The Capitol's Last Christmas

One Christmas, when I was a little girl about eight years old and a bit, my dad took me once again to the Capitol Theatre on Bank Street, this time to see the movie The Jungle Book.

[The mom of the house should be reading this aloud to the family.]

This was going to be the last movie ever shown at the wonderful Capitol Theatre. The next day they were going to kill the lights, lock the doors and board up the big windows. Then, after Christmas, the bulldozers would come and destroy the Capitol Theatre forever.

We usually took my grampa with us (he was my dad's dad), but not this time.

This time we had so much trouble trying to get him ready that we ended up leaving him at home with Mom. Every time we were ready to go out the door, Grampa would say, "Wait a minute," and then go upstairs to his room and start packing his big suitcases to go on a long journey "out West." And we'd say, "No, no, we're just going uptown to the Capitol Theatre and then we're coming right back to the house." And he would say, "No, wait, I have to pack my bags."

My grampa was very confused those days.

Although we took him to the Capitol Theatre many times to the early show at 7 o'clock just after supper, each time he'd act like he'd never been there before.
"What's this place?" he'd say. "Is this heaven?" Or he'd say, "What's this, Buckingham Palace?"

And my dad would say, "Yes, this is Buckingham Palace and we're going to meet Queen Elizabeth in a minute, so you'd better be on your best behaviour and don't forget to curtsy."

"I'm not curtsying for anybody," Grampa would say. Then we'd go in and watch the movie.

The Capitol Theatre had three huge, tall, fancy windows above the front doors and a high marquee on the corner of the building with running lights that read "Capitol." Inside was like a palace, just like Grampa said.

The lobby and huge entrance leading to the curved stairs were decorated with carved frames and columns that looked like marble, and the ceiling was made of panels of gold and cream and rose red, and the walls were decorated with flowers in plaster and brightly painted vases and cornices of fruits and foliage and animals and dancing figures in patterns and swirls and flowing lines and strange scenes like in a dream.

And then the two huge curving staircases and the sweeping banister with hundreds of little pillars fat at the bottom and the huge, high-domed ceiling — when you looked up, you had to remember to breathe.

And there were arches and hiding places and pillars along the walls, and caves over the doorways, and tapestries and carvings heavy with grapes and buds and hanging apples and palm trees. There were naked fairies dancing in the woods. Monsters and creatures — half man, half tree and half woman, half fish — and naked children playing horns and fiddles and throwing flowers at each other.

And then, up the stairs, the heavy drapes and writing tables and stuffed sofas of rich cloth, velvet and velour, and your feet sinking into the thick, soft, old rose red carpet.

And the biggest Christmas tree in Ottawa, with your face in every silver ball and the angel so high on the top that, to look at it, you had to lean back so far that your dad would have to hold you or you would fall on your back.

Then, in the theatre, the magnificent chandelier hanging down from the sunburst dome began to dim. and the thousands of hidden lights glittering from everywhere started to fade, and then only the lights on the heavy curtain were left, and then the curtain swooping open and all the lights were out now and the movie started and you were in the dark in this magic castle.

The Jungle Book starred a large, lazy bear with a huge bum who sang a song called “Bare Necessities.”

While we walked home in the falling Christmas snow, down Sparks Street and across the canal past the War Memorial, and in front of the Château Laurier and across from the Union Station, my dad was trying to remember some of the words to the bear's song.

I was, too.

Dad had gloves on. I had mitts.

My mitt was in his glove and, hand in hand, we were humming the song and singing some of the words.