Thinking about this day generated a lot of memories for me. My dad was a librarian, and as I hope you all know, the library is about more than books. Most of them still have movie collections, but technology has advanced—some libraries these day even offer Rokus for checkout, which I think is pretty cool.

But when I was a kid, movies were clunkier affairs, with reels and projectors. It took a certain amount of skill to thread the film into the projector, as I recall, and I do remember the film snagging and scorching. But I was not privy to those mysteries, being under the age of 10 at the time. VCRs, their own kind of dinosaur, were the AV tool of choice when I was of an age to handle the technology.

What was entrusted to me in kindergarten and first grade, as the librarian’s daughter, was the job of movie mule. I guess the teachers at the little K-6 school I attended in California liked to show films, and somehow they roped my dad into delivering them. This meant I got to hump cans of varying sizes from my dad’s car at the parking lot drop-off to the headmistress’s office at the other end of the lot. Some were tiny—the size of my dad’s hand. Some were as big as my torso at the time. There actually was one day that the load was too heavy for me and my dad had to assist. The funny thing is, I don’t remember ever seeing movies myself in class. I suppose we must have, but it has fled my memory. I also don’t recall ever having to take movies home at the end of the day; I guess the school must have covered that part of the arrangement.

When I was in second grade, we moved to Illinois and I walked to school, so movie delivery was no longer required of me. When I was 7 or 8, I wanted a movie birthday party. It did not go as I anticipated—my dad brought home a projector and a bunch of old comedies: Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, the Three Stooges. It was not my most popular moment, but it did give me a love of Fields that I still possess. (A few years later, my parents relented and took me and my friends to a pizza parlor and a theater—an outing received much more favorably by my peers.)

But my favorite memory of old-time movie watching came when I was 10 or so. Someone—I assume my dad, since he did the talking—decided to showcase Hitchcock movies in a library program. It was a whole big thing for me. Going to my dad’s place of work at night. (I went all the time during the day—even Sundays, when it was closed.) Sitting in the library there IN the dark. And, most shocking of all, being served popcorn and being allowed to eat! And that was all before the movie started. Dad (or whoever) chose Rebecca and Shadow of a Doubt as the first two outings, neither of which I had ever seen. I went to both and was … wait for it … spellbound. (I’ll show myself out.) I don’t recall if there were other films or what they were. Either the program changed to a school night or I got in trouble and was grounded from going.

Eventually, the library shifted to laserdiscs, and then we moved to Florida and the library was harder for me to get to. Then we got a VCR. Then I got a boyfriend with a car and movies took on a different kind of attraction. But whenever Laurel and Hardy comes on TV or we fire up Rebecca on a streaming service or DVR, I miss those days and my dad. Somehow, no popcorn ever tastes as good as that library popcorn did.