PERVERTS & THE PINK PANTHER

As with most women, I've had many experiences with creepy men. Today I'm sharing one that happened in 1964. I was barely 13.

Back then, my mother & I were renting a small apartment in West Palm Beach on weekdays, so I could attend the "special" school there. We came home on weekends and holidays. This entire year was an aberration, but a welcome one! The kids at this school were much nicer than the ones in my hometown. There were no cliques or caste system, everyone was your friend.

My mother loved to shop and West Palm Beach was paradise to her. We'd catch the city bus into what used to be the center of the city. Here, were far more choices than the small coastal town in which we lived. However shopping was tiresome to me, plus I never thought much of my mother's taste. Also she was a pain to be around! Mom was a puncher and a pincher!

Rather than listen to me complain, she'd drop me off at a movie and pick me up later. This was a treat! I'd been going to the movies alone since the age of 9. It was a different world back then! Little kids had more freedom and were usually safe. And I had just become a teenager!

School had ended an hour earlier. There were 3 large theatres close together. Unlike today, all had only one screen but each featured a different film.

I chose the Pink Panther movie. It was titled A Shot in the Dark with Peter Sellers. Also starring was a German actress named Elke Sommer; beautiful as a goddess she was now an up-and-comer in Hollywood. I had recently read all about her in a movie magazine.

The inside of the theatre was enormous. I avoided the long center rows because they were too peopley. Always I would choose one of the two shorter side rows. Nowadays, most have just one big center row because multiple choices are offered under one roof.

I seated myself half-way down the middle of a right row. I was a bit early and cartoons were playing followed by a Three Stooges short. About two rows ahead of me and two seats over sat a man in his late-20's or early 30's. He laughed a lot at the funny scenes and then looked back at me. As he did, his eyes always lingered. This made me uncomfortable.

After the opening credits of the movie he got up and left. I felt a tremendous sense of relief! But then he returned! This time, he sat down in MY row just ONE seat away from me! This was a big red flag and I knew he was up to no good! So I grabbed my purse and took off. I practically had to jump over his long legs to get out, but no way was I remaining in that seat!

Perhaps he had mistaken me for older? I wore lipstick (a light shade) and I dressed like an older teen (but not trampy). Maybe in the dark light of the theatre I looked 15? But 15 is still a kid and he was an adult!

Afterward I walked over to the left side and took the aisle seat in the back row. At the far opposite end sat a middle aged man with a mustache who was around my father's age. He looked harmless enough. But he kept getting up! And I noticed every time he came back he would move closer to me! Finally, there was only ONE empty seat between us. "Oh no, not again!" I whispered to myself with a sigh of disgust. I scooped up my purse and fled this lecher, too.

I stood between the center and right rows wondering where to sit, next. Thankfully, the previous perv was gone, or else well-hidden. I returned to the right row and chose another aisle seat in the event I needed a quick escape. However a few seats away sat two middle-aged women, so I felt relatively safe this time. I enjoyed the rest of the movie in peace.

Never had I experienced that kind of problem inside a theatre before or after, never in all these years. Yet on that late afternoon long ago I encountered double debauchers. Perhaps there was a rare cosmic event in the skies that day that brought them all out.

I never told my mother about those men, fearing she would put an end to my going to the movies alone.