Our special movie day time

Going to watch a matinee movie was always a special treat. I suppose like many of you, there was a special day in the month when Vic, Dennis and I were allowed to spend an afternoon in the movie house watching an assortment of monster movies, westerns and an occasional mystery movie. There were a few preliminaries that we always indulged in as we made our preparations for such expeditions. I always have considered myself a normal person so please let me know if you did the same thing I did. First, we always made sure we had our slingshots in our back pockets. Secondly, before entering the show house we would stop at the neighborhood store and buy all the chewing gum we could with what little extra money we had. Third, we'd try to get up into one of the chairs at the front of the theater. Now we are ready for the fun so let the show begin. As the lights darkened and the movie came up on the screen we would pop one of the pieces of chewing gum into my mouth. I always loved the first bites of chewing gum. All that sugar separating itself from the gum and making its delicious trip down into my stomach. You know how fast that sugar leaves though and then you are left with this tasteless bullet of gum in your mouth. Did I say bullet? Of course I did, that is why we would always bring our slingshots along. After much of the sugar was gone from the gum it left a perfect little projectile that fit nicely into the leather tongue of my slingshot. The theater was always dark enough that we could aim the slingshot from my hip and launch my gum wad up at the theater screen and no one was any the wiser that some dastardly deed had just been committed. Most times we couldn't tell if our gum wad even made it up to the screen. If it arrived, did it stick? If it did stick, was it on a brown tree or the black monster? We usually couldn't tell. During one western starring, John Wayne I hit right on target. It was one of those close-up scenes where John Wayne's face covered the entire screen. I pulled back the rubber strings on my slingshot and let go with a very fine blob of gooey gum. Suddenly out of no where, John Wayne had a new mole on the left side of his forehead above his eye. If you had been there that day it wouldn't have been a noticeable addition to his features but, I saw it immediately. That was the day I got the better of John Wayne. Early movie days with Vic are leaving me with a warm nostalgia today.