Am I showing my age by calling this movies? What if I said Flicks? Perhaps Edison's or Magic Lantern Shows? Whatever the jargon we want to assign to them at various decades, I admit I like them.
The photo that opens this little spiel is of the Warner Bros. Theater in West Chester, Pennsylvania, as it looked in 1948. I would have been seven that year and the Warner was one of three movie houses I frequented during my boyhood years. The other two were the Auditorium in Coatesville, and most of all, the Roosevelt in Downingtown. After all, for most of that time I lived in Downingtown. The Auditorium and Warner were First Run houses and your big A Movies played there. The Roosevelt featured second runs and B Pictures. I saw most of the old Universal Monsters at the Roosevelt along with a lot of old-time Oat Operas
(Westerns) staring Tim McCoy, Ken Maynard, Bob Steele, Hoot Gibson and others of that ilk, as well as Gene Autry & Roy Rogers.
That is the interior of the Roosevelt on the right. Sadly, although the buildings still exist, the Roosevelt and Warner are no longer showing films. The Warner is a hotel and last I saw it the Roosevelt was vacant and for sale.
But I really didn't intend for this to be a nostalgia piece, only a kind of review of some films I saw over the years that I liked. I also don't intend this to be considered a critique, even though in a galaxy far, far away I once was a critic, both of movies, live theater and books. I did movie and theater pieces for "Philadelphia After Dark" and book reviews for "Media & Methods" as well as some other places. I'm not a big fan of critics, however. I think people should make up their own mind about such things. Like what you like and dislike what you will, although I would suggest you also think about the films you view and consider why you like or dislike them. I don't mind reviews that give me a clue to what I may see in a film, but I am careful about the judgments of their worth and meaning as given by the critic. So All I want to do is mention some films I enjoyed a great deal and tell you what they were about without any spoilers, and let you decided if you care for them upon seeing.
I must warn I have some odd tastes in films. For example, let me explain some movies I saw in the past that I particularly like, but other people may find a little ...uh...bizarre.
For instance, "The Dark Backward, even the title is a bit strange and the film even stranger. I suppose this is something in the line of David Lynch's world (and I do also like David Lynch films). The movie came out in 1991 and was written and directed by Adam Rifkin. Rifkin is probably best known for directing "MouseHunt" and "Underdog",, movies somewhat removed from "The Dark Backward". He did this particular film in 1991 and it was named one of the ten best films of the year by the New York Post, although other critics weren't so kind. Neither was the public and it did very, very poorly at the box-office. Nonetheless, I liked the thing, which shows you how weird I can be.
How can I explain it? The main character, played by Judd Nelson, is a garbage man and would-be stand up comic, except his act is really garbage itself and he is going nowhere until one morning he wakes up and discovers he is growing a third arm. This new appendage is square in the center of his back. (Of course this can be handy for when he gets an itch between the shoulder blades.) His sudden acquisition does land him in a club where he becomes a featured act accompanied by his best friend, Gus (another trash man), who plays an accordion he is never without. From this point the story begins to be a bit strange. Don't dismiss this as a bunch of amateur nobodies. Besides Nelson the movie stars Bill Paxton, Wayne Newton, Lara Flynn Boyle and James Caan.
Another film I saw several years ago that I liked a lot is "The Legend of 1900", a picture
written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore and released in 1998. The 1900 legend is not about the year, but is the main character's name, as well as the year he was born. He was found as a newborn in a box aboard a luxury liner named the Virginian and destined to live his entire life about the ship. As he grows, he becomes a fabulous pianist, plays with the ship's orchestra and has a very exciting piano duel against Jelly Roll Morton, the immortal New Orleans Jazz man. I don't want to say much more because I don't want to spoil anything, but I feel it is a very beautiful film.
Now one of my all-time favorite films, one I have viewed a number of times and thought about often, is Frank and Eleanor Perry's version of the John Cheever short story, "The Swimmer". It is something of a tour de force by Burt Lancaster, who stars in it. (He also has a nude scene, so be warned.)
I find the movie psychologically brilliant. I also find it profoundly sad.
Lancaster plays fit and tanned Ned Merrill. In the beginning he appear at an affluent Connecticut couple's swim party and while sipping his cocktail he observes how the swimming pools of these well-to-do homes spread across the valley like "a river" to his own distant house. He decides to swim home and dives into the pool, emerges from the other side and begins his odyssey across the valley and through his mind and time. What seems fairly straight forward at first, a middle-aged man proving he still has some youth by this marathon swim soon turns into something much deeper. One hint that something more than just a day in his life is occurring is close observation will let you see how part way along the summer day has actually become one of autumn. You really can't get this film on one viewing. neither it's meaning or out of your head.
One last film I'd like to mention here that I like a lot is "The Village". This is a 2004 film by M. Night Shyamalan. It was not well received by the critics, dismissed by them as another twist ending gimmick by the director. Worse, the critics felt the twist was revealed too early and thus destroyed the effect.
Personally I disagree. I feel these critics missed the point. I don't consider the twist as the central part of the plot at all. I say the point being made is that we cannot escape evil in this world, that it will always find us out and we need to learn to face it, not hide away and try through fairytale to protect out children from it. The Village Elders don't see this anymore than the critics did, but the blind girl Ivy Elizabeth Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard) is the one who can face and see reality.
I find it a beautiful movie to watch.
I would also note it was filmed not far from where I live and nearby where I often walk. The filming was done in fields along side "The Devil's Road", which runs between Centerville, Delaware and Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. This road is legendary in my neck of the woods. Sometimes called "the Valley", driving Cossart Road (my photograph of it on left) at night is something of a rite of passage among teenagers. Its haunted hills were a perfect setting to make this film.
I also say the production company marketed the picture wrong. The ads and trailers presented it as a horror film, a monster flick. The emphasis on the "Monster" really led to false expectations on the part of the audience and as a result it proved a let down and anti-climatical. If it had been marketed differently the reception would have been much greater in my option.
When I do Movies (Part 2), I will be talking about films I saw for the first time in 2015 and I will point out one of these that was grossly mis-marketed as well.
The Bible is large. It is divided into 66 book, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New. It was composed by many authors, all writing under the influence and guiding present of the Holy Spirit, which is to say God (Father, Son and Holy Ghost). It contains many stories, histories, poems and personalities.
Needless to say it is a complex and layered volume. It is filled with thrilling tales that make for great drama. These contain the gamet of human emotion and struggle as well as battles and adventures of epic proportion. Many of these have had great allure for film makers since the birth of movies. Films based on the Bible go back to at least "Passion Play" (a series of shorts that equaled about an hour in length) in 1903 and Vie et Passion du Christ in 1905. Most have presented a singular episode such as "Adam and Eve" (1912), "Noah's Ark" (1929), "The Ten Commandments" (1956) and "The Nativity Story"(2009). Few commercial filmmakers have dared tackle the Bible as a whole.
In the mid-1960s John Huston announced he was filming "The Bible" in its entirety. In 1966, "The Bible" was released, but with the subtitle, "In the Beginning..." It included several parts of Genesis, such as Noah (played by John Huston himself). The others were Cain and Able, The Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah and the life of Abraham. I remember the hype for this film and most of the attention in the media focused on the Creation sequence, most notably that the actors portraying Adam and Eve would be performing in the nude.
This probably boosted ticket sales. However, as spectacular as many of the scenes were and as perfect as were Adam and Eve's bodies, "The Bible" never got further than "In the Beginning". None of the promised sequels were ever made.
On Sunday evening, March 3, 2013 the History Channel showed the first in it's series, "The Bible". Produced by Rona Downey ("Touched By an Angel") and her husband Mark Burnett ("Survivor") it promises to cover Genesis through Revelation in five two-hour long shows. Television might be the best outlet to present the dramatization of the Bible, but I don't think 10 hours is enough time to do it. My main criticism of this endeavor is the feeling of being rushed.
A brief synopsis of the first episode would probably be helpful.
It began with the Arc being tossed upon raging waters. Inside the boat Noah is reciting the creation story to his family. He tells this from when God said, "Let there be light", touching on the creation of man, Cain killing Abel up to God's decision to drown the whole world because of man's evilness. These scenes flash by as he talks with little explanation. For instance, we see Cain strike down Abel, but receive no explanation of why Cain did this or what happens to Cain afterward. We basically jump from that first murder to pictures of people drowning in the flood.
This portion begins with the arc in the middle of the water and quickly ends there. There is no sending out of birds, no olive branch, no landing on dry land. We are literally left adrift at sea. Perhaps the most effective part of this sequence is giving us a picture of just how enormous the arc was.
We go quickly from the Flood to Abraham. We have parts of Abraham's life, including the destruction of Sodom, up to the moment when he is stopped by God in mid-knife of sacrificing his son. At this point we are transported to Egypt and Moses. The stories of Jacob and Joseph are simply ignored. We see young Moses (pictured right) being egged into a sword fight with Pharaoh's son (a passage I missed somehow in Exodus). Pharaoh breaks this up and then tells his daughter she better tell Moses he really isn't her son. Moses goes out, wanders about, kills an Egyptian overseer and flees while Joshua hides the body (another passage I missed, I guess - the part about Joshua hiding the body that is).
And suddenly it is 40 years later and there is a burning bush speaking to a much older Moses (pictured left with Aaron). Now Moses is much quicker to agree to the idea he must save his people than he is in my Bible. In my Bible he argues with God that he isn't up to the task, especially since he can't speak well. In my Bible, God tells him his brother Aaron will do the speaking for him, but in this film Moses accepts the challenge pretty quickly and he doesn't meet his brother until he returns to Egypt, and Aaron doesn't speak for him at all. Moses also walks about with this odd smile on his face most of the time.
We get a flip-book sequence of plagues -- frogs hopping about, locust swarming, burning hailstones, etc, and after each a picture of Pharaoh yelling, "No!" The Passover is passed over rather quickly and then Moses is parting the Red Sea. Once across the Red Sea, with Pharaoh's dead army floating upon the water, we are told that Moses led his people to Mt. Sinai and there received these stone tables from God. Moses shows the tablets to Joshua, declares they now have The Law and tells Joshua to lead the Hebrews to the Promise Land. There is no coming off the mountain to an orgy and golden calf, no wandering about the desert for forty years, not even a representation of Moses' death, let alone any explanation of why Moses couldn't lead his people into Canaan himself.
We simply leap to Joshua and his followers standing and looking at a walled city. "We must take Jericho," Joshua says and then sends two spies to the city.
We go inside the walled city and this man stops a woman on the street. He calls her Rahab and his "little whore". It comes across as a bully of a man harassing a young woman. Other than his calling her a whore nothing establishes that she just may be one. She goes on her way and the man laughs.
Right after this we see the two spies scale the wall, drop to the other side to immediately be confronted by about a dozen Jerichoians, who they rather easily dispatch, although a couple flee crying, "The enemy is within the walls." The two spies run about and meet Rehab, who directs them to an escape route. One spy pulls this rope from about his waist and tells her to hang it on her window and she will be safe with their army attacks.
And at this point we are told continued next week.
I am out of breath telling it here, which to me is the biggest problem with the series. It is rushing to get everything in on schedule, but not fleshing out the sequences with what they really mean. I wish they had decided to continue beyond five weeks and ten hours and develop the characters and plot more fully.
However, the initial presentation had the highest ratings of the night, even in the coveted 18-34 age group. It not only out rated everything on the networks, but was the highest rated show on cable this year so far. We will see if these ratings hold up through the next episodes. My hope is they do and it makes people curious enough to read the Bible for the full story or drives them to approach people of faith for more explanation.
There is some license taken, but perhaps not of such import to quibble. For instance, we all ready mentioned that Moses was much quicker to accept God's request than was so in Scripture. Another example was when Abraham was stopped from sacrificing Isaac. Scripture tells us God supplied a sacrifice, a ram that had its horns caught in a bush. In this film it was a lamb with its hind leg caught. I also don't know if the Angels sent to Sodom wore shining armor and were expert in martial arts style sword fighting.
I would mention that Rona Downing is playing the Virgin Mary. I don't know why there wasn't a younger actress hired to play this part at the birth of Christ. Rona Downing is 52 years old. She might pass for Mary at the Crucifixion when she would have been a woman in her mid-to-late forties (pictured right), but she does not look as convincing as the teenage girl who God chose to be the mother of Jesus (pictured left).
We saw they used a younger actor to portray the young Moses, so why not a younger actress to portray the girl Mary?
Nonetheless, I look forward to Part Two and I hope I have not been too picky in my comments about Part One. We need more shows that would portray the Bible stories in a truthful way. Still, we also need explanations of why these things were included in Scripture. Can we easily see how these pointed to the future Christ in this film?
It is also funny to me that Rona Downing and Mark Burnett have written a novelization of the series. Hopefully in this the meanings are explained, but at the same time I wonder why do we need a novelization when we already have the Bible and have it abundantly in many fine translations?
My friend Ronald over on his Blog "Retired in Delaware" posted about having a nightmare during his afternoon nap. He woke in a sweat from images of sinking in quicksand in his neighbor's yard. Not that his neighbor has pools of quicksand laying in wait for the occasional trespasser, just that was his dilemma in this dream. There he sank like some hapless character in "Ramar of the Jungle," a show starring Jon Hall as the square-jawed jungle sawbones in both Africa and Indian. It was a show those of my generation from my portion of the land would not have missed watching each week on TV, hurrying in from our own childhood hide and seek games when he came on.
"Be careful, guys, I think Quicksand is lurking around the corner!"
It seemed an unusual amount of times someone would fall into quicksand in Ramar's adventures. If it were a bad guy, they would sink readily until a final shot of their hand, fingers wiggling, disappearing beneath this terrible grave. If they were a good guy or the damsel in distress they would writhe about screaming for much of the half hour until Ramar would arrive. Generally he rescued them by holding a stick across the pit for them to grab. During the times of their imprisonment they would sink up to their neck, then a cut-away to Ramar racing down some trail. When we came back to the victim they would have somehow rose out to their waist only to sink to the neck again before our hero arrived.
Neither the well-educated research doctors or their intrepid, experienced guide ever seemed aware it is almost impossible to sink fully into quicksand due to its density. Nor were they aware that the easiest escape is to kick your feet and swim out.
When my friend had visited a week or so ago we had hiked back along a trail and had to jump over some mud holes (one such jump and mud hole pictured at the top of this post). He had made a comment about quicksand in Ramar and we had then discussed those scenes. This may be why the image popped up in his nightmare.
Speaking of nightmares, I awoke from one the other night. I remember almost nothing about it even though it seemed very clear while dreaming. I only know there was some kind of ghost and I felt very paranoid when I awoke, jumping at any sound and spooking at every shadow.
By the aside, have you ever noticed ghosts always appear in films dressed in the garb of their time of death. Clothes are inanimate objects with no soul or spirit. Why would clothes remain in the spirit world? I don't believe in ghosts, but if I were ever to see one I would expect it to be naked.
Anyway, my little nightmare was startling, but harmless. The real nightmare for me came that morning after my morning walk. Now any regular reader of this Blog knows I am a fanatic walker. Any day I do not work, I set off early to hike four or five miles in our wonderful state parks. But I like variety, so am always looking for a new path to explore. Thus I decided on Monday to give Ashland Nature Center a try.
I had been there before with The Little Woman several years ago and also with the kids when they were still kids. I hadn't been there lately and I heard recently about their nice trails. I knew it could be tricky to find, so I consulted the world leading expert on finding places; that is, I looked on a Google map. Ah, looks easy, go up Rt. 52, turn left on Rt. 82, then on Barley Mill Road to their entrance.
Yeah, sure, and okay, finding the turn off 52 on to 82 was easy. There was even a big sign with an arrow saying, "Ashland Nature Center is this way, fool!" So, I in my naivete felt assured there would be other such signs at each road juncture. I think you know the answer to that one.
Route 82 did a bit of twisting and turning and it came into what seemed an intersection, but no sign no how. I guessed left and entered more twists and turns and somehow ended up at Ashland by pure luck. So far so good, I was there. I walked up the entrance path and went into the office. I didn't know if there was a fee or not. A lady, most likely a retiree who volunteered as receptionist, greeted me and said there was a $4.00 donation asked. I in return offered to take a senior membership for the year. This made her very happy, she took my credit card info and bid me have a good time for I was now free to walk their trails.
She did not give me a token or barge or anything, so I don't know how anyone would know if I had paid or not. I suspect I could have just bypassed the office and trod my merry way for free, but I'm not the type of guy to do such a thing.
I went off and walked the Succession Trail. It was nice and I enjoyed my jaunt, but being warm I left after that one path, it had taken about an hour. I got in my car and drove out to the road I had come in on and disappeared into outer darkness.
I do not know where or how I turned the wrong way, but soon I realized the buildings I saw were different from any I had passed coming. But never no mind, Delaware is a small state, I would come to something I knew, some crossroad whose name was familiar. But I didn't. I drove and drove and nothing was anything I knew. I soon realized I had turned enough I wouldn't find my way back. I had to keep going in hope I would pop out on I-95 or something. I mean, honestly, this was one of the few times I actually wished I would be popping out on I-95.
The landscape became more and more strange. I saw barn-like structures with no windows that I assumed were mushroom farms. But nowhere was there a route sign or a direction sign. Even the road I was on kept changing names. I had no idea which way was north, south, east or west.
Now I don't get nervous when I get lost in the woods. Been there and done that and stayed calm. I knew where east was and I knew where the creeks flowed and if I kept one or the other to my side I would wander out somewhere. You know, Tuesday afternoon I watched The Blair Witch Project on TV. That I watched that whole movie tells you just how dreary the other selections were. But I was tired and didn't really want to do anything but lay on the couch and watch the tube. So I watched those stupid kids meander and whine through a Maryland woods.
Golly, what was with these guys. They were supposed to be highly intelligent college kids on a well-planned project. Yet they got lost in this woods next to a stream they had found by following a map. Okay, they lost the map, the one jerk threw it away, but they had used it to find the stream and they were at the stream and yet they kept going in circles. Follow the stream, you morons. The current flows one way. If it was flowing that way when you started off, then go the way it wasn't flowing for pete's sake. And if you follow the way it flows you'll eventually come to a river and people live by rivers. And for corn's sake, you had a compass. But so what? Even if you didn't, you could figure out which way was north. Just stick a stick in the ground and mark the shadow with a twig. Wait a few minutes and mark where the shadow is now. Put your left foot by the first mark and your right by the second and, by gosh, you're facing north!
You know something, most of the dialogue, such as it was, in The Blair Witch Project was ad-libbed by the actors. The producers made two mistakes. They hired actors who's vocabulary didn't extend much past four-letter words and who didn't know how to aim a camera. I mean, really, you let the actors do the filming? And they were supposed to be good students of the craft of making documentaries and they didn't have a clue on how to aim a camera? My shaky films of my trail walks, as stomach-churching as my cinematography can be, is academy award caliber next to the shots in Blair Witch. Come on, didn't you really root for the witch to get these annoying creatures sooner than later?
Anyway, I couldn't stick any sticks up on the car dash to get my bearings, so I drove on and speaking of being in weird territory, I had news on the radio.
The next thing my radio gave was a weather report. It talked about rain. When had rain been in any forecast? And then the weatherman said, "It might even rain of the Fourth of July." The Fourth of July? Wasn't this Monday, July 18? Why is the radio giving weather forecasts for the Fourth of July weekend? Had I went through a time warp? Was the next voice to be heard that of Rod Serling?
"Observe this man. He thought he was just going home from a walk. What Larry didn't know was he had just made a wrong turn into The Twilight Zone!"
This wasn't good. Where was I? I plowed ahead and came into the center of Kennett Square. I turned left onto State Street, the avenue where we had ambled during the Mushroom Festival last year. This didn't help. I kept going and was out of Kennett into more unknown territory. I had been driving quite awhile now, still not certain which direction I was going and still seeing no route or directional signs.
Maybe I was heading into Maryland. Man, all I had on were thin white running shorts and a tee shirt. One saving grace, I had a bit of money and a credit card. Usually I only carried my ID when hiking, but since I didn't know if Ashland charged a fee I had tucked the card and some bills into my little belt pouch.
Suddenly I saw a route sign and number I knew, Junction 41. I came out on Route 41 in Avondale, Pennsylvania. There was even a directional sign, Wilmington to the left. I still had a long ride through unfamiliar scenery, but I knew 41 got me somewhere around home. Soon I knew I was back in Delaware and my own stomping grounds, I ran into road construction delays.
Eventually I stumbled into my own living room. What should have been my twenty minute drive home had turned into an hour and twenty minute nightmare, which brings me to that fuel preservation I mentioned in my last post.
You see, originally I was scheduled to work three days this week, but last Sunday I got an email telling me my entire schedule had been cancelled, I was to take off the whole week. Okay, at least I'll save some gasoline. Then on Monday I get lost driving for over and hour and on Wednesday we have a power outage and we drive for an hour to keep cool. So much for saving any fuel. I just filled up again this morning.
TO BE CONTINUED - NEXT: What or what not should we writers write.
There has been nothing wrong that explains my absences from these pages for so long. Perhaps I could claim in light of the imminent end-of-the-world, now put off until October 21, I was busy contemplating my fate before the Judgment Seat, but that wasn't so. No, I was just entangled in the usual knots of daily existence I suppose. I also have been writing, you know the old fashioned kind before the boom of Blogs. So one can say that writing took me away from writing, something of a contradiction or conundrum.
The rain was something of a downer, too. Those dark and stormy days, denying me walks, tended to lower my energy and flare my arthritis. But the rains have passed and in their place has come heat, up in the nineties, July and August temperatures in May and the First of June. So I walk early, which I always do anyway, to beat the heat and survive another day.
I also bought a Flip Video Camera. The videos I did before were on my digital camera, but the quality and clarity were never up to the same standard as the still photos. I decided to try something dedicated to filming. I am still experimenting and working on a more steady hand. After the words here upon, you will find three videos of my practice. The scenes were not all shot on the same day, although I arranged the sequences to be in proper order. The first takes I did still had some shake and bounce, so you will identify the earlier bits by that. I bought a tripod the next day and screwing this in to the Flip as a handle seemed to remove some of my quiver.
Anyway, if you view the videos I suggest you scroll down and turn off my music player. There is no narrative on the films, but you can hear distinctively the forest sounds, especially birdsong to the backbeat of my crunching steps upon the trail.
What you won't see in the videos are most of the distractions that disrupted my walk and filming. I have tended with age and curiosity to speak to people along the way, especially if they are puzzlements. I do not care to stick a camera in their face, however, so I generally snap it off during conversations. So here in print are the gaps and the tales of these interesting encounters.
Let's begin with Jerry the Flutist, or Flautist for any Anglophiles, who is pictured walking along at the top of this post. I met Jerry a few weeks ago, right after the floods we had. He had a long, strange object in his hand and so I asked, "What's that, some kind of musical instrument?"
Yes, it was, a kind of flute, but very different and very beautiful. It was shaped more like a Recorder than the flutes we see in marching bands. You blew in the top and played finger holes straight down the tube and it was quite long. I don't remember the name, but it was a Native American instrument, all hand carved from wood, polished up to bring out the shine and distinction of the gain. It had been made for him by a friend who does those things. Jerry said he had another, but was reluctant to bring it because of its size, fearful people would be spooked, think it a weapon, perhaps a bazooka.
He was going on a trip to Colorado and would take this flute with him. He hoped there would not be any problem taking it on the plane, but he would not go without it. It was too important to his soul now.
His wife had died last fall and this was his consolation and his spiritual connections to his love. He came to the park and wandered its paths playing music, very well I will add. I've passed him several times since, tootling and soothing away his lost in melodies played to the trees.
And I saw him as I began my filming walks these last few days. So we can start with him tooting our overture as we march upon our own way, our own spiritual journey along the creek.
Ah, the creek, the creek, the Brandywine is more river here, broad and flowing. I choose the West wood path right by its side and decided to walk this to Ramsey Road and then back on the higher, wider Piken Creek Road and finish it off with a climb up a Piedmont Hill. These are the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. They sit like humps and bumps between the sea and the higher climes from New Jersey to Alabama. They are beautiful festivals of color in the fall and bleak landscapes in winter, covered with leafless trees standing like tombstones above the carcasses of fallen brothers. Now after the weeks of rain, they are green jungles steaming with this current blanket of heat.
They run down this edge of Delaware like its spine, festooned with the hard blue rock we are so proud of and rising to our higher elevations of 400 feet or so. Not enormous, but still somewhat challenging to hiker and biker.
I start out along the flat and low lying river, following a narrow dirt path into the tangle of shrubbery, sometimes coming near crumbling edges of riverbank, sometimes twisting as if after a wandering snake into honeysuckle or thorn. You can follow my amble on this first video.
After entering and traipsing deep into the woods I come to a cross trail. Here a kind of marsh has formed on one side and there is another pool of stagnant water right next to the creek on the other side. I stepped into this area and was immediately a buffet luncheon for a batch of mosquitos. Every time I glanced down some bug had its straw-like mouth in my flesh happily slurping away.
I swatted my way through this thicket of bloodsuckers and then forded a little run by crossing a fallen log. If you look in the video you will see this run is festooned by brown, flat material. This stuff is cornstalks, carried and trapped at this place from the cornfield we will soon walk beside. The cornfield you see was a few weeks ago under water from the flooding of the Brandywine. You have to realize how high the banks are here to appreciate the amount of water that overflowed them and its power to pluck the field clean of last years empty and dead stalks. Now the field is all planted with the sproutings of this years crop. It was also aswarm with circling clusters of gnats. These tiny insects swirled about in the air, tiny dervishes of constant motion.
And while I watched this dance, a large splash from the creek caught my attention. I thought perhaps some large fish had jumped or perhaps a goose had landed. In a moment a large, soppy-wet, oddly furred hound bounded from a small side path before me, shaking droplets in all directions. Ahead came a couple with another large dog I easily recognized as a Yellow Lab, much like the Tucker we lost last spring. The two dogs came rushing to me, tongues lollying and tails wagging. The soaked beast was a Golden Doodle, part Golden Retriever and part Poodle. This was Melvin and Maxine. The owners explained there was a third dog, a Chihuahua and Jack Russell Terrier mix, but he was at home.
I actually learned most of this on my second meeting with Melvin and Maxine, but I give it here anyway.
Continuing on past the corn, I hook up with the Piken Creek Road, the wider main path through this side of the park. My plan is to come back along this dirt road after I turn around at Ramsey.
Piken Creek Walk One
As I started down Piken Creek Road toward Ramsey Road I spoted someone standing in the middle of the trail. Not only is he standing there, he is staring up toward the tree tops. You know how it is, you see someone looking up, you have to look up as well.
"Something interesting up there?" I ask him.
He explains a certain bird hard to spot is in these trees. A bird tweets and he asks, "Hear that. That's its song."
This is Don, the bird-watching mailman from West Chester, a Pennsylvania town not far from the Delaware border. He tells me he grew up in the country and took a notice and interest in the birds. I grew up a good bit in the country myself, but I'd be hard put to name many birds by sight, let alone by their call.
I wished him happy bird watching and continued out to Ramsey where I turned. Don was still there when I returned and now he joined me on my jaunt, pointing out various birds as we went. I had intended to follow the Piken Creek Road, but now we sauntered back down the cornfield path, once again encountering Melvin and Maxine and their jolly owners, where we paused for a lengthy conversation.
I told Don he might be interested in a bird-watching group that wanders through the park regularly. It is led by guides from the Delaware Natural History Museum. I had run into a group not long before this popping out of this very trail, older people like me, all with binoculars dangling about their necks. I wondered if this was the best way to watch birds, trotting through the trails in large groups, but Don seemed interested. I hope I meet him again, because I gave him wrong info. I thought this group met every Saturday morning, but on getting home discovered it was a monthly meet, not weekly.
I split from Don back in the midst of the mosquito infested portion of the woods. I took a side trail to get back up on the Piken Creek Road and then to the Piedmont hill I intended to crest.
As I walked along this winding passage, a horse suddenly appeared before me, a lovely creature of white with large patches of brown. A lady was amount. She probably had come down the Piedmont herself, from a horse farm up atop it. I stepped aside to let them pass.
"Walk early," she said (the lady not the horse) "so you don't die."
This was in reference to the high heat we were having. It would be up to 94 by afternoon. Just as they passed by me, the horse stepped either in a small hole or skidded on a hidden rock and stumbled.
"Don't fall on me, buddy," I said.
"He won't," said the lady.
I wasn't really worried about myself, but concerned the horse might get injured. He righted himself and they went their way and I went mine.
Piken Creek Walk Two
I came back onto Piken Creek Road just below a bridge. I let a bicyclist zip by and then I filmed myself standing on the bridge gesturing like an idiot. I look as if I am telling you what is over there and what is over here, but actually I am not saying a word, just waving my arms about and dithering in silence.
From there I walked up to a couple of rocks along the trail and looked down. A month ago some bicyclist tried to ride his bike up this incline and flipped over on his head. I wish I had filmed that.
Now I begin the long climb up this Piedmont hill. It goes up and up and up for quite a ways. As I start there is another path to my right, which is where I will return after cresting this hill and heading down the other side, a complete circle.
Not far past this point I am struck by movement ahead. A big tan dog is racing -- alone -- toward me. He is woofing. This is always a nervous situation. I don't like meeting a strange dog in the woods. Who knows what it will do. Much to my relief its master, a young woman, and another dog soon appear. Both dogs are Labs, one a Yellow very like my late Tucker, meaning it is kind of plump. They pass me by and I hear the young woman direct them off on what will be my return path as I continue my climb.
At the top of the hill I come out in farmland. There is hay as far as you can see. The path, barely discernible, goes through the hay and reenters the woods on the far side. The hay is very high. It actually comes to above my hips. I came through this field a week ago, before our hot spell and everything was still wet from all the rains. By the time I crossed this field my shorts, legs and shoes were soaked. This was a situation best avoided this day, since I discovered the particular shorts I was wearing this time get quite transparent when wet.
I met the young lady and her two dogs again part way across this field, a situation which could be awkward in transparent shorts to say the least.
Finally it is back into the coolness of the forest. I was beginning to perspire in the field, caught directly in the morning sun. Now I snake my way back down the mount on a narrow, steeper trail and end my first practices with the Flip.
This morning I watched a classic film I had never seen. I had heard of it, of course, seen the poster and stills of the famous subway grill scene, but never seen the film. It is a funny movie, but it is even funnier reflecting on how perceptions and tastes and rules have changed in the 53 years since it was made.
The little description box on my TV had the viewer warnings at the bottom: V and SD, I believe were the letters, and it said "Intense Violence" and "Intensely Suggestive Dialogue".
I could understand the intensely suggestive dialogue, although in reality it was not very intense compared to what you hear in any present day TV sitcom. There were no "four-letter" words, no graphically described bits of erotica, as well as no nudity or explicit sex. In today's theaters it probably would garner a PG rating, a PG-13 at the most.
Yes, the dialogue was subtlety suggestive, yet "Intense Violence"? Having never seen the film, I kept waiting and looking for this intense violence. Twenty years ago we had still-beating hearts pulled from chests in an Indiana Jones adventure and that wouldn't measure up to intense violence compared to many of the modern movie bloodfests. What would be intense violence in a 1955 comedy?
It came near the end, in the imagination of Tom Ewell as the man with the seven year itch. (Shouldn't it have properly been called the 'seventh year itch'? He didn't have an itch for seven years). He fantasizes his wife suddenly coming home and shooting the lock off his apartment door. She menaces him with her pistol and finally shoots him five times on a staircase and twice more after he has fallen. We hear the gun, see puffs of smoke and watch Ewell stumble about and fall, but we never see any blood or gore. I once played such a victim in a high school sketch. It was comic violence, hardly intense.
And then there are all those stills and the posters of Marilyn standing on a subway grill, her skirt flying high above her waist as Tom Ewell leers at one side. These were shots that upset Joe DiMaggio, but they were shots not taken from the film. Yes, she does stand upon a subway grill and twice her skirt is blow up, but at the angle the scene is shot you only see her legs exposed to just above her knees. Women shop in our malls in shorts that display more leg than this infamous scene.
Speaking of women today and Marilyn, it was striking how she...well...looked plump. Women today would be heading for the diet books if photographs showed them looking as wide across the beam as Marilyn in this film and they'd be concerned about the thickness of their legs as well.
Another thing that stood out was prices. Ewell has a meal in a restaurant. The waitress enumerates the items he had to eat, which were quite a few, and ends stating it will be a $1.27. At another point, Marilyn complains about the uselessness of an electric fan she purchased and states she will return it to the pharmacy and get her $3.87 back.
It is obvious the film was based on a play. It is not extensively movie-like. Most of it takes place in Ewell's apartment and consists of two characters. A few scene go outside the apartment and include others, but it is easy picturing it being performed on a stage.
Despite all this, it is still funny and enjoyable. In other words, it's basic story is timeless.
I'll make one final observation. This film was considered somewhat daring in its day. But it is very, very, very mild indeed compared to where film and TV have went since. This is the subtle way evil creeps further into corrupting our lives. One would be laughed at for objecting to the Seven Year Itch as dirty or sexy or...oh my...intensely violent. The line has moved and it isa perfectly acceptable film for police society. Yet each decade that passes, that line moves further and more things become acceptable. Eventually there will be nothing one can object to and not be thought prudish or judgmental. And then I think we will be morally lost. We may be close. We may be there.
