Yes, it was a great place for a HS kid to work back then.

mikeb99
mikeb99 commented about Lewis and Clark Theatre on Mar 20, 2020 at 5:21 am

Sad what happened to this once great movie theatre. I have a lot of memories from this place. I worked here from 10th grade through my first year of college from 72' to 76'. I did almost every job you can imagine here and some you probably can’t. I started cleaning the gardens and eventually wound up as the head doorman/usher. As a HS Senior I had my own key to the place and often had to be the first one there in the afternoon to put away all the concession deliveries, turn on lights, check for burned out lights, etc. In 72'/73' during the gas shortages the place became a magnet for gas thieves and they put me on the roof with binoculars and a walkie talkie on Fri & Sat nights to help the security team watch the huge parking lots… with my help they caught about half-a-dozen gas thieves and a couple of car prowlers that summer. I worked on the night crew cleaning the theatre after the last show ended around 1am. That was a HUGE job on big movie nights when the place was sold out. The auditorium was so huge we used to play frisbee in there on the night shift lunch break. I kicked my share of kids/trouble makers out of there too… people didn’t realize it, but the screen was not solid… it had tiny little holes in it, and there was a back route to it so you could stand behind it and see out into the audience.. made for great fun! I saw all the great movies of the 70’s here DOZENS of times… many of them would sell out the 3,000 seat place on the weekends. Blazing Saddles, What’s Up Doc?, The Exorcist (lots of people couldn’t handle it and walked out), Sound of Music, 2001 Space Odyssey, Marathon Man, Clockwork Orange, Smokey and the Bandit, Harry In Your Pocket, Billy Jack, too many to remember. Ultimately, the place almost killed me… literally. I was on the crew working to change the front sign one night in July 73' and the title was really long – “Reader’s Digest Presents The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer And Huckleberry Finn”… and I lost track of where I was and walked right off the end of the cat walk and fell 15 feet on to my head on the pavement below. I got 50 stitches and 5 fractured vertebra in my neck from that adventure!