Bittersweet

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

Episode Transcript

Rob (00:01):
Hi, I'm Rob, Tale number 68 , bittersweet.
My dear friend was married lastyear in Richmond, virginia, and

(00:28):
that's where I lived from age 6through 14, for eight years.
That's a big part of mychildhood, so when people ask me
where I grew up, I usually sayVirginia.
That's where I have the mostmemories of being a kid, and I
hadn't been back in over 25years, so I was excited to be
there again.
I got in town on Thursday.

(00:48):
The wedding was on Saturday, soI had a whole day to myself to
explore my old stomping grounds.
I went and looked at our oldhouse.
I went and looked at the lakethat I have so many fond
memories of wandering aroundwith my brother and sister, and
then I just drove around lookingfor things that I recognized

(01:10):
old restaurants or buildingsthat used to be restaurants, and
before long I found myself infront of an old movie theater.
I love movies, have always lovedmovies, and when I was a kid we
would go to the movies prettyregularly either with my friends
or with my family, and thismovie theater was long closed
and it had been converted into abig church that was also now
closed, and so it was just anabandoned building.

(01:30):
I got out of my car and lookedat it.
It was sad to see it thereabandoned, but I also found it
interesting that it had beenconverted into a church.
Sometimes I think of movietheaters as my church.
That's the place where I'vethought about and dealt with the
big questions in life the most,and so turning a movie theater

(01:51):
into a church makes a certainkind of sense.
Seeing this movie theater mademe curious about the other movie
theater I went to a lot as akid, more than this movie
theater.
Actually, it was a movietheater in a mall, and so I
decided to head to that mall.
It's the Chesterfield TownCenter, if anyone is curious.

(02:12):
When I was 12 years old, myparents decided to open a small
business.
It was a kiosk at ChesterfieldTown Center, the mall, that sold
Hawaiian shave ice, which issort of like a snow cone, and
they also sold coffee and bagels.
It was mostly staffed by myfamily, including my older
brother and then also a bunch ofhis friends.

(02:33):
I was not old enough to workthere and it only stayed open a
year, but during that year, onthe weekends and in the summer,
I spent a lot of time in thatmall.
Weekends and in the summer Ispent a lot of time in that mall
and I loved it.
It was a great adventure.
I would just wander around allday.
I think it's the first time Iever saw a movie alone and I see
movies alone all the time now,but when I was 12, that seemed a

(02:56):
lot weirder.
It might still seem weird tosome people.
Some of the movies I rememberseeing there Major Pain, congo,
first Night, clueless MortalKombat Sometimes I saw two or
three movies in a week.
It was great.
That's pretty much what Iremembered when I decided to

(03:17):
drive over and visit the movietheater.
I arrived at the mall, parkedmy car and walked in and as soon
as I did and I smelled thefamiliar smells and I heard the
familiar sounds of shoessqueaking on the floor a bunch
of other memories emerged.
The movie theater was now aBarnes Noble, but when I walked
up to the entrance of the BarnesNoble I remember standing right

(03:39):
there waiting for the movietheater to open.
There was like this huge gatethat they would close each night
so you couldn't get into thelobby and then the next morning
at 1130, they would open it backup before the first showing and
I would get there at like 1115and just stand by that gate.
I'm sure I was very annoyingand I also remembered that

(04:00):
sometimes I would barter formovie tickets, and that made me
remember this entire bartersystem that I had.
Some people wanted Hawaiianshaved ice and I would give them
one and they would give mesomething in return, like
Chick-fil-A would give me foodor there was an A&W in there and
I remember trading shaved icefor corn dogs, but then the

(04:23):
people at the movie theaterdidn't want a shaved ice but
they wanted Chick-fil-A, and soI would trade a shaved ice to
Chick-fil-A for a little chickensandwich voucher and then I
would give that to someone atthe movie theater and they would
give me a movie ticket inreturn.
And so the movie theater wasgone, the Chick-fil-A was still
there.

(04:43):
And walking around andremembering this stuff is when a
name popped into my head Trevor.
Trevor was the guy that ownedand worked at the candy store
and I think Trevor's the firstone that said hey, if you bring
me something from your parents'place, I'll give you some candy.
He probably caused the wholebarter system to exist, but he
would give me a ridiculousamount of candy.

(05:03):
It was one of those candystores where you scoop things
from bins, fill up a bag andthen you go weigh it and pay for
it.
He would just let me fill up abag with whatever I wanted and
all I had to do was give him oneHawaiian shaved ice.
Trevor would also talk to memore than other people at the
mall.
Like I said, I was 12.
Trevor was probably like 30,and he owned the candy store.

(05:25):
He had just opened it about ayear before my parents opened
their business.
He talked to my parents a lottoo, so me talking to Trevor was
not weird, and I have fondmemories of being in his candy
store and him being such a niceperson.
So now that I had rememberedTrevor, I wanted to go see if
the candy store was still there.
I had my doubts.
Chesterfield Town Center, likemany malls in America, has

(05:48):
suffered.
There's a lot of empty stores,and as I walked to the opposite
end of the mall, the number ofempty stores increased.
It seemed like all the storeswere sort of concentrated around
that Barnes, noble and the foodcourt and like the outer wings
of the mall were essentiallyabandoned, or at least one outer
wing of the mall where thecandy store was located, so I

(06:08):
didn't think there was anychance of the candy store still
being there.
I almost turned around but tomy surprise, there it was and it
was open and I walked in andthere was no one at the counter.
But I just started lookingaround and it had probably been
remodeled because it stilllooked pretty new.
But it was pretty much how Iremembered it.
And then I heard someone walkout of the back and I was

(06:30):
shocked to see Trevor 30 yearslater.
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.
And then I sort of walked aroundpretending to look at Candy,
trying to figure out if I shouldsay something to him.
I thought he might remember meif I reminded him of how I used

(06:53):
to trade him shaved ice, but Iwasn't sure if I was going to
bring it up.
At the very least I was goingto get some candy and I saw that
he had chocolate coveredpeanuts, which is one of the
things I used to get from himbefore I'd go see a movie.
I scooped a few into a bag andI walked up and handed it to him
to pay and he looked at me andhe paused and gave me a longer

(07:14):
look and then he said do I knowyou?
I was shocked, I didn't knowwhat to say.
But then I got it together.
I was like you do know me, butit's been a very long time.
When I was a kid, my parentsowned a kiosk and I would trade
things like bagels and coffeeand shaved ice with you and
you'd give me candy in return.
And Trevor looked at me and hegoes Rob, and your parents were

(07:39):
Ed and Donna, and I could notbelieve that he remembered my
name.
I sat there sort of stunned andthen 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'reolder too, but I recognized you
immediately.
And then he pointed at me likehe was trying to remember

(08:00):
something.
And then he said Casper, thefriendly ghost.
And then he said they thoughtyou were the yellow bandit and I
had no idea what he was talkingabout.
So I said what he's like youprobably don't even know.
Do you remember the yellowbandit?
And I had no memory of theyellow bandit until he reminded
me what it was.
He reminded me what it was Shopowners would find wet spots in

(08:25):
their store where someone hadurinated.
So there was this belief thatsomeone was going around peeing
in all the stores and theycalled him the yellow bandit.
Then he said they thought youwere the yellow bandit and I was
like what?
And he said, yeah, because youhad gone to see a movie Casper
the Friendly Ghost.
But then you snuck in to anR-rated movie, the Hunt for Red

(08:46):
October.
And this was true, or mostlytrue.
I had actually snuck in to seeCrimson Tide, a different
submarine movie, but it wasR-rated.
Again didn't remember it untilTrevor told me, and also I don't
think I had ever told anyonethat.
And Trevor went on to tell methat some of the store owners
met up to try and do somethingabout this yellow bandit.

(09:09):
The owner of the movie theaterbrought 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 anR-rated movie.
When I said I was going to a PGmovie or whatever it was,
whatever Casper was, but theyhad never confronted me or
pulled me out of the movie oranything.
But because of that the movietheater owner thought I might be

(09:29):
the yellow bandit and Trevorlet me know that he made it very
clear to everyone that that wasdefinitely not me and nobody
ever talked to me or my parentsabout it.
And later they caught asecurity guard.
He was the yellow bandit, butTrevor remembered all of that

(09:50):
and then Trevor and I caught up.
Doesn't really feel right toshare it here, but there we were
sitting there talking in thecandy store like old times and
it made me think about how mylife had branched out and I had
lived in so many places afterVirginia and I'd had so many
experiences, the ups, the downs,the good, the bad.
And all these years later Ifound my way back and Trevor he

(10:12):
had been there the whole time.
His life was no less rich, hehad a family and he was actually
shutting the candy store down.
It was going to close in just afew months.
He was retiring from the candybusiness and his father was sick
and he was taking over hisbusiness.
It was a tax business, he said.
You know, the mall had dried up.
There wasn't really any moneyleft.

(10:32):
In that Talking to Trevor waswonderful and when the
conversation ended, I stillhadn't paid for my
chocolate-covered peanuts.
He looked down at them and therewere barely any in the bag.
I wasn't going to get many, andhe said you can do better than
that.
And so he walked me around thestore and showed me some of the
new candies that were there thathad not been there when I was a

(10:53):
kid.
I filled up my bag he would notlet me pay, of course and I
said goodbye to Trevor and hesaid goodbye to me.
He said goodbye to me and Ireturned to my car and I went to
my friend's wedding, which wasa wonderful time.
And one thing that wholeexperience makes me think about
is how I had all these memoriessitting inside my brain but I

(11:13):
had no access to them until Ivisited the movie theater or I
visited the mall, or I I talkedto Trevor, and that's a little
unsettling how we have all thisinformation just sitting within
us but we have no way toretrieve it or even know that
it's there.
It's like that saying you don'tknow what you don't know, but

(11:55):
sometimes you don't know whatyou know.