The Warwick Theater was part of a chain, with several movie houses in the region. It wasn't much as theaters go, pretty run down and specializing in second-rate films. Saturdays featured westerns and cartoons for the kids. And did it ever attract the youngsters.
On occasion the theater featured live entertainment. I recall one special weekend when Rex Allen, the cowboy singer, made an appearance. He was pretty darn good, and the audience loved it.
Mr. Greenwood, I never called him Leo, was a small man in his seventies. He couldn't have been over five feet two inches tall, and weighed in a barely 130 pounds. He was frail and clearly suffered from the ravages of time, except for his wit and charm. He could tell stories that kept me entranced, mostly about his days in vaudeville back in the 1920's. I really enjoyed working for him, and listening to his recollections of days on the stage. He was a song and dance man, but also did slapstick comedy.
The theater needed constant attention. Part of my job was repairing things. Light bulbs on the marquee out front always seemed to burn out. I must have changed hundreds of them in that June to September period. Light bulbs inside, especially those along the side walls, also needed frequent replacement.
But, my biggest repair job was fixing seats. I soon became adept at removing the seat bottoms and recovering them with Naugahyde, a man-made leather-like cloth. Cigarette burns, punctures from knives and lollipop sticks, and other damages frequently led to seat repair jobs. It was not unusual for me to fix 10 or 20 seats each week, a chore I did on Saturday mornings, before the theater opened.
Another of my regular duties required me to go up onto the roof of the building to service the air conditioning system. A water cooling tower was part of the ammonia-based system. It needed daily replenishment of a yellow powder, something like sulfur, to keep the air fresh inside the theater. Stairs behind the projection booth led to a trapdoor onto the roof. The equip- ment was old, rusty and very noisy from atop the building. Down inside the auditorium, however, it barely made a sound.
My main job, which I did in addition to many other chores, was ushering. Well, that wasn't the real job, guiding people to and from their seat. I was more of a cop on the beat. Keeping the noise down, stopping youngsters from racing up and down atop the seat backs, and thwarting the tossing of debris onto the stage and projection screen kept me hopping. I also had to keep an eye out for drunks, stop people from smoking in a no-smoking theater, and watching out for pedifiles, child molesters. We had our share of those kinds of problems.
The most unruly children, usually boys under 10 or 12 years old, were the biggest problem. They frequently became involved in fights with other kids, disturbed adult patrons and generally proved to be obnoxious at times. My job included chasing them down and ejecting them from the theater, unceremoniously on many occasions.
Once I carried four at a time up the aisle, two by the scruff of the neck and two others under my arms, for deposit outside the front door onto the sidewalk.
Distraught mothers complained to my boss that their little angels were being persecuted, but Leo always backed me up and, on occasion, told the mothers not to bring their kids back again. Yet, by the following Saturday, there they were. Ejecting some of the same ones repeatedly became a regular practice.
My biggest worry was over the adults that preyed on youngsters, the molesters and sexual deviants. Constant vigilance was necessary when adults, not parents, were seen moving closer and closer, seat to seat, to children. Both boys and girls were at risk. Whenever we saw problems of that kind developing, calls to the police were quickly made. The police also helped us remove the drunks that became problems, though we seldom ejected the inebriated, quietly sleeping it off without bothering others.
Leo told me once that I was the highest paid usher in the city, though I never could be sure. I thought I was the most underpaid, considering the myriad of chores I had to perform, in addition to riding herd on some theater-goers wilder than the shoot-em up cowboys on the screen. That summer's job was a real education for me, about the kinds of people out there.