Searcy Arkansas's Rialto Theater, on the court square.

I spent one half of my life in that theater, up to age l7.  Growing up in the 40's and 50's - in Searcy - there wasn't a lot to do other than the "picture show"....It had a first run  feature on Sun. and Mon...a B feature on Tuesday, then another first run (usually a musical) on Wed., Thurs. Friday.  Naturally Sat. was a cowboy double feature.  We religiously went on Sunday afternoons and Friday nights - unless there was a football or basketball game.  I saw one of the best movies I've EVER seen on a Tuesday night, "The Man Who Never Was"...several years ago my aged Mother and I went back to The Rialto.  I made myself go in the women's restroom:  it was TINY, my remembrance was that it was huge.   This also tells where we were then:  blacks were not allowed to sit downstairs, there was a special door - upstairs - for the black audience. 

Of course, the Rialto was a center of life for us growing up in Searcy as Anita put it so well.  My best memories was going to the show on Saturday afternoon, a B-Western and serial.  We always sat through the Western twice, the second time was fun because we knew just who to root for and against.  The serials were fun, always leaving things in a impossible mess.  But the next episode would start out just before the impossible mess and change things slightly so that the hero always got out of it okay.  I remember, one Saturday, having a garter snake in my pocket and it bit me in the web between thumb and index finger, so I dropped it.  I always wondered what the cleaning crew thought when they found it. 

Anita  reminded me of one time when the Rialto was having a "grand re-opening" after one of it's remodels.  K. K. (Deacon) King had booked some major movie and there was a big crowd attending.  So he didn't allow blacks to attend and we sat in the balcony.  We hesitated sitting there because that was where the blacks usually sat but decided it was worth it to see the movie.  That just goes to show how things have really changed and it is even hard for me to believe that I was raised in such a society.  But as kids, we didn't even think about it and just accepted it as the way it was.

To us, in the 50's, the absolutely best job in the world was taken by

one of our classmates, Jeanette Coward (now Weir).  She sold the tickets at the Rialto, and the ticket booth gave her the knowledge of who had a date with who!  Also the booth looked out on the court square, where those of us who were not at the picture show, would ride around the square in our cars, honking at each other as we passed.    Evidently there was no curfew in Searcy in those days, nor no "law" against honking the horn.  I swear I don't remember anyone selling tickets other than Jeanette, but did she work Sunday thru Sat.? 7 nights a week?  I'll have to ask her, she still lives in Searcy.

Heck, I can't stand not making a comment about the Rialto. One of my memories is of a man who had a hot tamale cart outside the theater on Saturday nights. He sold tamalies made from rabbit. I remember he lived out Hwy 16 toward Four Mile Hill and had rabbit cages for all the tamale rabbits.Quite a tasty treat for those who could afford them.

The first serial I can remember seeing at the Rialto was "Don Winslow of the Navy" a thriller about submarine warfare during WWII. That was about 1942.

M.P. Jones, owner of our newspaper, The Daily Citizen, and his wife always sat on the left side about one third of the way down. I swear they were there every time I went to a show.  

Happy Labor Day everyone form Don and Paula Anne up at Holiday Isle near Eureka Springs.

One year, around 1948-9, I raised and sold white rabbits for food.  One of my several money making schemes.  When I got home from school, Mom would tell me who, if anyone, had called to order one.  I would kill and dress it in no time and deliver on my bicycle.  I then got the job as stock boy at the Fedderated Store (later known as the Burr Store and then Van Adkins) on the courthouse square.  I gave up selling dressed rabbits then.