When I was little, I worried about existential crises, like whether I would need to smoke cigarettes when I grew up, or how, or, more importantly, why anyone would find a woman to love me when the time came. At seven, I worried about my career (bounty hunter or conductor of a symphony orchestra), whether China would drop the atom bomb, tyrants, or a lonely impure thought that would gently waft in minutes after confession and an eternity before tomorrow’s Holy Communion.
Despite broken hearts, overdue bills, or the worry of not being myself once again, there was The Movies. What a profoundly beautiful interlude, two stolen hours, and no 12-ton devil next to me. Darkness. Air conditioning. If the bags jingled, there was even popcorn, a hot dog, Milk Duds, and an ice-cold Coca-Cola with that satisfying splash of crushed ice. In my early years, the extra-large size came close to my actual physical capacity.
The last few weeks? I’m in heaven. My daughter is a senior at a snooty and old New York university and will be home in August. After chores or field trips, we start our evenings with dinner in front of the TV and watch a movie. Or three. OK. Sometimes four. I remember her first. Indiana Boston was 5. Her mother and I were separated. She refused media until our daughter’s 44th birthday, but my hearing has always been devilishly picky. It was back in the days of Blockbuster, when you had to get in the car, drive to a video store, stroll the aisles and rent a movie. For 99 cents. Today? I’ve bought cars for less than my monthly subscriptions to Amazon Prime, Netflix and YouTube and DESPITE IT have to pay four dollars to rent a damn movie.
Back in the day, in our Iron Canyon Rancho, we had matching denim couches in the living room. The little couch was called “The Safety Couch.” Our forever deal? I told my feisty little relative that if she could somehow make it onto the Safety Couch, she would be safe from any scary monster, polar bear, evil, or parental consequence. Some of my fondest memories are of running after her at full speed down our long hallway. Indy had this awesome inflatable giant plastic hammer that squeaked, and she would run like mad toward the living room, me a breath behind her, pounding the carpet behind her heels. Squeak!! Squeak!! Squeak!! Within feet of the safety couch, she flew into the air. I circled behind my back with a giant red and yellow hammer, assuring her like Dracula that if she would just slide off the Safety Couch and onto the carpet, all would be safe. The first movie she ever saw was “The Twins.” The original with Haley Mills “… and Haley Mills!!”, was the temptation in the original advertisements for the 1961 Disney film. Indy was still sucking her thumb and holding her belly button, a habit she eventually gave up before college. She leaned back comfortably in a fortress of pillows. After a minute of the film, she looked over at me and gave me an extremely enthusiastic thumbs up. Her smile filled the room.
Certainly nothing against Christianity, but I often took refuge in the dark chapel of the movie theater. In my early years there were delightful fillers like newsreels and cartoons, cheesy commercials with dancing corn dogs and gleefully overflowing popcorn containers. The greatest hope beyond all hope were previews of new attractions. I loved the previews. It was an assurance. No matter how great my problems, love would win, civilization would advance. On Wednesday mornings, I would run to grab the soggy morning paper. Then the movie listings would be updated. Gender-wise, I am as straight as Interstate 5 beyond Bakersfield. But at 8? I was cutting out the huge ads from the movie section. Some of you are approaching middle age like me? Remember? Page after page of the newspaper full of oversized movie ads? My walls were papered with well-soaped Steve Reeves performing as “Hercules.” I was a hopeless romantic even then, cutting out flyers for Rock Hudson and Doris Day movies.
Tickets were 25 cents, which was rare in the 1950s. Sometimes you got lucky and there were 10 cent matinees on weekdays (for kids who should be in school). There were double shows, sometimes triple shows. Most of America wasn’t that far removed from horse ownership. Westerns and the male art of shooting your problems, or at least punching them in the nose, were acceptable social behavior.
Sigh. How society has drifted.
My daughter is now 21. Recently we watched the cartoon “Bolt” for the 257th time. We both – Despite it — want a real dog, Exactly – like – Bolt. I have a film library that has been rattling around in my lame brain for my entire life. Indy? She doesn’t want to watch anything “old.” That is, before 2014. It’s a bit of a bummer, but we sit together on our couches in the dark and smile. I offer films that she wouldn’t dream of watching. Recently there was a double screening of The Judge and The Razor’s Edge, two of the better films of recent years. She loved it.
I’m happy to report that my daughter no longer sucks her thumb, but still gives me the thumbs up in an enthusiastic, childlike way. In the middle of a movie, she regularly asks, “Daddy, can you make me popcorn?”
That is one of the sweetest questions anyone has ever asked me.
I wonder what the movies she watches will be like in half a century, when she approaches middle age (like me)? Full of screaming dinosaurs and wistful lovelies? Face pies and spaceship chases? At the end of the movie, will there be that grumpy hero on a horse, sweater-less, staring off into the distant horizon, heading for the snow-capped mountains of winter?
My cinema wish?
I hope that in my daughter’s future there is that special person who watches movies with her, who loves her so much that he makes her popcorn…
John Boston of Santa Clarita is the world’s most prolific satirist. Summer reading, so visit his bookstore at johnbostonbooks.com. Pick up “Adam Henry.” You’ll love it…
