We wandered into the
Alabama Theater last Sunday, baseball hats, jeans and
Revelator iced coffee in hand. Josh wanted to show me around before we went to see what the cool kids were doing at the food truck rally a few blocks over. The door was unlocked and he pulled me into the lobby.
It felt like a sacrilege.
The iced coffee that is.
The renovations were breathtaking. High ceilings, sconces and chandeliers, the funkiest restrooms with oriental influence. The checkerboard floors, the walls, the little red details on the end of each row of chairs... Everything was perfect. Josh gave me the tour for a change and told me about the events that he worked and about the one time that he was trying to rent the theater and the old director talked his ear off and played the organ for him for hours.
Golly, I love these old buildings and the people who keep them alive.
We happened upon a concert for said organ. It was absolutely perfect. The two of us up in the balcony as an audience of 15 people (that had to be the max), listened to someone from some theater organ association played jazz and standards on a gorgeous old organ for an hour.
I felt I'd stepped into a movie, a perfectly time musical, the kind where the girl goes off to work in show business and somehow we just watch and pretend that that's a respectable profession to choose. It was wonderful. And Josh just shakes his head at this girl he married and the crazy things that she gets into.
Things like old theaters and impromptu organ concerts and waiting out in the sun for 2 hours to get a taste of
Eugene's Hot Chicken.
It was worth it.
