by Shelley Bennett
Last Friday as I drove up Main Street, I noticed that the Sierra Theatre looked closed. A glance at the marquee confirmed that and while I knew that the closure was coming, it gave me a little pang in the chest.
Sierra Theatre was part of my childhood. I remember watching Dumbo in one of the balcony seats. My uncle Beaver with us because it gave him an excuse to watch a “cartoon.”
Later, it was Grease with my friends as we danced along in our seats, Star Wars with my brother Casey, and hearing about Jaws from my mom and dad because of course I was too young to watch that!
Then suddenly it was closed and we went for years without first run movies in our town. Until Mike and Carolyn Smith showed up. They lovingly restored the building, inside and out, and brought their dream to life.
I was there on opening night, standing in line to watch Taps, a movie I knew nothing about. The movie didn’t even matter, because it was all about meeting our friends and visiting the concession stand. It turned out that the movie was pretty good too.
All through junior high and high school, “going to the show” was our primary form of entertainment. We usually waited until Tightwad Tuesdays because the extra money you saved on admission could get you a small popcorn and soda.
I feel fortunate to have seen 80s classics like E.T., The Outsiders, The Breakfast Club, Footloose, Top Gun, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on the big screen of the Sierra. There was nothing like it. We might have been celebrating a birthday, meeting up with some boys, or just having a girls’ night, my friends and I were there every week.
It was even where my now husband Leo took me on our first date. I don’t remember the movie, but what stands out is that he not only bought my ticket, he sprang for a “Triple Combo” which included Reece’s Peanut Butter cups. Yes, that was the way to my heart.
At the end of my senior year, I decided to run for Miss Lassen County. The pageant director suggested the Smiths as sponsors so I hesitantly called and asked to speak with Carolyn. She was very kind and asked me to come to the theatre to meet.
I was a little nervous. I dressed up and prepared for the meeting like it was a job interview. Later she told me that she had to make sure she had never kicked me out of the theatre before she agreed to be my sponsor.
At the end of the summer, Carolyn offered me a job. She said that she was impressed with my work ethic and how I had prepared for the pageant and she thought that would make me a good employee too.
I started my job thirty-six years ago today. Yep, on Labor Day weekend when we opened with Big and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? It was trial by fire. Almost every showing those three days was close to selling out.
I’ll never forget looking around at the main auditorium after the first matinee. It was filled with the detritus of partially filled soda cups, popcorn, containers, candy wrappers, and napkins. And me, with my little broom and dust pan, trying to sweep it all up before the next show.
That day, I also learned how to count back change and make the perfect batch of popcorn, two skills that have served me well.
Later in my training, I would add ticket selling, opening and closing, cleaning the butter machine, changing the soda, making the nightly deposit, and getting ice behind the screen in what we lovingly referred to as the “dungeon”.
Mike and Carolyn and the people I worked with at Sierra Theatre became my second family. We had holiday parties, after-hours screenings of new releases, and celebrated the business’ success with opening the Uptown Cinemas.
And along the way, we watched SO MANY good movies, ate tons of popcorn, and every once in awhile a “credited” Haagen Dazs bar. Mike and Carolyn sponsored me again, sent flowers during Miss Cal State week, celebrated at my wedding, and provided me with friends in the form of my co-workers.
Thank you Liz, Mimi, Vic, Sherry, Tracy, Anthony, Wayne, William, Carol, Lisa, Nikki, Bill, Lindsey, Erin, Marie, Tamara, Amanda, and many others for being the most fun people to work with! We are the “People who Know Movies”!
For almost ten years total, the Smiths employed me during college breaks and summer vacations so I could finance my education. At one point, when I was feeling a little stuck, I applied to be Carolyn’s assistant.
I gave her my resume which detailed everything I had learned from her and how it could be applied to this new position. She gave it back to me with a smile on her face and told me she couldn’t hold me back. I needed to move on, finish school, and become a teacher. So I did.
Selling tickets and slinging popcorn was my first and last job before I was hired as a teacher at Lassen High School. In many ways, what I learned there prepared me for what I do now better than my methods courses in college.
Thank you Mike and Carolyn, Sierra Theatre will always be in my heart.
Remember when news was ‘newsy’? When you read about weddings, family events and engagement announcements in the newspaper? If you have something that might be newsworthy, please submit it to [email protected] and I’ll do my best to include it here in “The Good Stuff.”
