Maria and I love movies, and we love the 100-year-old theater in Williamstown, Mass. where the best movies come ($10 a movie, if you are a member) and the refreshments are healthy and good.

I usually get a small box of popcorn and Maria loves their ginger cookies. It’s rarely crowded and intimate and comfortable. It’s about 45 minutes for us, and when you live up here, that’s not a long ride. We go there these days for take-out Indian and Asian food.

We miss our little theater. Doug Jones, the Image Cinema manager is valiant and enterprising. He picks out movies, and we stream them at home, the fee goes to the theater still.

In one of his recent e-mails, he said he was happy to come down to the theater and sell people the refreshments they liked before watching the movies he recommends.

I took him up on that, e-mailing him (I’d never seen him or met him) and said we were planning to come to Williamstown Sunday afternoon for Indian take-out and I’d love to get some popcorn and a ginger cookie for Maria and also give the theater a donation.

We very much want them to survive.

We are worried about the theater, it’s been closed for nearly a month, but they have loyal followers, Doug says they will survive, they don’t expect to open again until sometime this summer.

Doug was at the theater when we walked in ( I brought Zinnia, she was disturbed by her reflection in a glass door and growled at it.)

Doug was there, tending to the theater. He seemed lonely to me, but he would only say it was quiet. He is busy working on donations and keeping tabs on the movies that might or might not come out in the coming weeks.

He said it is nice to meet some of the people who come to the theater, he is normally too busy.

I can imagine it’s been a very difficult time for him. How strange to be alone so much in an empty movie theater.

concession and ticket sales are the primary source of revenue for the small theater, it must be frightening to live in this limbo, and then wonder what they will have to do to re-open.

I said we were very loyal to the theater and to let us know if there was any way we could help. Honestly, I’m not sure what that would be. But he said he appreciated meeting the members and knowing that they cared.

We thanked him for the fun movies he’s been offering for streaming we can support the theater and still see fine movies.

Every day I think of how strange these days are and how many ways there are to make a connection with other humans, which is so important but never harder. I fight for every chance to make contact with another human being, it is food and air for me, even though masks and six feet apart.

We love to get out and ride around, and the Indian meal was wonderful. Next time, we’ll do Thai.

I was glad to meet Doug. We kept our social distance, all wore masks. He is a nice guy and a great movie lover. I’ve never met a movie theater manager before, and I’ve been going to movies my entire life. Another gift from the coronavirus.

He and I would probably never have met in a different time.

We left with a bag of corn kernels to pop  (I’ve never popped corn before) and two ginger cookies. It was nice to meet Doug.