Sidney McDonald takes tickets during his shift at the downtown Carmike Cinema location in Chattanooga. A lifelong Chattanooga resident, McDonald says he loves his job and the people he gets to interact with at work.Sidney McDonald had grown accustomed to lurching forward, blue and white braces strapped to his legs to keep them from buckling. But for 13 years, his legs haven’t carried him at all.
Now he sits.
He sits when he works, straining to tear tickets at the cinema, straining to save the torn halves, repeating step-by-step directions to the 3-D theater or the bathroom, sometimes so precisely that he gets a few dollars as a tip.
“Welcome to Carmike Cinema,” he says to the tourists that come in from the streets downtown.
“Hey, what’s up? Welcome to the movies,” he says to the regulars.