The State Theater

I imagine anyone reading this blog came to it because they know me. I doubt too many people who check this blog out are randoms, and if they are, it should be evident I love movies. Movies have always been a huge part of my life. My family sees a movie every Thanksgiving and Christmas, but that is merely the tip of the iceberg. My dad and mom still go rent movies almost every weekend and when I lived at home and was not in a show, I would sit on the couch with my parents and watch a dvd with them. I can barely remember a time when movies were not a huge part of who I am. I was 13, though, when I fell in love with movies. I am not going to delve into that here, maybe another time, but my love of movies extends beyond just movies. I love movie theaters.

Everyone has some way of coping with a bad day: retail therapy, drinking, whatever it is...I go to a movie theater and watch a movie. I love the entire experience and I like being to just sit in a dark theater, turn off the world and get sucked in. If movie theaters act an escape to me, The State Theater was like my fortress. Before I was old enough to work there, I would spend entire days of my summer watching all 3 movies the theater had to offer. It is a glorious old movie house, rich in history and full of secrets. Opening in 1937, The State theater was built specifically as a movie house. It was a single auditorium seating over 800 people and in the 1980s it expanded to include 2 much smaller auditoriums.

By the time I started to frequent the place in the early 1990s, some of the luster or polish had been knocked off, but it was still special to me. When I was old enough to work, I just wanted to work there and luckily for me, I got the chance. It was the dream high school job. There was enough downtime to do whatever school work/line learning I had and there were all the free movies, soda and popcorn. But it was more than that. For the most part, I was with like minded people. My managers and I would spend hours discussing movies, coming up with promotions and just reveling in the fact that this was our job. I spent my summers loving my job and I could often be found working on projects like a giant paper mache spaceship to promote Men In Black.

Towards the end of my senior year, the business was sold and when the new regime came in, we all quit, but after two years, I could not help but go back to watching movies there. Quickly, I started to chat up the new manager every time I went in and for years I looked forward to learning insider movie stuff from him. When I decided to go back to college and get my degree, I had to quit my full time job and find something part time. Fate struck again as I went in to watch Grindhouse. The manager, Mike, asked me if I happened to be looking for work. I jumped at the chance to work there again! So, for the last 3 plus years I worked there again.

The State Theater was always more than a job to me. I liked the paycheck sure, but on a bad day, I could go in on my day off and just hang out. I loved the people, I loved the regular customers, and I loved the atmosphere. That building is so rich in personal history and movie history. It is the place I suffered my first concussion, I watched a man get caught cheating by his wife on New Year's Eve there. I celebrated 4 or 5 birthdays there. There are countless other memories tied to that place. When I worked there the second time, the other employees became a second family to me. I still talk to hang out with most of them. School and work meant my participation in Community Theater had to be put on pause, and I did not mind it because for so long working at the theater was so much fun.

I do not want to over-romanticize my time there in any way because most of my close friends know my last few months there were extremely rough on me, but even after I quit, I kept going back, both to watch movies and to hang out. As recently as 3 weeks ago, when I was having a soul crushingly bad night, I got in my car, and drove right to the theater, just to hang out and to see my second family.

In a year where I got my heart broken, lost two extremely valuable friendships, saw my family move and saw the house I called my home for 21 years get put on the market, The closing of The State Theater came as a true blow to me. I saw the warning signs starting last November, and even when Mike told me it was probably going to happen back in July, I did not want to believe it. How could this place close down? How could this big gorgeous building that housed movies not succeed any longer? I know the answers but they are not important. On Tuesday of this week when I went into the theater to pick up my last check, it killed me. From the time I was 13, this place was my escape and now it is gone and even if it comes back, which I pray to God it does, will it really be the same? It does seem fitting that the ties I have to Woodland get less and less as I try to go away from it, but The State Theater and Mike running it felt timeless.

A part of me will always be sad to have lost this place. I kind of thought it would be the kind of place I would take my family to and show them around, and take them on a tour to see all of the random doors and rooms. I was thinking I could take my kids behind the screen in State 1 and show them the projectors and how the movies work. I know the building looks old now and I know it was starting to get too rundown, and I know that is what people saw, but it is never what I saw. I always saw the movie magic of a place like that. I always wondered the stories the walls had from the 1940s and 1950s.

I always said if I had the money, I would buy that place, fix it up and help it become what it once was. I think The State Theater could still be the catalyst to help revitalize the Downtown Woodland area and I know many other people in the town feel the same way. While Woodland is looking more and more like a big box town, there is a rich history in the town that needs to not be forgotten and I truly believe The State Theater symbolizes that. Even as I sit here typing this, I am reminded of all of the memories I made there and how I hope other people get the opportunity to make such memories for themselves.