REDEMPTION My biological mother died when I was only 3 years old. I was the youngest of her four children. Because my father was in the Air Force and was being stationed overseas for a while, he wasn’t able to keep all of us kids together after my mother’s passing. So, we were passed along from one set of family members to another for over a year. My brother and I finally ended up staying with my grandfather and grandmother in Decatur, Alabama. We lived “out in the country” several miles outside the city limits. My grandparents were by no means wealthy people, so they didn’t take us to town very often. The only entertainment we knew back in those days was fishing at the creek, feeding the cows and visiting with neighbors. Oh, yeah, and we would frequently walk to Baker’s Store just down the road from my grandparents’ house. Baker’s Store was a gas station and convenience store owned by a man named Murray Baker. Every once in a while, my grandparents would give my brother and me a couple of pennies to buy some penny candy at the store. That was the highlight of the week! Now, up to that point in my life, I had never stepped foot inside a movie theater. A typical movie ticket cost about $1.25 back in those days. Add to that the cost of a bag of popcorn and a soda, and you’d be looking at a total cost of about $3. Well, as mentioned before, my grandparents had a very limited budget, so going to the movies was never
an entertainment option. I had heard friends and relatives talk about going to the movies, but I had no idea what the experience was like for myself. One day, though, my grandmother told my brother and me about a special promotional day at The Princess Theater in downtown Decatur. It was called “RC Bottle Cap Day at the Movies” (or something similar to that). On “Bottle Cap Day” you didn’t have to have money to get into the movies. All you needed was six RC Cola bottle caps. You could redeem the bottle caps for a movie ticket at the ticket booth. Well, my grandparents didn’t drink much soda pop in those days. That would have been considered a luxury. So, my brother and I devised a plan. We walked down to Baker’s Store and searched the parking lot for discarded bottle caps.
June 2021
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