{"id":9500,"date":"2023-12-13T04:04:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-13T04:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9500"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:44","slug":"a-little-hope-in-the-midwest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9500","title":{"rendered":"A LITTLE HOPE IN THE MIDWEST"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last weekend Melissa and I met up with another couple for dinner and a movie a half hour north of here in Franklin, Indiana.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

The restaurant is one of our favorites. The same can be said of the movie – It’s a Wonderful Life<\/i>. And the couple are good friends we don’t see often enough. So I was looking forward to a pleasant evening.<\/p>\n\n\n

What I didn’t expect was the experience <\/i><\/b>of watching a movie at the Artcraft Theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

The Artcraft is a 101-year-old theater that seats 625. Saturday night nearly every seat was taken for a showing of a 76-year-old movie.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

A little after the advertised showtime, a relentlessly upbeat emcee with a flawless NPR voice entered the stage with his microphone to thank all the volunteers and sponsors who keep the doors open.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

Then he proceeded to give away a few door prizes before searching through the audience to find the individual who came the furthest to see the movie. A woman from Serbia was invited to come forward and place a thumb tack in a map of the world. She also won a lightbulb-shaped cup filled with Indiana-raised popcorn kernels.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

At one point, the emcee asked how many in the crowd had never seen It’s a Wonderful Life.<\/i>\u00a0When about 75 hands went up, the rest of the crowd applauded and smiled, confident the movie would be gaining 75 new devotees.<\/p>\n\n\n

And then – get this – before the lights went down, the audience was asked to stand and join voices in singing the National Anthem. Which we did – enthusiastically and unironically!<\/p>\n\n\n

Finally, the emcee introduced the projectionist, a position which apparently brings the privilege of choosing the pre-feature cartoon. This projectionist chose classic Bugs Bunny: The Rabbit of Seville.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n

Chef’s kiss!<\/p>\n\n\n

When the movie ended, well after 10 o’clock, the crowd broke into applause.<\/p>\n\n\n

I’m not sure if it was in appreciation for the movie or for the unexpected and much-needed lift in cultural optimism.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last weekend Melissa and I met up with another couple for dinner and a movie a half hour north of here in Franklin, Indiana.\u00a0 The restaurant is one of our favorites. The same can be said of the movie – It’s a Wonderful Life. And the couple are good friends we don’t see often enough. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9502,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9500\/revisions\/9502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}