I'm looking forward to heading back to my spawning grounds this week for Thanksgiving some 750 miles away. One of the things I love to do when I'm back at my ancestral home is to go to the old Wapa Cinema, an old single screen movie house that was actually built as a theater for traveling vaudeville shows. So imagine my shock last night when I was on-line to check out what was playing there and found out it's closed.

It was an anachronism in the age of multiplexes and it has, apparently, succumbed to the forces of the marketplace. Even though they showed films for much less than the cinemas 30 miles away, they couldn't make it go.

I am rendered forlorn.

Another part of my childhood has been stripped from me. What's more, my children loved going there. They loved the feel of the place, the non-sterile non-corporate quality of it. Going to a movie there was as much about the space as it was the film. I loved the sloping wooden floors, the creaky seats, the balcony that overhung the last few rows of seats on the main floor.

Still, they haven't torn it down. It's just closed. Maybe someone with a vision can come in and make it work. I don't know. I just hate to see it closed.