And speaking of feel good movies, we continue with Dolphin Talestarring Morgan Freeman. Everyone who’s seen it has loved it. It’s a truestory, which makes it even better, about a wounded dolphin who gets healedthanks to a forward thinking vet and a little help from his friends. Kids ofall ages have loved this movie and it’s with us for another week. I got a call the other day from someone who asked us for the Christianfilm Courageous. I am trying very hard to get it. As with so manyChristian films, they don’t make a lot of copies and don’t release them inthe standard way, but I’m hoping to have it for you in the next few weeks –one week if we’re lucky!

Erica and her gang of volunteers just keep moving along! We opened theEvans on Friday night and it was so good to have all four screens workingagain. You can see that we need carpeting and the walls aren’t painted andthe curtains aren’t hung and…and…but the theaters are all open and that’snothing short of a miracle! Jim and Joe and Capt. Alan and Sam and Bob andDanny just keep plugging away, day after day after day. We will never, aslong as we live, be able to thank these men enough for all they are doingfor us. There is simply no way we could afford to have this work done. Theflood took a terrible toll, on businesses and private lives. We are just solucky here that so many came to give us a hand – it has been totallystunning to see the number of people who came and to understand that somecame and, truly, never left and won’t until the job is done. Really, howcan you ever say enough thanks for that?

So, in the midst of all the flood and muck and heartbreak, our Shirley,who lost her home and almost everything in it, was at Myo Beach looking atwhere her house used to be when she saw a glint and reached down into theyuck and pulled out her so pretty gold and silver watch and, no, it wasn’t aTimex and yes, after three weeks in the muck it was still ticking! Still ticking! Floods are so random. Some of her pretty and ever so fragilePrincess House glasses withstood the torment of the waves, while sturdierseeming objects fell apart.

It doesn’t make sense, what the waters destroyed and what they didn’t.You can try and try, but there’s no sense to it. One day you have a lovelyhome or a vital, gorgeous business and within twenty-four  hours it’s goneor altered beyond belief. Our Shirley, who has lost everything but thethings that matter most – her husband, her two dogs and her cat, has been so remarkable through all of this, so steadfast, so decent, so brave, that once again I am awed by the sheer courage some people display in the face ofdisaster. Shirley is so important to us here at the theater, she does somuch, she is so kind and funny and sweet, and we are so, so sorry for herloss. But her spirit, like her still ticking watch, is a miracle and aninspiration! Bless your heart, dear Shirley – we’re all rooting for you.

God Bless.

See you at the Dietrich.