And now this.....
Its story time… Above here is a poster that hangs in my living room office and its one of my most prized possessions. It’s a STAR TREK 3 teaser poster that is printed on 1/4 inch thick foamcore and hangs on a metal frame. This has been with me for a long time and will continue to be so. Here is its history:
1984- My mom takes me to see STAR TREK 3: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK in theaters. To my knowledge, it was the first film I ever saw in the theater. I remember taking some toy cars with me to occupy me, but ended up staying in my pocket cause I was enthralled with the movie. By this time, I was a huge STAR TREK fan at home, constantly watching WRATH OF KHAN and THE MOTION PICTURE. I had not discovered the original series yet. I watched the film closely and I remember crying when the Enterprise blew up. This was at the Broadway Theater in downtown Mt. Pleasant. I remember this poster hung in the lobby as we left the theater. Immediately after watching the movie, we drove to Taco Bell and bought all four of the collectible STAR TREK III GLASSES. (I have 2 complete sets of those today on my shelf).
Over the next few years I returned to watch films at the downtown Broadway theater. They had moved that poster to the wall by the men’s room entrance. It hung there proudly for years, next to an original giant REVENGE OF THE JEDI poster. Later it was moved to the newly built CINEMA FOUR THEATER uptown. The poster hung in the side lobby where the small theater houses were. One day, they were gone and I never really noticed.
2000-By then, I was working at the Cinema Four theater as a manager. I was upstairs in house one projector room cleaning up things laying around and saw a stack of boxes in the back of the room. Behind them were three framed posters on foamcore board: Terminator 2, Ghostbusters 2 and this Star Trek 3 poster. I asked my boss Bill if I could have the Trek poster and he said no because corporate was going to take it somewhere soon. Probebly to the new Celebration Cinema 11 screen theater they were building. No big deal. I was just glad to see it still was around after all this time.
Later that year, my mother got cancer and was dying before my eyes. I held it together every day when I went to work. It wasn’t easy. One night, I was sitting in the lobby in the dark, waiting for the last movie to get out so I could close up the building. Bill came down and sat next to me. We talked briefly about my mom and other things. Out of nowhere he says “You know, if that Star Trek III poster disappeared tonight and I didn’t see where it went, it wouldn’t be a big deal to me.” He left it at that and went home. I took the poster and stuffed it in my car. I drove it home and it hung proudly on my wall.
After my mom died, I moved several times, even put the poster in storage, but still it hung in the same frame, proudly. I took special care to make sure it was never damaged. Years later, I am no longer working at the cinema. I miss it like hell. I miss my mother. But I got the memories to remind me of those things. My love of Star Trek has always remained through all of this. When my wife and I moved into our new home, I hung this poster proudly on the wall.
This is not a reprint. It is not a copy. This is the exact same poster that hung in the lobby when a six year old Adam Talley discovered his love of Star Trek. It hung in the lobby of the cinema Adam went to see many movies in and later worked at. That job became one of his absolute favorite jobs of all time. This same poster was a gift given to me by one of the coolest, nicest and smartest men I have ever known… a nice gesture at a time in my life when I really needed it. When I look at this poster, I am reminded of all of these things. It’s amazing how memories can be tied into a single objects. This one has a lot of history for me, and it is for those reasons that this poster is one of my most prized possessions.
T
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