On the Road: Christmas at Granny's part 02

One of my favorite adventures this time around at Granny’s was exploring the old theater. It’s been boarded up since before I can remember, but the city has just decided on a new use for it (outdoor amphitheater) and finally opened it up to clear it out.

So, Granny led us around the caution barricades and into the shell of the building. I still get a little leap in my stomach when I walk in an old abandoned building. There’s just something so wistful and mysterious about something that still stands frozen in a long gone era. This building had the scars of a fire from 40 years ago, but it also had the roots and stumps of trees that had found their way through the concrete floor and into the sunshine. Tile still hung on the wall where the bathrooms once were. Scraps of steel and concrete still hang where the balcony once stood. The floor slopes, and some of the windows still stand half open, as if nothing ever happened.

As we stood and wondered what this looked like so many years ago when it was full of life and folks eager to catch the latest flick, Granny told us how she remembered sitting on a bench out front while the building burned. She knew the owner, who sat beside her, and they talked about how long they thought it would be before it opened again. That was 1971, and of course, it never did…