A jump to the left

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Last night my wife and I went to see the Shen Yung performance at the  Hanover Theatre in Worcester.

The theatre was built more than 100 years ago, then in the 1960’s turned
into a movie theater.  The theater closed in the 90’s and got bought and
rebuilt as a stage theatre in the 2000’s.

This was the first time I had been to it since it has been rebuilt.
It was very strange.

When I was in college, this was the only movie theater that was really in
walking distance from where we lived.  So, I saw a lot of movies there.
It was always obvious that it used to be a stage theater.  The lower two
screens were obviously on the floor facing what had been the stage.  The
main upstairs one was obviously the balcony with a screen put where the
railing had been.  The final one was clearly squeezed in below the balcony
and had been some sort of wide hallway at some point.

Sitting there waiting for those movies to start I always used to imagine
what it looked like before when it was one big stage theater.
And, now it has become that.

When it was a movie theater, it was where my (now) wife and I went on our
first date back in 1983.  As we sat in the balcony last night, I pointed
down to where we had sat that time 27 ½ years ago.

When the theater closed, I had been sad about that.  But, I hadn’t been to
a show there in years.  We had moved to the next town over and two newer
movie theaters were closer, bigger, had better seats and better parking.
So, although sad, I couldn’t say I blamed them for closing it.

Still, every July on the anniversary of our first date, I thought about it
and how it would be nice to go back.

So, this was strange because it was getting to go back there with my wife
as I wanted.  But, not to how it actually was when we used to go there, but
to how I used to imagine it had been.
It’s like going back in time and overshooting and ending up with something
better for that.

It was almost like feeling that if I didn’t believe hard enough, it might
go back to the old, run down, movie theater.
But it didn’t.  And, we’ve got tickets for another show there in April.
Maybe it won’t be as strange the second time…