What Sparks a Memory?

GOING TO THE MOVIES

So, Sunday, my son treated me to a trip to the movies. We wanted to see Gandalph – I mean Ian McKellen in Mr. Holmes. It was showing in the VIP zone. No VIP zone in our closest movie house. Can’t say where we’ve been while all this was, but we were mildly surprised to learn that you could sit in the “theatre” seats, order and eat food there. What a concept, eh?

We wound up eating in the “lounge” first. Noisy. Smelled of stale pop corn. The seats were not any more comfortable for me than regular seats in the other “theatres,” as the ticket sales girl said they were, but we ate up the movie.

Mr. McKellen was, as always, masterful, playing a somewhat younger Holmes, and a more doddering one who was losing his prodigeous memory. Enjoyed the themes of loneliness and atonement (of sorts); enjoyed the precocious boy and the unhappy mom. And the bees.

Also enjoyed the more leisurely pace, a break from the shoot-’em-up, superspeed chase and crash – and extremely loud, noisy, break-your-eardrum sound effects. (At home I have to pump up the sound to get the dialogue, and down for the shoot-’em-up, superspeed chase and crash – and extremely loud, noisy, break-your-eardrum sound effects.) Huh!

After the movie, my son needed to Take Five for a smoke. We drifted around the HUGE parking lot, me getting away from the smoke, he trying to keep downwind. Here’s what we stumbled on to:

No Kidding?!

(Some people have blocked minds? Did they forget that this is a parking lot?)

Well, what this reminded me of was the time when my home town – up north – decided to pave it’s Main Street area.

As told to me, the town got estimates, called for tenders, wrote and signed the contract, and waited for smooth roads for the first time EVER!

The machines rolled in, the base was prepared, the merchants accepted the disruption, the customers shopped around the disturbance, and the pavement rolled on.

Everybody celebrated. We’re entering the modern age.

Come Winter.

Come the frost.

Come the contractions.

Some Spring.

Come up the newly laid pavement.

In pieces.

In chunks.

Did I say? My home town is in the northern half of my home province of Saskatchewan. They say the place was built on “swampy ground.” And this was back then, when we had real winters. You know, regular 35 degree below weather. You know, snow up to the top of the telephone poles. No kidding. You know, when you stepped outside and your nose tip snapped with the cold.

Well, I haven’t been back there in decades, but I’m told the old town is still there, and that things are pretty stable now. Even Main Street.

So I’m thinking, some memories are experiences best left in the past. I find no need to have my nose frozen yet again. I’m quite happy to live in this mild la-la land, thank you.

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PS: I would love to go back to check out the old haunts, but I fear I would be a stranger in a strange land now. I doubt that many of my schooltime friends and acquaintances would still be there. As the old joke says: That was a good place to be FROM! Still, lots of fond memories, and our collection of memories are us, or, put the other way, we are our memories. (Perhaps the psychologist counsellor might counsel: “So deal with them.” OK.)

So here’s a nostalgic shot of my home town’s city hall. The town became a city in 2009. In my time this building was the post office (you know what that system is doing to the service in our country now…).

  from the official website of Meadow Lake, SK.

It was here that we delivered the weekly newspaper, The Progress, every Thursday when we finished printing it. Those were good memories.

In this building there were also a few jail cells. One day when I was walking be with a friend, we heard someone calling for help. We looked around till we saw a pair of hands gripping the steel bars in the window. On closer examination, a nose, and a pair of eyes appeared, with a mouth pleading for us to contact someone on his behalf to “get me the hell out of here.” Sorry to say, we knew no such person, so we failed in the task. I’ve always wondered about his fate.

Going to the movies with my son. How great a treasure is that for the memory box?

Happy memories everybody.