1942 Brooklyn, New York

Carmela Famularo
1928
Brooklyn, New York
Interviewed on February 18th, 2021
by Nick Famularo

It was during World War II, and my father worked in Newport News, Virginia. They were building a submarine base there.  So naturally he had to live there, and he used to send my mom a check every week. It was near Easter time. She got the check and she said to me, to all of us, “I got the money, let’s go get clothes for Easter. Take a half day off from school.” When we got through with that we came back and she said, “Ok, now go to school for a half a day.” It was wartime. If you had a doctor’s appointment in the morning you would go back to school in the afternoon. You didn’t stay home the whole day. So I thought, I don’t want to go at 12 o’clock in the afternoon! I missed half the day already. I just didn’t like being out half a day and then going to school. I felt like everyone would look at me and wonder why. So I said to my sister Gracie, “You know what? Let’s go down, put our books down in the cellar and we’ll lock the door. We’ll go to the Terminal and see a movie.” So we did! I think it was a Disney movie. It was one of the old ones. I think it was Bambi. 

We walked to the movies, and we saw the very first showing because I think they would open at 12. It was the first show for the day.  I was about 13, so it was in my first year at high school. My sister Gracie was two years younger. It was a local theater in Brooklyn called the Terminal – on 4th Avenue between Dean and Bergen Street. At that time I think the children were allowed to go in the afternoon, but the fact that they let me in when it was a school day! They just let us in.

They did sell popcorn then, but I didn’t buy it because I just had enough money for the movies. I forgot what else they had. Oh, they had the machines for the soda. They didn’t sell it at the concession stand. I think at that time they didn’t sell it in the cups. It was a bottle, and you weren’t allowed to take it to the seats! You had to drink the soda in the vestibule. They were very strict. They used to have matrons too in the movies. I don’t know if they still do. They came up and down the aisle, so if you were making any noise they would open the flashlight and tell you to be quiet. If you were talking, if you annoyed other people, they could come down the aisle and shine the flashlight and say “Be quiet!” If you didn’t listen, they would even take you out of the movie theater! If you didn’t listen and created a little too much disturbance, they would tell you that you’d have to leave. I think the boys were more noisy than the girls. It never happened to me!

So we went to the movies and we came home, but while we were at the movies my mother went down to the cellar and she saw our books. Naturally we couldn’t hide it, so we got caught playing hooky! And that was it. I never did it again. The consequences were too severe. My mother yelled, and I think I felt a sting also. I really learned a lesson!