Cruising

An old time activity for passing the nights was cruising. Cruising was as simple as getting a group of friends and pilling them in a car to spend the evening together. I never fully lived in a cruising culture and yet I miss it. It seems such simple and pure fun.

I once had a teacher who spoke nostalgically of cruising. He told us they would get in that old car roll down the windows and drive. They did not need somewhere to go. That appeals to me. I feel that today everyone must be busy doing something or going somewhere in a hurry. To be driving just for joy of it.

On of my favorite movies is George Lucas’ American Graffiti; it’s a cruising movie. The film is set almost entirely at night, usually in a car and always within earshot of the car’s radio. One night after I first got my license I was driving down a large boulevard when a beautiful 1956 Chevy pulled out in front of me. I began admiring the car when I suddenly feel into the most captivating nostalgia I have ever experienced. I missed my turn and had to make the next.

The best part of cruising at night is the lighting. At night the street lights up, the streets clear and the dark hides much of the town’s flaws. Drive though an old part of town with the modern parts hidden by the night and you’ll drive into another age. Go out late enough on a large empty boulevard an you can hit all greens.

Beauty Grows Slowly

Something that must have stood the test of time to gain true and complete beauty is an old tree. I love old trees, especially big old oaks. For me the trees are often the best part of visiting places that have changed little with the passing of time. If you haven’t noticed it is usually the places that have gone through time with little change that are the most beautiful. Places like Italy, an old university, grand old buildings, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite Valley.

In those places the changes that have occurred are slow coming and only add to the beauty of those places. Trees are a part those slow changes, slowly growing taller, fuller and more gnarly.

I love driving to an old part of town and finding the tree lined neighborhoods. They have to be old trees who have spent the years stretching out across the sky to met their branches above the center of the road.

The new parts of towns have thin spindly trees that provide little shade and little joy. I am reminded of the saying “Only God can make a tree” and want to add “and it takes time.”

It's a Wonderful Life = Christmas

We are now approaching Christmas and for me one of the greatest parts of Christmas is the James Stewart movie It’s a Wonderful Life. This wonderful movie is often what gets me in the Christmas spirit.

It is such a solid classic and a warm picture of what a past generation of Americans valued and cherished. It is driven by the message that each individual is important and interconnected with so many others. This message and the skill in delivering it caused the American Film Institute to name it the most inspiring film of all time.

There are so many marvelous scenes in the movie and it seems a different one gets me each time. The dancing at the prom is always entertaining and a joy. The following scene “Buffalo Girls” is also humorous and heart-warming setting you up for the crash of the father’s death.

This year the scene that affected me most came after George Bailey discovers he wants to live again and God gives him his life back. He searches for proof finding the petals that had fallen off his little girl’s rose in his pocket where he had hid them. “Zuzu’s petals, Zuzu’s petals.”

Do yourself a favor and watch It’s a Wonderful Life early this Christmas. It will make your enjoyment of the Christmas season fuller and longer.

Star Wars in Childhood

The creation of Star Wars may not be too far into the past but it originated before my time. The Star Wars films are something I experienced secondhand and so did everyone else in my generation. What interests me about Star Wars as an object of nostalgia is the way it continued to be the strong cultural influence in recent generations as it was in the first.

When Star Wars first came out it gave that generation something completely new and exciting. There must have been something special about seeing those films when they first came into theaters; anticipation, surprise, and wonder. It seems that could not be recreated today. Especially because Star Wars is so important to our culture, it is alluded to in every form of media (cartoons, movies, commercials and our speech). Even it you manage to live until adulthood without seeing them you know what there is to be known.

Part of what keeps Star Wars central to our lives is the attempt to hold on to this element of Star Wars’ greatness. It cannot truly be relived, but people do their best. And part of that is to instill their love and amazement into the younger generations.

Thanks to their efforts Star Wars remains something special, especially within childhood. As children the movies were new to us, and they held so much imagination within them: Wookies, Jawas, Ewoks, lightsabers, and spaceships. Our imaginations (I think especially the boys) stemmed off those ideas in our play.

I remember I always wanted one of those speeders they used in Return of the Jedi.

Just recently, they were showing a commercial where a man carved the Thanksgiving turkey with a miniature lightsaber impressing all present.

For years I associated the sounds and images of the 20th Century Fox and THX solely to Star Wars. Even today when I hear those sounds I think of Star Wars.

Comfort in Familiarity

Writing my last post got me thinking of the fondness we have for familiarity.

Writing about Bernice’s rolls reminded me of the time of a returning visit from an old friend who had moved away. On the weekend of her visit, she attended our church and after the service there was a potluck. On her way to the area of the church were the potlucks are held she came up to us (I was sitting with two friends) at the last pew commenting how everything is still the same. She then moved on the repeat the observation when coming to Bernice’s rolls at the end of the table; right where she left them. She seemed delighted to be surrounded by familiarity.

There is some of that in each of us. It is what makes our own beds comfortable and inviting above all others. The first night in your own bed after a long vacation is magical. Also when returning home from somewhere unfamiliar one of the first places we go to is our own restroom. Time has done this. We come to love those things we have a history with. We are most comfortable in familiarity.

Right now, I am living outside of my hometown and on returning to it, after an extended period of time, I enjoy driving through town. I go through the old downtown, through the older tree lined neighborhoods of unique houses (very different from the modern cookie-cutter track homes). It is especially nice to drive streets I know well, streets I have been traveling all my life. The people walking those streets even look familiar though they are strangers.

Bernice's Rolls

Reminiscence and nostalgia come naturally come when thinking of or discussing certain topics, and food is one. Whenever in a discussion about food there is always the mention of mothers, grandmothers and sweet old ladies. And by nature these mothers and sweet old ladies are also some of the most devoted members of the local churches.

This gives rise to the glorious tradition of the church potluck. These potlucks may take place in the present but they draw their strength from the past. It is an old tradition. Often it dates back to the birth of the church.

You gather together with people you have known and loved all your life. Then you eat from the multitudes of vastly varying homemade foods from recipes that have been passed down from one generation to the next to be made by the skilled hands moved to a perfection achieved through the life time of cooking experience of your Sunday school teacher.

Bernice’s rolls are a large part of my understanding of church potlucks. Of the various foods offered on those ‘Love Feasts’ Bernice’s rolls enjoyed a special popularity and became a requirement for every event. They were consistently perfect. They always came in the same pans and sat in the place at the ends of the tables making finding and retrieving them easier. Without them the potluck would be incomplete.

I guess each church has its own special potluck dishes provided through the years by beautiful people and fine cooks. What are yours?

Workmanship of Craftsman

Something that I admire that has come from generations past is a pride in workmanship. For me the purist example of this still present today is Craftsman tools. Each Craftsman tool automatically comes with an unlimited lifetime warranty that lasts as long as the original buyer owns the tool. They have been doing this since 1927. If your grandfather bought a wrench in 1927 and it broke today he would get a new one today. If you by a Craftsman tool the only reason you would ever buy that tool again would be if yours was lost or stolen.

The funny thing about the warranty is that it is all but rendered useless by the high quality of their tools. I have never heard of the need to return a Craftsman tool, and everybody uses them. I have literally never even heard a farfetched myth that a Craftsman tool has ever broken. These tools have outlasted their original owners. They get traded and sold at yard sales, swap meets and car shows.

At times, I wonder if it were not for the fast growing population Craftsman’s fine workmanship would soon push them into bankruptcy. You would think a set of tools would just be passed from one generation to the next. It does not happen that way. No one wants to part with their tools.

Th African Queen

Often when watching old movies I begin to wonder what it is that makes them so different, so special. I believe it is a number of things, and that acting is one of the most influential. The actors in those old movies are the greatest of film.

The African Queen starring Humphrey Bogart and Catherine Hepburn is the greatest acted film ever made. Just recently I watched the movie after not seeing it for a while and was stunned once again by the perfection of the performances. I was so awestruck by the acting that I watched it again the next day (something I almost never do).

The skills and talents of Bogart and Hepburn were so great they demanded deeper discussion. Why is the acting in this movie stand so stark against everything else? One reason would be the simple fact that this is the greatest actor of all time teamed with quite possibly the greatest actress of all time. And they have a natural chemistry!

Bogart and Hepburn are in the later years of their careers when the movie was made, and were at the peak of their abilities. Because it was later in their careers they not only had natural talent but the wisdom and skills only experience can give. They are give a clever script then placed alone on the small setting of a river boat so their performances are not dragged down by lesser talents. The African Queen is great acting and only great acting.

Their performances are what make the film so precious. I have been using the words ‘acting’ and ‘actors’ but they are really misleading. Watching the movie, their performances are so natural and real there are many moments where you will lose yourself forgetting you are watching a performance through the glass. They remove the boundaries separating you in realty and them in your TV causing you to feel you are watching the true reactions of people rather than the prepared actions of characters.

The superiority of their acting to anything else ever filmed has to be seen to be believed, but once you see it you will believe.

Mystery Fuels Adventure

One of my favorite books is Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Within the opening pages of Heart of Darkness, Conrad’s narrating character, Marlow, speaks of the wonder, mystery and adventure hidden within the blank spaces of maps. When the story was told, when the book was written these blank spaces were shrinking. The potential adventures were shrinking with those blank spaces.

"Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps . I would look for hours at South America,or Africa, or Australia and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, When I grow up I will go there… True, by this time it was not a blank space any more. It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery—a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness."

I remember as a child the unknown provided room for the imagination to stretch. The less you understood of the world the more adventure there was in it. This could be the reason we grow less adventurous as we grow older.

Going back to the mystery of the blank maps, those spaces have been filled and the endless possibilities of adventure lost. So far this adventure has never been completely lost. When the European explorers sailed to the ends of the earth exposing all that was mysterious, human sense of adventure took to the unknown lands. The manifest destiny sent adventurous pilgrims west. Once the seas and lands were fully explored we took to the skies. The adventurers were the Wrights, Charles Lindbergh, and Amelia Earhart.

The concurring of the skies led to the jet age which opened a whole new mysterious void to renew our adventurous spirit, space. Those of that time quickly grasped the mysteries and explorations of space, and once again imaginations ran free and wild. We have massive amounts of science fiction as artifacts of those times. We also have the products of the good and evils of space age technology. My high school had a bomb shelter under a library that was built during the Cold War.

With the increase in technology and the use of satellites and space probes the once huge and overwhelming mysteries of space are quickly being filled. What will be the mysteries that fuel the adventures of future generations? Where will our imaginations lead us now?