The Strike

A memoir of that fateful summer of 1980. Never mind not having a summer blockbuster - we had no movies period!

"I saw this great movie last night."

Gary didn't go to the movies. "You wanna go?" And this one, whatever it was, he wanted to see again.

We grabbed a bite to eat somewhere and ambled in the Saturday afternoon sunshine to Ottawa's Capitol Square Theatre. "Hey.". The door was not giving. Gary pulled again. "What the hell...?" We both stepped back and had a look at the marquee, the one that was supposed to read All that Jazz. What it read was, Closed Due To Projectionist's Strike. "Oh well," said Gary. He was, despite the rare show of enthusiasm he had initially shown, perfectly non-plussed. Sure, easy for him. His haunts were the arcades. He had Pacman, Tetrus and Berserk. I had...nothing.

A projectionist's strike - despite years of movie going, I had no idea such a thing could even happen - and this, this the summer of so much choice fare.

What was to become of me? My whole life revolved around the tiny circuit of Ottawa's cinemas. It's where I went to escape my feauding family, where I took girls, where I secretly rendezvous'd with my estranged father, the one unpaid child support decreed I was not supposed to see. I had even landed my first job. Me, in show business, at last! I played a singing Muskox (yes, a singing Muskox) in a production for The Museum Of Nature. What would I blow all of my cash on?

Buses was the answer, the ones I took every second weekend to Montreal, where the projectionists were dutifully loading film reels. In one day, one day!, I caught The Empire Strikes Back, The Shining, The Blues Brothers, Brubaker, and a contraband print of Rear Window. On the ride home, I would relive each scene of each film, mortally terrified that my memory might, before strike's end, grow dim.

In September, the strike ended. Ottawa could go to the movies again. I made it a prideful habit of advising people on what and what not to go see. After all, I had seen it all - with one dutiful exception. "Great movie, huh?," commented Gary as, a full season after we first headed out, we emerged from the Capitol Square.

"Uh huh," I answered. "Well worth the wait."

Movies, that summer had taught me, weren't the only things to be prized.