Marien Helz is originally from Gaithersburg and began writing the Growing Up in Gaithersburg column for an HOA paper in 2003.

She holds a Master's degree in English and American literature from the University of Iowa, a Master of Fine of Arts degree from the world renowned Iowa Writers' Workshop [the only organization to receive the National Humanities Medal, presented by the U.S. government in 2003], a Master's degree from the University of Buffalo Reading Specialist Program, and a PhD in English Research from the University of Buffalo.

She splits her time between Kentlands and a classic village in the Buffalo-Niagara region of Western New York state where she is a college professor–a  profession she began at the age of twenty-two.

Marien Helz's most recent past columns are available here in Adobe files.    Click on the underlined links below to access the Adobe files.    If you do not have Adobe on your computer, you can download a free copy here:

1. Happening   September 2005
2. Wedding   October 2005
3. Figurine   November 2005
4. Gifts and Giving   December 2005

17. Treasures.  January 2007 in Commentary
18. Paperboy.  February 2007 in Commentary
19. The Final Snow and The Follies. March 2007 in Commentary
20. Renewal. April 2007 in Commentary
21. Scouting. May 2007 in Commentary
22. Trains. June 2007 in Commentary
23. Woods. July 2007 in Commentary
24. Dogs and I’m-so-Fine-the-Law-Doesn’t-Apply-to-Me People  August 2007 in Commentary
25. Magic Soil. September 2007 in Commentary
26. Mean Teachers. October 2007 in Commentary
27. Sound   November and December 2007 in Commentary
28. Childhood Friends   January 2008 in Commentary
29. Nosy Neighbors   February 2008 in Commentary
30. Science Fair   March, April, & May 2008 in Commentary
31. Wisconsin in August   June & July 2008 in Commentary
32. Weeds: Annoying to Disastrous   August, September, & October 2008 in Commentary
33. Charlie   November, December, January 2009 in Commentary
34. Memories from My Mother   February, March, April 2009 in Commentary

...continued from the Commentary page:

is now a discount mattress store.

It was nice to have the little theater there because when my brother, sister, and I were in elementary school we could walk over to it on occasion.  They used to show a cartoon or two before the main feature.  One of my favorites was of a character who was driving around in a clover leaf and couldn’t find his way out of the circles.  He stopped to ask a man tending a stand that said “Get your hot dogs here.”  The man pointed in one direction first, but when the driver came around again, he pointed in another direction.  After several times of the driver trying different ways to get out of the cloverleaf, the hotdog stand attendant admitted that he didn’t know how to get out and had set up the hotdog stand twenty years before when he couldn’t find his own way out.  The last scene showed the hotdog stand with the driver in a little stand next to it with a sign that read, “Get your mustard and relish here.”

Another cartoon that I remember after all this time was of a similar little man driving a compact car.  When he came to a traffic jam at a stop light, he got out of his car, folded it up and put it in his pocket, walked across the street, and then unfolded his car and drove away.

The theater had a difficult time surviving in the small rural town that Gaithersburg was then and closed by the time I was out of elementary school.  An enterprising woman bought it, restored it, and tried to operate it, but was foiled by a snow storm on her grand opening night that shut everything down and kept everyone home.  Apparently her outlay of capital was large enough that she needed a good opening and didn’t get it.

Small town theaters were a great thing to have, but slowly most have been replaced by the big mall cinemas.  After Gaithersburg’s theater closed, we went to either Rockville or Damascus to see movies.  After I got my license, I once drove with my sister to the Druid theater in Damascus.  It seemed like a long drive even though it was only thirteen and a half miles from Gaithersburg, out route 355 to route 27.  One night, I decided to go the back way home and got lost.  I would have found the way easily enough if it had been light, but I found myself driving down a progressively narrowing road that led first into a meadow and then into a forest.  I turned around, but we were late home—something that was not tolerated in my house.

The Damascus theater is no longer operating as a theater, just as Gaithersburg’s has not been for a very long time, but it still stands as a reminder.  Even the street where Rockville’s theater was is gone with all the buildings demolished and replaced during “urban renewal.”  Another, more modern, theater was built in Rockville near where the old movie house was, facing the opposite direction.

Some small towns have managed to keep their little movie houses, but it’s not easy with studios demanding that high prices be charged for admission.  One such place is East Aurora, in the Niagara Falls region, where the theater has been recently restored.  On Monday nights, all tickets are $3.  Villagers get to go back to a decades old theater and decades old prices as well.

Even though the Gaithersburg theater closed long ago, it’s pleasant to have found the building where it existed when I was growing up in Gaithersburg.

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