Much of our day was spent boxing things up to send back to the States and cleaning up our almost empty apartment. No excursions for us this weekend. But all work and no play makes Atilano a dull boy, so late in the afternoon we drove over to the Fleet Theater to catch the latest James Bond release. Of course, this time of year it gets dark early and when the sun goes so does its heat.Showtime was scheduled for 6 p.m. and expecting a big crowd we wanted to secure a good parking spot. That's not always easy. We got there at 5:15 and already found a group of movie goers bunched up outside the locked doors of the movie house. It was cold to wait outside, but we did.
Once the theater was opened for business we quickly bought our tickets to get in out of the cold. We needn't have rushed. It was colder inside than it was outside. I mean bitterly cold. Worse still was that the overhead vents were blowing air, damn cold air. We hopped around from seat to seat trying to locate a spot that was draft free but without luck. We hunkered down like a couple of deer hunters in a blind on a chilly morning and waited for show time. Surely, we thought, when the place gets filled up with people the body heat from the masses will help. It never did.
The movie was no disappointment. We got our six dollars worth of entertainment, but the recollection that is frozen, and I do mean frozen, in my memory is the unbelievably cold conditions under which a theater full of movie fans sat for the duration of the picture. Everyone was bundled up like fans at a Packers home game in December.
