Cat On a Hot Tin Roof

So I think I'm going to part-time as a movie reviewer. I'm going to start with a movie I saw for the first time ever the other night.

It was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof from 1958. I know...I'm not always current on the latest releases, but I'm not getting paid for this, so deal with it.

From what I got of the movie, there were main characters names Brick, Big Daddy, Big Mama, and Gooper.  Seriously?  I think that was the first problem. My mind had a hard time paying attention to a movie that doesn't care any more than that about naming its characters.

Maybe they'll make up for the lack of imagination in naming with great lines.

"WHY DON'T YOU GO UP THERE AND DRINK WITH BRICK IF THE CONQUERIN' HERO HASN'T PASSED OUT ALREADY? HE MAY HAVE TO PASS UP THE SUGAR BOWL THIS YEAR OR WAS IT THE ROSE BOWL HE MADE HIS FAMOUS RUN IN?"

"IT WAS THE PUNCH BOWL, HONEY, THE CUT-GLASS PUNCH BOWL."

"WHAT'S THAT SMELL IN THIS ROOM? DIDN'T YOU NOTICE IT, BRICK? DIDN'T YOU NOTICE A POWERFUL AND OBNOXIOUS ODOR OF MENDACITY IN THIS ROOM?"

If the caps are obnoxious, that's what I got from the movie. I think the only time no one was yelling was when I dozed off. How can I sleep through all that yelling? That's the problem. When everyone is yelling through the entire thing, it all just becomes background noise, and my brain tunes it out.

What a shame. I bet Brick, Gooper and Big Daddy could have been marvelous conversationalists.

And "mendacity"? My wife had to look it up for me. I don't remember now what she told me it means. I'd look it up again, but I don't really care.

Overall, I was less than impressed with "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", in case my review up to this point hasn't made that clear.

Oh, and by the way, I know I dozed through some of it, but I never even saw a cat. And I don't think they ever showed the roof, so if it was up there, I didn’t see it. And it was raining through a lot of the film, so I don't think the roof was very hot at all. And if the cat were up there, I'm thinking he's not very happy.

Maybe that's why everyone was yelling.

RC Cola and Memories

I used to tell people I was born fifty years later than I should have been.

I miss the days when we would play outside without worrying about locking our doors.

I miss the days when a grown man could hug a child without worrying that people were thinking he was some kind of pervert.

I miss the days when being a bad kid at school meant you talked in class, chewed gum, or (heaven-forbid) copied off another student.

Lately, I have realized that I am so very thankful to be living in the time we are living. So many wonderful things that make me thankful.

Air-conditioning. Medication. And diet sodas that don't taste diet.

I love the Diet Dr. Pepper ads. "Tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper."

Than what? A fistful of dirt? Perhaps.

The newest rage, started by Dr. Pepper is the "10" movement. As I write this, I'm finishing off an RC Cola 10.

The last time I had an RC was probably as a teenager. I say that because as I drink it, memories flood my mind.

I can vividly remember sitting at the breakfast table of Nana and Daddad's home in Leisure World in Mesa Arizona, looking out the window at the Superstition Mountains in the distance.

It amazes me that I can smell something, or taste something, and so clearly remember something from more than thirty years ago. Then I have a hard time remembering where I set my keys ten minutes before.

There are so many wonderful memories from back then. Listening to Nana tell such incredible stories from their travels...sleeping in the second bedroom on the rollaway beds, reading the Snoopy books. I still remember the ones where Snoopy was imitating Lucy by rolling his ears into the shape of her hair, and mimicking her angry movements.

I remember the beautiful sound the little clock in the front hallway made when it chimed on the quarter hours, and the song it played every hour. I remember the pocket door on the hall bath. I had never seen one before that, and thought it was about the coolest thing ever.

I remember walking to the community center, and putting twenty-five cents in the gumball machine to get Kix cereal out to feed the Koi.

I remember the train set in the garage, and how cool his setup was. I remember the family houses he had lovingly constructed out of balsa wood.

Thinking of Nana and Daddad, I also have vivid memories of the house they had in El Paso, although the images come back in smaller pieces.

But I remember sitting in the little bar area eating cereal for breakfast, or cold cuts for lunch. I remember it was off the kitchen, which was separated from the rest of the house by folding accordion doors.

I remember the orange carpet in the front bedroom and the dark red tile in the kitchen and back den. I remember the rock wall in the backyard, and how cool it all looked to me. I remember playing with the white plastic thunderbird cars on the wooden footrests in the living room.

I remember the hazelnut coffee in the morning, and how wonderful it smelled. As an adult, I smelled that, and the memories came rushing back. It was only then that I learned it was hazelnut.

How can it be that so many vivid memories survived for so many years?

I believe it was because of the people that were my Nana and Daddad.

I only got to see them once a year or so. But it was my favorite place in the whole world.

It took growing older to realize people make the home, not the furnishings. And it makes me realize what wonderful people Nana and Daddad truly were.

I know that if I live to be a hundred, I will never stop missing them, and the beautiful memories they gave me.