The Lyric
Copyright (c) 1994, Ed Davis
All rights reserved




                             THE LYRIC
                            by Ed Davis


         I met the Lyric in 1946.  She was only thirty years old, but she was
      already a lady with a colorful past.  She was born a vaudevillian and
      was converted to a nickelodeon, during the rush to spread the flickers
      over the country.  Her early years were highlighted with all the ups
      and downs of the times.  She experienced the last of the "Roaring
      Twenties" and had even passed through the madness of the depression.
         My Lyric was well past her teens when, on December seventh, she and
      all her people were thrust into the confusion of war.  She did her part
      as her people joined hands to fight the distant enemies.  Rubber
      drives, tin drives, glass drives, and steel drives were all initiated
      within her sheltering arms.
         War news, good and bad, flashed in stark black and white reality
      through her comforting interior.  Comedy, romance, and drama passed
      through her eyes for the entertainment of her beloved town.
         War bond drives, with live heroes in obligatory attendance, provided
      a tense counterpoint to the frivolity.  She never really forgot the
      serious nature of the peril which had taken her young people away.  Her
      shiny black exterior seemed to mourn the deaths that were chronicled in
      her nightly displays.  Even the recounting of V.E. Day and V.J. Day
      seemed anticlimactic, after the hell of war.
         My first meeting with Lyric was on a Saturday afternoon.  Her vast
      interior was filled with seats.  Soft lights reflected warmly from her
      sides.  Her big heart was in repose behind heavy curtains.  Those
      curtains covered one whole end of her.  The lady had an enormous heart.
         She was filled with children, as usual.  I felt lost, and a
      stranger.  I do not recall a Saturday when she was not filled with
      eager children.  She swiftly took me to her breast.  I felt welcome.
         We children always expected, and received, her best.  We were
      amused, excited, inspired, and sometimes terrified, by the scenes she
      unveiled.  When her interior was lighted again, however, she cherished
      us with love and the security of a familiar place.  We felt free to
      explore the world, wrapped safely within the care and protection she
      gave.  Our lady introduced honor into our lives.  She persuaded us to
      laugh, despite our teacher's solemnity and the approaching terror of
      growing up.  We cried and laughed together in her protective darkness,
      and failed to notice that she was growing older.  Maybe we missed her
      decline because we moved further away from the flashing images she
      revealed.  Younger children rushed to take our places up front, as the
      process of maturing allowed us to take a broader view.  My memories
      were not memories yet.
         I did not achieve that step in maturing until 1964, when I returned
      home, and learned that the Lyric was closed.  I was stunned.  Memories
      washed over me in waves.  The smell of popcorn...  The bite of Coke,
      freshly splashed over ice...  The enormity of a ten cent Sugar Daddy...
      Eager faces lighted by the strobing light, reflecting from her radiant
      heart...  The tingle of waiting for "The Thing" to appear...  The feel
      of her carpet, new again under my small feet, as my child's memory ran
      down her beckoning aisle.
         I recalled childhood friends, some dead now, throwing popcorn
      bullets and candy wrapper grenades, at a variety of bad guys.  I
      mourned the loss of another friend.  Rest well old friend, you were
      never a mother, but you delivered me and my friends from childhood to
      maturity.  God bless you.
         I persuaded the owner of the jewelry store that now fills her lobby
      to allow me to take a peek out back.  He obliged.
         Her seats were stacked together in random piles, her exit signs were
      broken, and the exits themselves were boarded over with raw lumber.
         As I strained to see in the half light, her heart was still visible.
      I will forever recall the lessons she had flashed into my mind.  John
      Wayne, in his myriad roles, reminding me of Dad.  Beautiful women,
      their radiance dulled now by time.  Walt Disney magic.  The Buck Rogers
      serials, Star Wars in diapers.  Tarzan and his simian companion.  All
      the western morality plays.
         My memories will stay.  Just as surely, my vision will fade.  She
      even taught me to accept that finality.  I have never entered another
      theater, since that day, without thinking of her.  I never will.
         My vision faded that day.  I was wiping tears away, as I left, and
      felt no shame.

