Movies Go Postal

When we first moved to Point Roberts, some fifteen or so years ago, there was a movie theatre in Tsawwassen...right there where the Thrifty parking lot is.  We went there fairly often.  The tickets were about $7.00 each, as I recall.  It was very much like the Orpheum Theatre in Pocatello, Idaho, where I began my moviegoing career 67 years ago.  I've always loved the movies, so I suppose it was inevitable that I ended up in Los Angeles for so many years.

But, I digress, a little.  What I have always found that I missed since I left L.A. was not the cultural amenities but the movie access, so Tsawwassen's little theatre meant a lot to me.  And then, they tore it down and we were obliged to trek 20 minutes drive across to Steveston to the big theatre with 18 screens, each one larger than the next one, each one louder than the next one, each one providing a, for me, not very satisfactory movie experience.  But to Steveston we went.

Then, Netflix arrived.  We were among its earliest subscribers and I did not much mind that I did not have to leave the house to see a movie, that I did not have to have blaring sound or constant quick edits on a giant screen.  I was happy with the small screen.  And the price was tolerable.  And then the price went down.  And now, we get a notice that the price is going up a bit, but that we can watch endless movies on streaming video and also have an endless supply of movies coming to us via the post office.  Better than Los Angeles access ever was, I have to say, although I have yet to watch a movie on my I-Pad, even though Ed says it's very tolerable.

Anyway, the point of all this is that just as Netflix begins to give up its postal business (which it surely will if streaming works out okay from a band access point of view), the Post Office here on the Point has given it official recognition.  There used to be two slots where you mailed letters at the Post Office.  One was 'Outgoing" (that is to say, the rest of the world); the other was 'Point Roberts.'  The Point Roberts slot was discontinued a couple of years ago since all the mail goes to Bellingham to be sorted nowadays.  But yesterday I saw that the second slot had been brought back to life.  Its label?  Netflix Only.