Adventures in Moviegoing

Makes for a nice title, doesn't it? The truth is though there's no adventure here, just a few recollections of moviegoing that stuck with me. 

In 1954, my parents took me to the drive-in theater to see the current re-release of Walt Disney’s PINOCCHIO. Very exciting. But, as is intended for all toddlers, I fell asleep in the back seat of the car about 15-20 minutes into the movie. I was preemptively dressed in my pajamas and was equipped with blanket and pillow. I do have one memory of the bit of PINOCCHIO which I did see. I remember The Blue Fairy. After that, a good night’s sleep.

The first movie I ever saw in a theater was THE SHAGGY DOG in the summer of 1959. I was 9 years old. It was also the one and only occasion on which our family in full ventured out to the movies. Both of my parents, both of my siblings and myself. 

It was a big deal for me. It remains a big deal for me. And I loved the movie, which was perfect for a 9-year-old in1959. I almost missed it, however. Just a week or two earlier, I had been so upset that a TV episode was ending before I wanted it to that I burst into tears. My mom was very upset and said if I got that bent out of shape about a TV show maybe we shouldn't go to the movies. Thankfully it turned out that I was just coming down with some sort of flu bug which certainly had been the cause of my breakdown. 

My dad left us about 2 months after that movie outing. I don't really think THE SHAGGY DOG had anything to do with it and I've never blamed it. My dad simply was a small town cop who fell in lust with a diner waitress. Not nearly so poetic as Tennessee Williams’s “telephone lineman who fell in love with long distances.”

Actually, “small town cop + diner waitress” sounds like it has possibilities. If somebody had killed somebody during that mess, James M. Cain might have made a feast of it. But nobody killed nobody and I guess that's good. I guess.