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A Tale of Two Movies, Thirty-Six Years, and One Top Gun

Top Gun: Maverick was worth the wait

Jill (Conquering Cognitions)
The Memoirist
3 min readJun 7, 2022

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A Navy fighter jet taking off from an aircraft carrier
Image by David Mark from Pixabay

I have always loved a man in uniform.

My father was a U.S. Air Force pilot and the first man to own my heart. An Army soldier will be the last.

I also love Tom Cruise in uniform.

Last weekend I went to the theater for the first time since March 2020 for the highly anticipated Top Gun sequel. The tickets were purchased a week in advance, and sitting in the packed theater, I could feel the excitement in the air.

The moment the Top Gun anthem started, a hush fell over the crowd, and I was immediately transported back through time to 1986.

I was in Blytheville, Arkansas visiting my father for the summer. My best friend had come with me — two fifteen-year-olds from New Mexico with no driver’s license and limited funds in a new town. We entertained ourselves with cheap activities that we could ride to on our ten-speed bikes.

Discount day at the movie theater was one of our favorite events. Every Tuesday for just $2.00, we could watch a new release film in an air-conditioned theater with low humidity and no biting bugs. If we had more money, we would have stayed there all day.

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The Memoirist
The Memoirist

Published in The Memoirist

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Jill (Conquering Cognitions)
Jill (Conquering Cognitions)

Written by Jill (Conquering Cognitions)

PsyD, Clinical Psychologist | Writer | Words in Human Parts, Forge, Better Humans | Life Lessons Supported by Science

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