07 April 2010
Back on March tenth, I mentioned that my wife and I went to the theater to see the film The Lovely Bones. This entirely mediocre film was required viewing for my class. We sent Owen off to his grandparents and drove into my least favorite city in the metro area. We paid for two tickets, and we sat and watched this appropriately neglected mish-mash of superfluousness.
When it came time to read the book upon which the film was based, I paid special attention to the differences; I intended to fashion my essay on this foundation. I mean, it worked well with A Raisin in the Sun: I read the play and watched the film, and I wrote my essay on a contrasting of the two media. (At least, I think it went well – I haven’t received my grade for that yet.)
Anyway, I mention all of this because the course syllabus clearly states on its April 7th entry: “The Lovely Bones: Be sure to see the film version by now.” In class today, the professor asked who had taken time and money out of the busy schedules to go see the assigned flick. Only five people raised their hand (~15%).
This was fine with me. Actually, it was great: trumping my classmates is kind of my gimmick. But then – get this – the professor announces she didn’t see the film yet. And since it’s no longer playing in any metro area theaters (and not on DVD yet), she ain’t gonna see it before the semester’s end.
So she said to just forget about the film when it came time to construct our essays. Really?
08 April 2010
From age five to, oh, age 15, there were four toys that I liked best (I’m using the term “toy” quite loosely here):
-Toy cars. You know, the Hot Wheel and Matchbox variety.I had >200 of them; including a couple little cities.
-Board Games. Card games were fine, too. I had nearly 100 board/card/dice games at one point.
-Legos. I actually wasn’t much into building “sets” (e.g., Star Wars, the Eiffel Tower), but instead preferred freestyling.
-Viewmasters. You know: like those old stereoscopes that you held up to the light.
Funny thing: I still have many of those items. I gave Owen most of my toy cars, but I kept a few for myself. I still own some of the same games (the EXACT game) from when I was a kid: Sorry, Push Over, Battleship. Clue. And I have never purposely discarded any Legos. What started in a shoe box, grew into a larger cardboard box, then expanded into five plastic bins and is now in one large, Rubbermaid bin. Owen and I take them out often, and I can still identify which Legos I had from when I was a child. I think, besides money, Legos are the one thing I’ll stop to pick up if I see one on the ground, regardless of how dirty it is.
Anyway, today I’m gonna talk about my Viewmasters.
In the beginning, I had a modest collection. My parents bought me a set of Charlie Brown, Batman, Donald Duck, Spider-man, Winnie the Pooh, and others when I was a kid. I kept them all in a bin in my closet. Just scattered about, some in envelopes, some in Zip-lock bags, some just loose.
When I was around age 12, one of my Dad’s friends said he had some old Viewmasters I could have. And he wasn’t joking: he had stuff from the 1950s! Until that day, I thought Viewmasters were all kid-themed reels, but he presented me with a reel of Mt. Vernon, another one of Shenandoah National Park, and a few others. This beefed up the collection in my dusty bin.
Shortly after getting married, my wife convinced me to throw out my viewer, which had broken years earlier. The next time we were at Target, we purchased a new viewer, and a projector. Re-energized to take care of my collection, I walked through Office Depot one afternoon and came up with a brilliant idea: I bought sleeves that were intended for floppy disks and put them in a 3-ring binder. This has worked out perfect ever since: each reel is housed in its own pocket and smaller pockets, beneath each reel, identify what’s in the adjacent reel. I printed out a cover for the binder, and, on the back, I printed out a list of all the Viewmaster reels I owned. This list also helped to clue me in to what I was missing (a few reels had gone AWOL in the intervening decades).
My idea was so brilliant, my wife’s grandmother asked me to similarly sort her ample collection of reels – giving me, as payment, I suppose, the option to take any duplicates I found. This further enhanced my collection.
Later, in an effort to get my antsy son to lay his head on the pillow, I began showing him Viewmasters – some over 50 years old – projected onto the ceiling. For over four years now, we occasionally polish off the day by spinning a few reels.
Today I received a Viewmaster reel in the mail: a Mighty Mouse reel arrived, via eBay, completing a set that had lied incomplete since the 1980s. This is a good thing.
The bad thing? My book is full…and they’re not exactly selling floppy disk holders on every corner anymore.