Perhaps not Radio City, ‘but the Oakland Theatre was all we had'

To the editor: I would like to thank Jeffrey Page for his fine article “Oakland Theatre remembered” in the June 15 issue of the Warwick Advertiser. I grew up in Warwick during the 60s and have many fond memories of afternoons and evenings spent there both as a child and later as a teenager trying to act like an adult, smoking and carrying on up in the balcony. No, it wasn’t Radio City or even the Paramount but it was all we had in Warwick and I remember being very bummed out when it closed in 1972. Mayor Newhard made mention of the projectionist “Charley Dowdy.” Not only was he the projectionist, he also took the tickets and was the “authority” if you got too out of hand. He also was a school bus driver and a bartender at “Carl’s,” which was a tiny bar across from what was (and for me will always be) “Garcia’s Bar & Grill.” I heard one patron at “Carl’s” tell him: “Charley, you work more than God,” and I believe he was right. When the movie “Tora, Tora, Tora” played, during the scene depicting the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor there were several bats flying around inside the theatre. For awhile, we thought they were airplanes in the film until one of us realized what they actually were. Talk about laughing until your sides ached. How about more articles like this in the future? Anyway, thanks, Jeffrey Page, for a most enjoyable walk down memory lane. Best regards, Paul G. Tougas Port Orchard, Washington