Photography Challenge - Day Ten - A Childhood Memory

Summer in Fowlerville was usually hot and mostly boring.  Growing up, our early nineteenth century house never had air conditioning.  My younger brother, Ryan, and I had bedrooms upstairs, where there was no air circulation due to only one window opening a crack.  We played outside pretty much all the time, making up games and playing in trees.  Ryan had the most amazing imagination, so we kept ourselves pretty busy with milk crates, the small woods nearby, a lone baseball bat, and the half-above-ground-half-below-ground pool.

Things changed the summer I got my driver's license because that meant we could escape the heat and hours of trying to outdo each other on the Lara Croft Tomb Raider game that we had going on the upstairs computer.  Ryan and I went to movies.  LOTS of movies.  We'd loved going to movies prior to this summer, but the difference was that we could go whenever we wanted.  So we pretty much did, as long as we had $20. 

We mostly went to the cheaper daytime shows, but we'd occasionally go to Williamston in the evening for the super cheap, $2.50 show.  Heading west two towns over only occurred on cool nights since there wasn't air conditioning there either.  Most of the time we drove 20 minutes east on the expressway to Brighton whose phone number we both knew by heart (810-227-4700). Actually, we knew Brighton's number, Williamston's number, and Okemos' number by heart.

After squaring away which movie and at what time, Ryan and I would arrive at the theater at least 15 minutes early in order to go to the concession stand.  Depending on the day, we'd get a hot dog, a pretzel, popcorn, and/or nachos.  We always got frozen Pepsis and Sour Patch Kids.  I love how the Sour Patch Kids get kind of bubbly and fizzy after drinking the frozen Pepsi.

There were a couple of years when we had seen all or almost all of the movies currently in theaters, some of which two or three times.  We definitely saw She's All That three times. I think we saw Never Been Kissed twice and The Mummy two or three times, along with many, many others.

Nowadays, I only get to the movie theater a few times a year, though Ryan is still an avid moviegoer and critic.  I go mostly to movies I'm positive I will like since it's so expensive.  And for the popcorn, frozen Pepsi, and occasional Sour Patch Kids treat.