A Weird Little Memory: Not Seeing Candleshoe

Flashback to sometime in the summer of 1977. I would have been about five years or so old. Standing in line at the Mann Theater in Idaho Falls, waiting to get in to see a movie.

I imagine I had older brothers or sisters with me. I don't remember a lot about it. I do remember a theater employee poking his head out of the building -- the line was out the door -- to say that the movie we were there to see, Candleshoe, was sold out.

Maybe we went home. Maybe we did something else. I don't remember. I just remember them shouting that the movie was sold out and we left the line. I probably didn't even know what movie we were there to see.

I have no recollection of the film at all, so I'm sure either we didn't go back to the theater to see it, or it was so unmemorable my young mind just blanked out on it. It's just weird that I have that "movie's sold out" memory stuck in my head.

For a while, I thought the movie I'd been denied a screening of was Sixteen Candles, but as that came out in 1984, that makes a lot less sense. Candleshoe it is.

Also, I know I've never seen Sixteen Candles.

I'm watching a few scenes now just to see if they trigger any memories. I thought for a second the "train chase" was going to connect to a game I used to play in the sandbox, with an old-fashioned car crashing into a ditch over and over. But nothing.

Nothing at all. I don't think I ever saw this movie. But I know we were in line once when it was sold out.