Comments (3)

1. 

   J H King  |  May 16, 2015 at 6:02 pm

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   All of the following happened when I had no knowledge of anything “supernatural” about the place.

   I was an usher at the Park Theater when I was age 15/16. That would have beeen 1954/55. there were several peculiar things about the place which I will redcount and three “happenings” which are unexplainable. We used to have to do a sweep of the building twice daily; I suppose it was to make certain nobody was “stowng away” and living there. These tours of the building began by one of the ushers marching down the right hand aisle and up to the stage and behind the screen. There was a fairly large space used to store things, one of which was a large drum of partially solid coconut oil that was used to make the popcorn. On either side of this stage/room were six dressing rooms- three per side, one above the other. We checked each. Those on the right were unremarkable and so were two of the three on the left. There was also a steel doored compartment with a “HIGH VOLTAGE” sign on it’s green painted door. The middle dressing room on the left side was painted pink. ( I can’t remember any of the others being painted) That pink room was always a bilt chilly even on a hot day. For some reason I always had a sensation of ease and comfort in that room. There was a chair in the back corner and I would sneak a cigarette break occasionallu in that chair. Below those dresssing rooms there was a basement room with a square hole in the concrete foor There was a sump pump with a pipe going down through that hole.

   Twice on a Saturday morning before the public was admitted, I caught in my periferal vision a female figure dressed in white or light beige. This was in the main auditorium in the right hand aisle facing the stage. I was on the left side across the room. I made my way to tell the person that they were not allowed in the place before we were “open”. In order to do this I had to go up my aisle and out of the auditorium into what we called the mezzanine and across and down the opposite aisle. Only nobody was there. I knew That I had not seen her pass me on the way out, so I went up to the second floor. I checked the balcony, the man’s and ladies bathrooms, the projection room, a storage room where advertising media were kept and the glue pot and brush for sticking on the lables when we shipped the reels of film onward. I never saw a soul. I was considerably puzzled. I thought about it and reached the conclusion that whoever it was had hidden behind a lartge pastboard advertising display which was always paced across a corner of the landing of the stairs.

   Sometime later it happened again, and this time I distinctly heard a feminine giggle as I rushed up the aisle , across, checked “her” aisle and behind the diplay, up the stairs two at a time to the second floor, checked every con ceiveable place and again found nothing. Another time I heard the giggle but saw nothing.

   For many years all that was filed in my brain as weird happenings and no more than that. It was quite by accident that I stumbled upon Bessie Snavely and the Park/Falk Theater while doing a little nostalgic looking on the computer. I haven’t lived in Tampa since leaving in 1957 to attend university. I am forced to consider the possibility that I encountered Bessy entertaining herself at my expense,

2. 

   J H King  |  May 16, 2015 at 6:09 pm

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   For ushering we were paid the princely sum of 47 cents an hour as I remember.

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     Rachel  |  August 15, 2015 at 11:55 am

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     It really sounds like you did..what a paycheck haha.