The Marion Marquee

The Marion Theater is a fixture in downtown Ocala, though for years it suffered the same fate as so many other classic movie theaters that date back to the golden years of Hollywood. If not torn down to make way for parking lots or cookie cutter office buildings, most of these artistic structures with their ornate interiors were either gutted and re-purposed or abandoned and allowed to go to ruin.

Now, some of these grand old temples of cinema, the ones that somehow managed to survive, have attracted diverse coalitions of film enthusiasts and preservation groups determined to return them slowly, one fund raiser at a time, to their former glory.

The Marion is one of these lucky ones, up and running and showing movies again. In the village in Rhode Island where I grew up, a little place called Pascoag, I paid my quarter for two cartoons and a Saturday double feature at the Star. It wasn't as lucky. The last time I visited it was gone, leaving nothing behind to restore, just the memory of a kid with dirty hands and holes in the knees of his blue jeans. standing in line to buy popcorn before the cartoons started. It's a shame really, some things are are worth saving.

Ahhh, but I ramble ... and the adventure continues.