I drove over to Charlie’s Truck Stop this past week to pick up a few things I needed and to check on how Miss Evelyn Jaggers is getting on. Miss Jaggers is the lady who runs the Post Office in Soagie. Until a few years back, the Post Office was located in Charlie’s, but then the government decided it was best to construct a separate little brick structure just a few buildings down and on the other side of the road from Charlie’s. It’s a nice enough little building, all modern and such with a glass front and a blue metal drop in box out near the road. There have been several Postal employees in charge of the little Post Office. Miss Jaggers is only the most recent. She is a nice lady and she normally has my mail ready when I go in to check on the junk level. My primary business Post Office drawer is in Corinth, but my mother had the box at Soagie and I just kept it after her death because I get some personal items there along with the junk mail that accumulates.
Miss Jaggers and I normally pass a bit of casual conversation when I stop by and it wasn’t but a few weeks back when I stopped in and Miss Jaggers had bandages on her hands. I was concerned and asked what had come about. Miss Jaggers replied her dog had gotten into it with the cat and she had tried to get them apart. As she was chasing them around the car, she had lost her footing and sprawled in the gravel. She had scraped both hands pretty good in the loose gravel and her right shoulder was giving her some concern. When I checked with her several days later, she had been to the doctor and was told she had strained some muscles and chipped a bone in her shoulder socket when she fell. She told me the dog and cat had been in to it again and she had let them go without getting herself involved it their disagreement. She claimed to be too old to go chasing animals. Miss Jaggers was scheduled to go into the hospital to have her shoulder fixed and she told me she expected to be off work about two months. When I go in to pick up my mail, I have been asking the assistant how Miss Jaggers is coming along. Word is she seems to be recovering from the operation nicely.
Hermann Spencer was over by the pot belly stove when I walked in at Charlie’s. He waved me over and I went to see what was on his mind. I spoke to Jake as I walked past. Jake was filling up a bag for Miss Beatrice Henderson. Miss Henderson teaches school and has most of her life. Hermann was in the store picking up a couple of door hinges for some fix up work around the house. He asked how I was getting on and wanted to know how the car show had gone at the Corinth Cinema last weekend. I told Hermann it had turned off very wet.
The Corinth Cinema is part of the Malco chain and the manager had inquired if I would be interested in helping judge a car show in connection with a promotion for the Dukes Of Hazzard movie that was coming out. I thought it was a fine idea and agreed to help out. I was told to show up at four-thirty in the afternoon on Saturday for the affair. When I pulled into the parking lot at the Cinema, the sky was overcast and there was a dark cloud buildup in the east. When I went inside, the manager was saying he hoped the rain would hold off because the idea was to enter off road cars that had seen use and a heavy rain would wash off most of the mud. He joked that he would go out and mix up his own mud and decorate the cars if he needed to.
The special promotion in connection with the Blade Trinity movie this past spring was something of a success, but the best laid plans have a way of falling flat on occasion. The wind came up and lightening flashed and the bottom dropped out of the sky. We had what local folks call a gully washer. Before long the power cut off briefly and all the projectors that were running the afternoon shows shut down. Power was not off but for a few seconds, just long enough for the Cinema staff to go in and announce the movies would start back up immediately. Restarting a movie with modern projectors is more than just turning the switch back on. A projector that has the power cut off usually gets the frame out of line so that, when the power is turned back on, the frame has to be readjusted. Everything was back up and running again when the power went out for a second time. This time the manager just sighed and said to tell everyone they could have a free pass to another showing of the film they were watching. He told me it was not good for the expensive projectors to be abruptly turned off and on repeatedly. Such doings could cause damage that would be costly to fix. Luckily, the power outages were coming at a time when the Cinema was not packed. The Saturday afternoon showings generally have fairly light attendance.
As for the Dukes Of Hazzard movie, I was told both evening showings on Friday were sold out, every seat was taken. Before I left Saturday evening the seven o’clock showing was sold out and expectations were high for the nine o’clock show. This was good news for the people who make their living running a movie house. Come Monday morning, reports were the Dukes Of Hazzard was the top movie over the weekend. This was good news for a summer when movie attendance has not been up to expectation. The movie critics hated Dukes, of course, but critical pans are generally a good indication everyone else will enjoy a movie. Even though the automobile promotion was rained out, I had a fun afternoon and was served a nice snack of pizza to boot. As I left the theatre, rain was letting up. I thought of a movie I had attended years ago at which I had watched the hero confronting the bad guy. The bad man had bragged that he was going to push a button to end the world. Sure enough, when he pressed the button on screen, everything went totally dark. We sat in the darkness for a few moments before we stood and wandered to the front of the theatre. Outside the rain was pouring down and the electricity was off all over town. Some movies have better special effects than others, but I still believe that movie had the best special effects I have ever experienced.
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