Back When the World Smelled Like Theater Popcorn

I like movies.

I grew up during the Dark Ages. They were the grim times before cat videos were available 24/7. Cat videos were then available 0/7.

Social media consisted of papers tacked to a strategically placed bulletin board.

I spent my boyhood in a home with three TV channels and zero TV remotes.

There were three movie theaters within a comfortable driving distance. The Broadway and the Rivoli, which were brick-and-mortar theaters, and the Passion Pit, an outdoor drive-in movie theater.

Home had a lot going for it. Newspapers, radio, books, free food, TV trays and TV dinners. But it wasn’t easy to sneak an arm around a sweetie at home. Theaters were places to give that a shot.

A movie took this slack-jawed yokel’s mind off diagramming sentences or finding the elusive value of x.

Chef Boyardee and Julia Child were the only chefs I’d heard of. I had a limited palate, one meant for over-priced health foods sold at a theater’s concession stand. These included Dots, Bit-O-Honey, Chuckles, Good & Plenty, Jujubes, Jujyfruits, Red Hots and popcorn. I wasn’t a fan of horror movies. They made me hide my head in a popcorn bucket, which required me to buy a bushel-basket-sized one. I preferred a comedy that was a hoot and a half, or period pieces that were time machines wowing me to the 19th power.

I wasn’t aware that I was trying to extract meaning from every moment presented on the big screen. I didn’t need a movie with a moral, but it didn’t hurt. Something simple like eat your vegetables, but I’ve learned from movies.

“If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!” is great advice from “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.”

In “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” Bueller told me, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

“It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.” –Indiana Jones, “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

“If I’m not back in five minutes, just wait longer.” –“Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.”

“What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.” –Principal Max Anderson suggesting thinking before talking in “Billy Madison.”

“According to the map, we’ve only gone 4 inches.” -Jeff Daniels as Harry Dunne in “Dumb and Dumber.”

“Mamma says that alligators are ornery because they’ve got all them teeth, but no toothbrush.” –Bobby Boucher, “The Waterboy.”

“You must pay for everything in this world, one way or another. There is nothing free except the grace of God.”-Mattie Ross, “True Grit.”

“You have to remember that a worm, with very few exceptions, is not a human being.” –Young Frankenstein.

I learned a worthy excuse: “Please. Have mercy. I’ve been wearing the same underwear since Tuesday.” –from Steve Martin playing Neal Page in “Planes, Trains & Automobiles.”

Dean Wormer offered this guidance: “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son,” in “Animal House.”

Captain Rex Kramer in “Airplane” said, “Listen, and you listen close: flying a plane is no different than riding a bicycle, just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes.”

“I’m not crazy; I’m just colorful.” –“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

  “A gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you’re not enough without one, you’ll never be enough with one.” –“Cool Runnings.”

“You’ll have bad times, but it’ll always wake you up to the good stuff you weren’t paying attention to.” –”Good Will Hunting.”

 “There’s no place like home” –Dorothy, “The Wizard of Oz.”

“A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it’s the only weapon we have.” –“Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’

“I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.”  – “Steel Magnolias.

Thanks to that in-depth training, I did a TV show titled “Movies You Could Watch With Your Mother.”

People don’t go to movie theaters as often as they used to. A couch is tough competition.

Merrily I roll along.