Bittersweet

Rob revisits his childhood hometown of Richmond, Virginia after 25 years and discovers some forgotten memories. 

Transcript

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Return to Richmond after 25 years

Rob 0:01

Hi , I'm Rob , Tale number 68 , bittersweet . My dear friend was married last year in Richmond , virginia , and that's where I lived from age 6 through 14 , for eight years . That's a big part of my childhood , so when people ask me where I grew up , I usually say Virginia . That's where I have the most memories of being a kid , and I hadn't been back in over 25 years , so I was excited to be there again . I got in town on Thursday . The wedding was on Saturday , so I had a whole day to myself to explore my old stomping grounds . I went and looked at our old house . I went and looked at the lake that I have so many fond memories of wandering around with my brother and sister , and then I just drove around looking for things that I recognized old restaurants or buildings that used to be restaurants , and before long I found myself in front of an old movie theater .

Rob 1:13

I love movies , have always loved movies , and when I was a kid we would go to the movies pretty regularly either with my friends or with my family , and this movie theater was long closed and it had been converted into a big church that was also now closed , and so it was just an abandoned building . I got out of my car and looked at it . It was sad to see it there abandoned , but I also found it interesting that it had been converted into a church . Sometimes I think of movie theaters as my church . That's the place where I've thought about and dealt with the big questions in life the most , and so turning a movie theater into a church makes a certain kind of sense . Seeing this movie theater made me curious about the other movie theater I went to a lot as a kid , more than this movie theater . Actually , it was a movie theater in a mall , and so I decided to head to that mall . It's the Chesterfield Town Center , if anyone is curious .

Movie theaters and childhood memories

Rob 2:12

When I was 12 years old , my parents decided to open a small business . It was a kiosk at Chesterfield Town Center , the mall , that sold Hawaiian shave ice , which is sort of like a snow cone , and they also sold coffee and bagels . It was mostly staffed by my family , including my older brother and then also a bunch of his friends . I was not old enough to work there and it only stayed open a year , but during that year , on the weekends and in the summer , I spent a lot of time in that mall . Weekends and in the summer I spent a lot of time in that mall and I loved it . It was a great adventure . I would just wander around all day .

Rob 2:50

I think it's the first time I ever saw a movie alone and I see movies alone all the time now , but when I was 12 , that seemed a lot weirder . It might still seem weird to some people . Some of the movies I remember seeing there Major Pain , congo , first Night , clueless Mortal Kombat Sometimes I saw two or three movies in a week . It was great . That's pretty much what I remembered when I decided to drive over and visit the movie theater . I arrived at the mall , parked my car and walked in and as soon as I did and I smelled the familiar smells and I heard the familiar sounds of shoes squeaking on the floor a bunch of other memories emerged .

Rob 3:33

The movie theater was now a Barnes Noble , but when I walked up to the entrance of the Barnes Noble I remember standing right there waiting for the movie theater to open . There was like this huge gate that they would close each night so you couldn't get into the lobby and then the next morning at 1130 , they would open it back up before the first showing and I would get there at like 1115 and just stand by that gate . I'm sure I was very annoying and I also remembered that sometimes I would barter for movie tickets , and that made me remember this entire barter system

The mall bartering system

Rob 4:06

that I had . Some people wanted Hawaiian shaved ice and I would give them one and they would give me something in return , like Chick-fil-A would give me food or there was an A&W in there and I remember trading shaved ice for corn dogs , but then the people at the movie theater didn't want a shaved ice but they wanted Chick-fil-A , and so I would trade a shaved ice to Chick-fil-A for a little chicken sandwich voucher and then I would give that to someone at the movie theater and they would give me a movie ticket in return . And so the movie theater was gone , the Chick-fil-A was still there .

Rob 4:43

And walking around and remembering this stuff is when a name popped into my head Trevor . Trevor was the guy that owned and worked at the candy store and I think Trevor's the first one that said hey , if you bring me something from your parents' place , I'll give you some candy . He probably caused the whole barter system to exist , but he would give me a ridiculous amount of candy . It was one of those candy stores where you scoop things from bins , fill up a bag and then you go weigh it and pay for it . He would just let me fill up a bag with whatever I wanted and all I had to do was give him one Hawaiian shaved ice . Trevor would also talk to me more than other people at the mall . Like I said , I was 12 . Trevor was probably like 30 , and he owned the candy store . He had just opened it about a year before my parents opened their business . He talked to my parents a lot too , so me talking to Trevor was not weird , and I have fond memories of being in his candy store and him being such a nice person .

Rob 5:40

So now that I had remembered Trevor , I wanted to go see if the candy store was still there . I had my doubts . Chesterfield Town Center , like many malls in America , has suffered . There's a lot of empty stores , and as I walked to the opposite end of the mall , the number of empty stores increased . It seemed like all the stores were sort of concentrated around that Barnes , noble and the food court and like the outer wings of the mall were essentially abandoned , or at least one outer wing of the mall where the candy store was located , so I didn't think there was any chance

Trevor and the candy store reunion

Rob 6:10

of the candy store still being there . I almost turned around but to my surprise , there it was and it was open and I walked in and there was no one at the counter . But I just started looking around and it had probably been remodeled because it still looked pretty new . But it was pretty much how I remembered it . And then I heard someone walk out of the back and I was shocked to see Trevor 30 years later . He looked pretty much the same , other than his black hair was now gray , and he said welcome , let me know if you need any help finding anything . And I said thank you .

Rob 6:43

And then I sort of walked around pretending to look at Candy , trying to figure out if I should say something to him . I thought he might remember me if I reminded him of how I used to trade him shaved ice , but I wasn't sure if I was going to bring it up . At the very least I was going to get some candy and I saw that he had chocolate covered peanuts , which is one of the things I used to get from him before I'd go see a movie . I scooped a few into a bag and I walked up and handed it to him to pay and he looked at me and he paused and gave me a longer look and then he said do I know you ? I was shocked , I didn't know what to say . But then I got it together . I was like you do know me , but it's been a very long time . When I was a kid , my parents owned a kiosk and I would trade things like bagels and coffee and shaved ice with you and you'd give me candy in return .

Rob 7:34

And Trevor looked at me and he goes Rob , and your parents were Ed and Donna , and I could not believe that he remembered my name . I sat there sort of stunned and then he looked me up and down and he said yeah , you're older , but your eyes are the same . And then I told him you're older too , but I recognized you immediately . And then he pointed at me like he was trying to remember something . And then he said Casper , the friendly ghost . And then he said they thought you were the yellow bandit and I had no idea what he was talking about . So I said what he's like you probably don't even know . Do you remember the yellow bandit ? And I had no memory of the yellow bandit

The Yellow Bandit revelation

Rob 8:17

until he reminded me what it was . He reminded me what it was Shop owners would find wet spots in their store where someone had urinated .

Rob 8:26

So there was this belief that someone was going around peeing in all the stores and they called him the yellow bandit . Then he said they thought you were the yellow bandit and I was like what ? And he said , yeah , because you had gone to see a movie Casper the Friendly Ghost . But then you snuck in to an R-rated movie , the Hunt for Red October . And this was true , or mostly true . I had actually snuck in to see Crimson Tide , a different submarine movie , but it was R-rated . Again didn't remember it until Trevor told me , and also I don't think I had ever told anyone that . And Trevor went on to tell me that some of the store owners met up to try and do something about this yellow bandit . The owner of the movie theater brought me up because he said I was a kid , I was walking around , I was usually alone and that I had been caught going to an R-rated movie . When I said I was going to a PG movie or whatever it was , whatever Casper was , but they had never confronted me or pulled me out of the movie or anything . But because of that the movie theater owner thought I might be the yellow bandit and Trevor let me know that he made it very clear to everyone that that was definitely not me and nobody ever talked to me or my parents about it . And later they caught a security guard . He was the yellow bandit , but Trevor remembered all of that and then Trevor and I caught up .

Rob 9:50

Doesn't really feel right to share it here , but there we were sitting there talking in the candy store like old times and it made me think about how my life had branched out and I had lived in so many places after Virginia and I'd had so many experiences , the ups , the downs , the good , the bad . And all these years later I found my way back and Trevor he had been there the whole time . His life was no less rich , he had a family and he was actually shutting the candy store down . It was going to close in just a few months . He was retiring from the candy business and his father was sick and he was taking over

Reflections on memory and paths taken

Rob 10:27

his business . It was a tax business , he said . You know , the mall had dried up . There wasn't really any money left .

Rob 10:32

In that Talking to Trevor was wonderful and when the conversation ended , I still hadn't paid for my chocolate-covered peanuts .

Rob 10:40

He looked down at them and there were barely any in the bag .

Rob 10:47

I wasn't going to get many , and he said you can do better than that .

Rob 10:49

And so he walked me around the store and showed me some of the new candies that were there that had not been there when I was a kid . I filled up my bag he would not let me pay , of course and I said goodbye to Trevor and he said goodbye to me . He said goodbye to me and I returned to my car and I went to my friend's wedding , which was a wonderful time . And one thing that whole experience makes me think about is how I had all these memories sitting inside my brain but I had no access to them until I visited the movie theater or I visited the mall , or I I talked to Trevor , and that's a little unsettling how we have all this information just sitting within us but we have no way to retrieve it or even know that it's there . It's like that saying you don't know what you don't know , but sometimes you don't know what you know .