The End of an Era

John Bernard Books: Damn. 

Bond Rogers: John Bernard, you swear too much. 

John Bernard Books: The hell I do.

From The Shootist (1976) starring John Wayne and Lauren Becall.

And...

we're back!

I spent the morning watching parts of and thinking about The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. An outstanding movie to watch again and again. (Trust me on this as I have watched it again and again and again... .)

There's an exchange early on in the flashback I can't stop thinking about. 

Hallie-- the assertive, confident young woman-- reveals to Rance-- the attorney-at-law from back East-- that she cannot read or write. She is at first embarrassed and then angry that she's embarrassed. "What good's readin' and writin' done you?" she asks him almost on the brink of tears, "Look at you! In an apron!"

A few minutes later, a calmer Hallie talks with Rance about his offer to teach her. "Do you think you could? I mean, teach me to read and write? At my age?" 

She's down right excited! It will be a sore comfort to read the words of the Bible herself. 

She goes to Nora-- the older, motherly Swedish woman. Rance stands behind her.

"Nora! Did you hear?! Rance is going to learn me to read and write!"

"'Teach,' Hallie. 'Teach me,'" he corrects.

"Teach," she repeats calmly.

 Those two lines portend the rest of Hallie's life in the civilized world.

Spring, 1924

I have in my library of crappy old books an entire collection of cheap reprinted Zane Grey novels. I'm still tracking down the story on the collection. The volumes all look the same, but the dates are suspect.  For those interested, this is the best explanation I've found.

It's taken me a day or two to figure out how to efficiently catalog them all-- there must be 75 or more and I was not inclined to slog through the differences between "Black's Reader Service Company, New York" and "Walter J. Black, Roslyn New York." 

I finally figured out how to efficiently hold the book in my hands and explore it for a minute or two.

I'm glad I did because if I hadn't, I might have missed this:

A Thought with Three Examples

"Wise men following the star" p.409 of Bible Story Book: A Complete Narration from Genesis to Revelation for Young and Old by Elsie E. Egermeir, published by The Warner Press, Anderson, Indiana in 1922.

The thought-- which I'm sure you have thought many times-- is that kids these days just don't know very much of their own histories, customs, heritages.

Example #1: Today is January 6-- Epiphany, the customary day in many Christian circles to take down and put away all of your Christmas decorations. I simply don't understand the confusion. "It's December 26th. It's over! Be done with it!" Geeze. Even that infallible source Wikipedia has an entry on Epiphany.

Example #2: Mr. Big Food and I watched the final episode of the 2nd season of Saturday Night this evening. The episode aired in May 1977. During "Weekend Update," Jane referred to the 50th anniversary of a singular event. There was then an entire skit devoted to this event: Lindbergh's non-stop trans-Atlantic flight. I'd wager no one had to explain to viewers in 1977 who Lindbergh was. Today?

Example #2': Not that SNL is all that remarkable in the very grand scheme of things, but shouldn't everyone know who "Jane" is?

Example #3: This week, Mr. Big Food will have occasion to watch Shane with some younger folk. Over a year ago I posted this:

I was in the company of a handful of folks this afternoon. We watched The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Most of the folks were 21-22; three of us were 50 or 50+. (Apologies, Michael, if you are only 49.) 

The question, "Who's seen the movie Shane?" came up. Three less-than-perfectly-smooth hands went up.

  

~~
I was thinking about these examples today in the context of all of the hand-wringing on the World Wide Web about changing the culture. 

For crying out loud! It ain't all that difficult. Grab some kids, pop some corn, read some Bible stories, watch old episodes of SNL and a few crappy old Western movies.

How appropriate

is it that a couple of days after Columbus Day I've fallen off the blog map?

Quite.

Tonight we-- Mr Big Food, Miss M. & I-- watched The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. It's the gateway movie. After you've seen it three or four times, you begin to understand heroes and cowards. After thirty-four times, you still wonder what was in Haley's hat box.

Haley seems to me to be the most tragic character. She was so feisty when she was young.

"I love you, Shane."

I was in the company of a handful of folks this afternoon. We watched The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Most of the folks were 21-22; three of us were 50 or 50+. (Apologies, Michael, if you are only 49.) 

The question, "Who's seen the movie Shane?" came up. Three less-than-perfectly-smooth hands went up.

~~

It's at this point that I just want to gloat. If I had said, with the proper voice inflection, "Shane..." when The Girls were all here, I would have been met with a chorus of, "Shane... I love you, Shane." (I have similar feelings about every single string of words in White Christmas.) And that makes me a really Good Mother (even though our rhetoric isn't quite true).

Joey: Shane! Come back!
Joey: I just love Shane!
Joey: Pa's got things for you to do. And Mother wants you. I know she does!
Shane: [to Joey] You go home to your mother and your father and grow up to be strong and straight.

All memorable quotes from this movie here.

~~

Mr. Big Food, Daughter C., and I watched Rudolph last evening. Daughter C. did some live but not online blogging while we were watching. It's all very incorrect. There are all manner of isms in Rudolph. And by-gum there ain't no icebergs anymore, as Nora would say.

~~

It's disturbing to me that young people in more or less Rural Mississippi don't know Shane.