When I was in high school, I worked at an old movie theater. The Unique Theatre was the place where I first saw Jurassic Park, and when I worked there, it was $5 to see a flick, usually coming out weeks after they would in the city.
I did lots of things in that theater, starting with making popcorn, and ultimately ending in running the bohemeth 60s era Super Simplex movie projectors. I had a key to the place, and my buddies and I would go in there and play football and hide and seek in the ancient, dark auditorium.
The building itself was built in the late 1880s as I recall, and towards the end of my high school career, it was definitely showing its age. A few years ago, the fire department closed it as a hazard. It was bought by a new investor, whose intentions are unknown to me.
They are stripping the stucco, and I can only hope that they restore the Salida Opera House to it's original glory. If so, it would be, in a way, a rebirth of my childhood.
