Going in Style

"Cinema is entertainment and people go to the movies because they want to feel good and forget about everything."
~ Vincent Cassel

I'm pretty sure not everyone would agree with Vincent Cassel.  Do you?  Many movie producers must not, given the plethora of movies that could not possibly leave people feeling good.  This is a point of view about movies that my dad had, and truthfully, so do I. So I was surprised to find that the French actor, Vincent Cassel, who I thought was probably of my generation, was born in the 60's, just a couple years before Midnight Cowboy arrived on the scene in l969.  R rated, gritty and certainly not a feel good movie, Midnight Cowboy won the Academy Award that year and ushered in a more realistic approach to movie making.  An approach that left my dad, and I suspect others of his generation, wondering how Abbott and Costello, Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, Crosby and Hope could suddenly go out of vogue. In the years that followed, I think the only movie he went to see in the theater was The Sound of Music.  All other movies he and Mom saw were rented and probably not produced later than 1950, the exception being Philadelphia, but that's a story for another time.

I was raised on musicals, comedies and film noir.  Every Christmas we watched White Christmas, The March of the Wooden Soldiers, and the black and white version of A Christmas Carol with Alistair Sims.  Not surprising, when I battled breast cancer, I turned to old Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly musicals, the Crosby and Hope Road movies, and anything with the classic female actresses of the 40's, to help me forget. Movie marathons, especially during the weeks of chemo when I could barely lift my head off the pillow.  More than once, I thanked heaven for TNT and the other channels that show the oldies but goodies.  Not that I don't count Schindler's List, The Color Purple, and Philadelphia among my favorite all time movies, but the last thing I wanted when I was sick and frightened was another heavy dose of reality. 

Why am I giving all this background?  Because I am about to praise a movie John and I saw this past weekend and if you do not share the opinion that a good movie is one that leaves you feeling good, and forgetting about everything else, at least for those 120 minutes or so that you stare at the screen, then this endorsement won't mean much.

The movie - Going in Style.  The cast, Michael Caine who plays Joe Harding, Morgan Freeman who plays Willie Davis, and Alan Arkin who plays Albert Garner.  Caine and Freeman are now in their early 80's, Arkin is 79 - the perfect casting for a tale of three old friends who had worked together for the same company for 40 years, live across from one another, and share most evenings watching TV.  When they learn that the pension each needs for basic survival is being raided to pay off company debts, and the bank that will help restructure the debt is foreclosing on Joe's mortgage, they decide to rob the bank.  Just enough to cover their pensions and save Joe's house.  The rest to go to charities.

You can go on-line and read more about the plot, and check out the reviews.  I'm glad I did after I saw the movie, because the reviews, probably written by folks 20 to 30 years younger than I am, were lukewarm.  While the reviewers unanimously applauded the  skill and experience of the cast, many called the plot formulaic and for the most part, predictable. And, I would admit, it was, with one exception.  

But I, for one,  appreciated the presentation of these aging characters, who still feel strong emotions, think significant thoughts, and can strategize to solve a problem.  Joe and Willy and Al are far from the stereotypical image of elderly who need walkers and hearing aids, sit around commiserating on their aches and pains, and count on the largess of the young.  Although, they do face other challenges of aging that usually are not given much big screen time, like taking care of family in their old age and wondering if they will have enough money for another ten or fifteen years, they are charming, and occasionally funny enough to evoke laugh out loud guffaws.  Above all, they are still vital, still relevant.   And it was such a joy to watch these veteran actors demonstrate their craft, so well that one would wonder if the on-screen camaraderie could possibly be just an act.

So, last Saturday, John and I sat in a darkened theater and watched three of our favorite actors do their thing and do it so well that for 1 hour and 36 minutes we forgot that we are fighting for his life, that he had a tough week, or that North Korea is threatening to bomb us. We laughed out loud now and then, held hands in the darkness as we first did over 30 years ago, and walked out of the theater feeling better than when we walked in.  That may not be enough for sophisticated movie reviewers, but for us, this why we go to the cinema.

If you give this film a shot, I'd love to know your reaction.

I Remember...

"Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future."

~ Corrie Ten Boom

Get to know anyone over 60 or 65 and inevitably the topic of memory will arise.  Goodreads has a collection of 1816 Quotes about Memory.  I fret about it every time I can't recall a name or a word I know I know, forgot where I put something, or wonder why I came into a room.

So, when the following quiz arrived in an e-mail from my husband, I was intrigued and decided to take it (even if the title is a little off-putting).

Older Than Dirt Quiz

Instructions:  Count all the items you remember, not the ones you were told about.

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or dines with table side jukeboxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles
7. Party lines on the telephone
8. Newsreels before the movie (instead of commercials!)
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and remained until TV came on again in the morning...and there were usually only 3 channels
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S & H Green Stamps
16. Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice cube trays with a lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulbs
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Studebakers
24. Drive-ins
25. Wash tub wringers

Scoring: If you remember 0-5, you're still young.  If you remember 6-10, you are getting older.  If you remember 11-15, don't tell your age.  And if you remember 16-25, you're "older than dirt."

Yes, I'm "older than dirt."  But this list got me thinking, and I've created my own version.  A list of other things I remember.  I remember...

• the iceman delivering blocks of ice for my grandmother's icebox
• scrubbing clothes on a washboard so that my mother wouldn't be embarrassed when she hung the clothes out to dry
• seeing gold stars hung in the windows of families who lost a child during World War II and wondering why a gold star
• pictures of Nazi death camps that surfaced when WWII ended
• school being cancelled in the fall because of a polio epidemic
• fights being settled with fists, not guns
• bullies whose names and faces were at least known to their victims
• having my desire to go to college questioned because I was "just going to get married and have kids"
• Joe McCarthy and HUAC and the Communist Threat...and ruined reputations and careers
• the courage of Edward R. Morrow who called for the outrage to stop
• bomb shelters and bomb drills
• Selma and listening to "I Have a Dream"
• the assassinations of the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X
• the Vietnam War, the protests, Kent State and the Chicago 7
• the wrenching apart of some families as they took sides over the war
• Watergate and Nixon's resignation
• Oklahoma City

I may get a bit nostalgic over memories of roller skate keys and drive-in movies and the pictures in my mind of simpler days, even feel a bit sad that life has become much more complex.   But, the consequences to future generations of not knowing about P.F. Flyers or Butch Wax or Studebakers is minuscule.  However, not knowing, or worse,  choosing to forget or deny the effects of violent dissension, not remembering how easily fear and anger become hatred that tears asunder families and communities, how quickly rumor and innuendo can become "truth", how hard fought the victories for social justice were - these, I believe, have consequence not just for the future, but most certainly today.

So, my list is not intended as a quiz.  There is no scoring to be done.  Rather, I ask how much do you remember?  How much have you passed on to others who don't know or may not understand why some of us who are "older than dirt" are growing more concerned with what we see taking shape in countries around the world, including our own.  For what if memories really are "the key not to the past, but to the future"?

With Deep Appreciation

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty."

~Henry Ford 

I love this quote, and then again, I love to learn.  So, according to Henry, I'll never be old!?

Though I now consider myself a lifelong learner, my love affair with learning didn't start until my early 20's.  Although I always did well in school, my good grades were more a result of innate ability and the fear of disappointing my parents.  I went to college to better my opportunities in life and to avoid the economic struggles I witnessed at home, not out of any thirst for knowledge.  In the process, as was common for my generation, I married, and moved from the Midwest of the early 60's to northern California to put hubby through graduate school.

For the first time I met folks from South Africa and Israel, Germany and France, China and Japan.  The wives of the graduate students formed a support group and I was invited to eat different food, listen to points of view that never would have been entertained in my parents' home, attend events I never would have considered.  

More impactful, however, than the somewhat exotic, worldly young men and women I met during those years, was the elderly wife of my husband's major professor.  Mrs. W. was, in fact, quite unassuming, probably shy. I remember her as in her early 70's, the epitome of a gentle woman, with a halo of white air, blue eyes (one of which was blinded by glaucoma when a young woman), a quiet smile and a wardrobe of tweed skirts, hand knit sweaters and sensible shoes.  I never heard her raise her voice nor criticize anyone, including a very difficult mother-in-law.  I never saw her lose her patience nor challenge even the most outrageous point of view.   She didn't even blink when our new Schnauzer puppy had an accident on her handwoven Persian rug.

What I did see were her accomplishments - she had woven every piece of fabric, other than carpeting, in their home - linens, draperies, even furniture coverings. From the first day of their marriage she had knit all of her husbands argyle socks. She cured olives from their backyard. All with one eye.  

But most of all, she was infinitely curious and eager to learn.  When we wanted to try batik, she joined in.  When Ravi Shankar came for a sitar concert, she came with us.  It didn't matter to us - or to her - that she was almost 50 years our elder. We never would have thought to exclude her, and she never would have thought not to accept our invitation.  Not because of her position, but because of who she was, especially because of her willingness to explore and the almost innocent pleasure she took in the new and different.

I remember the exact moment I understood it was her love of learning that both awed and inspired me.  We had gone to a conference with our husbands and while they were at meetings, we remained at the hotel and met with our books in hand for a session beside the pool, I, with my mystery of the month, and she with her Thackeray and a novel in French.  What followed was not a discussion of the books (thank heaven). but why she read what she did, why she loved to learn, why it was so important for her health and well-being to continue to learn.

If you would have asked me 20, even 10 years ago, to name the five most influential individuals in my life, I doubt that the list would have included Mrs. W. It is only now, when I am near her age, when I have met people who have stopped learning or appear to distrust learning, that I  realize what an invaluable gift she was to that naive, sheltered young woman of 50 years ago. What a difference she made. What an important role model she remains for the woman I am today.

The Role of Role Models

"...a role model in the flesh provides more than inspiration,

his or her very existence is confirmation of possibilities one may have

every reason to doubt, saying "Yes, someone like me

can do this."

~Sonia Sotomayor

"It just makes a difference to see someone who looks like you

doing what you want to do."
~Nia Wordlaw, Pilot

The subject of role models has been on my mind for a few days now, ever since I asked a group of women, including several older women, to name some of their role models.  When they - and I - struggled to come up with examples, I recognized the need to give this more thought.

I see now that I could have framed the question much better.  I could have first presented the dictionary definition - role model: n. a person looked to by others as an example to be imitated.  The key word that makes a big difference - imitated, not only respected or admired, but imitated.  How many people in my life have I been moved by enough to want to imitate in any way?

After more deliberation, I realized that I could have asked a more specific question, a more meaningful question - 'Who are the role models for you at this stage in your life?''  Heaven knows, in a forever young* society obsessed with success and beauty, positive role models for older women, and increasingly for men, are hard to come by.  Betty White?  Jane Fonda? Tony Bennett?  Madeline Albrecht.  Most of us don't have their resources, their access to support. Then there are the commercials for older men and women that promote medicines, emergency alert systems, assisted living homes, adult diapers.  "Help me, I've fallen and can't get up."  I know these speak to a certain reality.  But all the statistics I'm reading suggest this is a reality for a small percentage of people over 65.  Not me.  Not my friends.

So, I turned to quotes, scouring hundreds.  The Sonia Sotomayor quote got me thinking about older women from my past who left their mark, even though I did not consciously seek to imitate them at the time.  Women who presented a picture of aging well. Mrs. W., in her 70's when I was in my 20's, intellectually and creatively curious, still weaving, knitting her husband's argyle socks, reading Thackeray and French novels with one eye, the other lost to Glaucoma.  Jane L, a gentle Quaker, then in her late 60's, whose counsel during my divorce I have called upon in subsequent crises, whose equilibrium I've never matched but certainly use as a yardstick.  M and L, ahead of me in the stream by a dozen years, both interesting and interested in politics, art, literature, the larger world that I had ignored, so intent when I first met them on my business, my family.  

Which brings me to the Nia Wordlaw quote that I came upon this morning while watching the PBS special, The Women's List: American Masters.  I suddenly recognized that I do have role models and am blessed that they are at hand.  Women my age, women ahead in years and experience.  I am more engaged in my community because of these women.  I am reading better literature because of these women.  I am more concerned with public policy issues.  I have a renewed sense of purpose that has been missing in recent years. Thanks to these women.

Ultimately, however, the most important result of all this musing may be to remember that we all have the opportunity to be role models in some small but important way, and often are without realizing it or intending to do so.  So the question in my mind right now - what kind of role model am I?

 *the forever young society - coined by Michael Gurian in The Wonder of Aging