We pulled up to the back of this brick building I never noticed was in my small town until now.  I knew it was there but it had no effect on me.  My Dad grabbed the keys out of his pocket and fumble for the right one that read do not duplicate.  The glass door creaked open.  I peered inside hesitant to go in.  My Dad looked at me assuring it was all right.  It was dusty.  I saw this long hallway with a door opposite of us a football field away.  Haunted, that's what I thought.  I held my Dad's hand as we made our way to the front by nothing but the moonlight that caught the dust in the air.  Their was chairs upon chairs balanced to the side of the walls, popcorn littered the floor.  The smell was musty, this place felt abandoned.  I remember this clear as day, my Dad flicked on the lights to that Movie theater and everything wasn't so scary.  The chairs were now a jungle gym the popcorn sprinkled on the ground was confetti.  The smell was gone.  I smile and my Dad Spread his arms wide and said "This is ours Toni too!"  I ran and said let's play hide and seek!  It was early fall 2001 and this place was where I'd spend my days fooling around for the next years.  My childhood loved that old runned down theater.

Okay first I want to say I really don't like how this was written.  I really wanted to change it but I didn't.  I would have written a lot better and described the hallway more so I could explain better how I felt.  I think it makes scene what I added about the chairs and popcorn but I would have described it a lot better.  I did lie though when my Dad said that he didn't turn on the lights.  That's how I felt though, I wasn't scared anymore.  I was excited that we owned it.  I was scared of that hallway until my Dad said that, I'm not really sure why.  I guess because him saying that assured me that it would be okay.  I added that because I could remember exactly what he said so well and because that's a part of the story.  I think it helped the tone because that's when I decided the theater wasn't so scary after all.  I don't like how I ended it either.  If I had more time it would have been a lot different.  I also would have changed the part when I said the door creaked open, that's too cliche.  If I could rewrite it it would have the same meaning but different wording.  I would have said a little bit more about why it influenced my childhood.  I could have added details about hiding under the projectors or having older friends that were the employees.  My story would have been a better story if I rewrote it.

Early Memory

Being the only girl among 3 brothers I grew up doing boy things, bad boy things.  We'd wrestle and climb trees, occasionally we'd have mud fights and paint the walls inside with our muddy paws. Our favorite thing to do was to cause mischief.  The laundry hatch from our eyes had so much potential.  Whenever my parents went to wash our clothes they'd be mixed in with spoons, lost mail, our toys, anything we could shove down the shoot.  I was the second oldest so I was like co-captain.  My older brother Joel however always came up with the brilliant plans.  It was my job to follow in his foot steps, cover our tracks, and not to let us get caught.  Now Joel and I being deprived of some mischief lately went to our usual place of trouble, the laundry shoot.  First it was a roll of tape, then the tape container, then a note pad, a lamp, a teddy bear.  Finally we shoved a huge body pillow through.  I remember listening to the individual sounds each item would make against the wood of the shoot.  That  was the best part.  The spoons knocked, the paper lightly scraped the sides, big things would always make the kind of sound you make when you suck in but it would be deeper and more muffled.  The pillow was pretty exciting since it took us a few minutes to inch it into the hatch.  We could tilt our heads into the opening to listen carefully to it's sound.  We heard the muffled woop but something was missing the end sound.  Where was the p of the woooooop.  We ran down to the second floor hatch in the hallway, opened the door and saw the pillow.  We tried to pull it back but it wouldn't come through because the way the hatch was.  In order to pull it through, it would bend in half making the pillow twice as thick.  Joel looked at me and I knew what instantly what he thought.  We can't get caught.  No problem we just needed something that was heavy to push the pillow to the basement.  Shawn!  My younger brother, who just turned 3.  We grabbed his hand and helped him into the shoot. It'd be fun, like a roller coast Joel said.  Shawn smiled.  He slowly lowered him.  I had his left hand and Joel his right.  Counting to 3, we let him go and listened.  He screamed, it was a happy scream though and landed with a thud.  It was quiet.  We ran down to the basement clicked on the lights and saw Shawn's feet in a pile of clothes.  His head popped out as he laughed.  He made it safe, and so did our body pillow.