The Products of Old Movies

We are bowling balls, released down a narrow alley by old movies.

Don’t you, when you exit a remote cabin in the vacant woods, look for the family hound, and, if you don’t find him, set off the propane tank with a 12 gauge to cover your stalking the hitman manifestly up in the hills like Bourne done?

Of course you do.

And you gaze lovingly at the sinuous oak in the dell trying to mime something, then you watch the grasses on the horizon moving with no wind and you realize just what’s yo there: it’s the Bravados waiting for you.

Or. .. going way back now … Bing Crosby in a movie you only see because there’s nothing else to see on a Saturday in Bottom, and Bing is holding the hand of a child, his child, on a busy city street, and photographers hail Bing, because he’s famous, and they want him to pose before a plaque on a building which references both he and his fame, and he obliges, does Bing, and they ask him to place a hand on the plaque, and he does, and one says, the other hand, too, and he does, of course releasing the hand of the child …

Releasing the hand of the child.

That’s me with my Granddaughter. Often we were in poses like that. I held her often. She would look for me. If someone else was carrying her, she'd look for me, complain, reach out to me. When she is sleepy, I hold her.

She reaches for me, and I take her. The others cross a side-street off San Pablo. I don’t. The light is yellow.

“Come on, Pop.”

“Go ahead. We’ll be there in a little …”

I walk in circles, holding her.

More recently, there is fast-moving traffic over a two-lane through the woods. We approach it from a path in the park. She is behind the others, and I see both her hands are free.

I grab her.

I hold her until my heart and the traffic are quieter. The others have crossed.

I hold her. From Cheeseboard to Monterey Market. The day is hot and I am old. MeiMei has fallen asleep. Her Baba asks if he should carry her. He sees I’m wilting. No, I say.

“There won’t be many more times like this.”

None, in fact.

We are but the products of old movies. But we pick the scenes that have meaning for us.