04/08/2022

Welcome back to Throwback Thursday. Lauren is hosting the first of our abbreviated April posts. Head over to her blog to get the details, and then join in!

This week’s prompt is: Going to the Movies

My post follows.

Going to the movie was a big deal when we were kids. We had one indoor movie theatre, but it was a thirty minute drive into town. We had one drive-in theatre out on a rural road that was only fifteen minutes away.

The drive-in was only open during the warm summer months. In the mountains, the evenings can still be rather cool so the season is short. In the winter when the drive-in was closed, the marquee posted this message:

CLOSED FOR THE SEASON – REASON FREEZIN’

I am pretty sure I saw the movie The Pirates of Blood River there. I remember the scene with the piranha very well.

When we lived with our grandparents, I was often sent to chaperone my sister and her boyfriend on their movie dates. I remember he drove a black El Camino (maybe a ‘62) and my sister would be in the middle, and I was sitting by the passenger door.

This particular drive-in did not have swing sets up front like some other drive-ins at the time so I was a full on pain in the rear I am sure! Every time he kissed my sister I counted the kiss OUT LOUD. I can remember him giving me a quarter to go to the concession stand just to get rid of me for a few minutes.

When we returned home, I always reported back just how many times my sister and her boyfriend kissed. Of course that did not count all the times I was sent to the concession stand! I should have raised my rates.

Are you a talker in the movie theatre? Did you know it is a cultural thing? When I think of talking in movie theaters I remember my children watching Mystery Science Theatre 3000. The lead characters were tortured by being forced to watch old B movies. The characters watching the films always talked over the audio. Did you watch? Were you a fan?

G is for Garnet

Garnets are minerals closely related in makeup thereby forming what is known as a group. From this group of minerals you will find almost every color of gemstone.

Because of their varying chemical composition, they range in hardness from 6 to 7.5 on the Mohs scale.

Garnet is the birthstone for January and most people associate garnet with the red variety. When my grandson was young, he was obsessed with gems and minerals. When he discovered his birthstone was garnet he was disappointed. He did not understand why with all the beautiful gemstones, he got ‘stuck’ with garnet. But he was so wrong. Garnets are beautiful stones.

Garnets are a group of minerals, divided into different ‘species’ and further defined within the species by a ‘variety’ or color. There are more than 20 ‘species’ of garnet, but only six are used for gems:

almandine (incorrectly called almandite) is a red stone, often referred to as precious garnet. It is the most common garnet gemstone.
andradite may be red, yellow, brown, green or black. The green variety called demantoid is one of the most sought after gemstones.
grossular (grossularite) can be green, red, cinnamon, or yellow varieties.
spessartine has varieties that are orange-yellow or violet-red.
pyrope has colors ranging from deep red to black.
uvarovite is a rare bright green species of garnet (although the crystals are too small to cut).

Garnets have many industrial uses. Garnet paper, a very fine sandpaper, is a preferred abrasive used by cabinet makers. Garnet sand is also used as a water filtration media. Crushed garnet is used an abrasive in both sandblasting and water jet cutting.

The world’s largest garnets have been discovered in the Adirondacks near Gore Mountain in New York. But there is also an extremely rare and extremely large garnet that was said to have been found when digging was done for subway system in New York (which was later determined not to be true). As a result the stone is known as the Subway Garnet. Click here to read about this 9 pound almondine garnet taken out of storage in 2021 and re-displayed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

The Smithsonian has a display of the color range exhibited within the grossular garnet series. You can see the photo here.

The following photo is of a demantoid variety of an andradite garnet.