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| All material on this site copyright Kim Reynolds 2009. Please contact for reprint permission. |
| Life under 500 words |
It’s a Friday afternoon in late June, my kids are in school, my husband is at work and I am
in a movie theatre slouched down in my seat. The man beside me is handsome; greying
at the temple, silver shot through his dark beard. I haven’t seen him in almost six months,
but we’ve been planning this afternoon since February.
He drove to Ottawa from Vermont and picked me up in his convertible. I didn’t even care
that the wind made a bird’s nest of my hair. We went out for Chinese food. We laughed
and talked so much that we were almost late to the movie.
The lights go down and the film begins; Land of the Lost, Will Ferrell’s new comedy. It’s
campy and silly and actually not very good. But I’m having a wonderful time, because I’m
watching it with my baby brother.
We are children of the sixties. We remember the day we came home for lunch and there
was the family’s first colour TV, a portable sitting on top of the old black and while
console. It was the first time we saw Gilligan’s red shirt, or realized that Dino was purple
and Wilma was a redhead.
Unlike my kids, who live in a house with three TVs that can record two programs at once,
or be paused while they get a snack or answer their cell phone, TV was special for my
brother and me.
You couldn’t watch a kids’ show anytime you wanted. You couldn’t pop in a DVD or even
a VCR tape. You had to watch the clock tick until the Wonderful World of Disney began
6pm on Sunday nights.
The programming jackpot was Saturday morning. That’s when we used to watch the
original Land of the Lost. The show was worse than the movie, but our expectations
weren‘t high.
Because he is four years younger, my brother and I had different friends and different
freedoms. TV was a place where we were on equal ground, (unless his feet crossed the
sacred invisible sofa divide and entered my foot space). Our relationship and friendship
grew from peanut butter sandwiches and Mr Dress-up, right through Saturday Night Live
and late night pizza.
We’re watching Will Farrell run from dinosaurs on this June day, out of nostalgia. After
the movie he’ll bring me home, grab a coffee and head back to Vermont, because he
works in the morning.
He’s here for a laugh. But as I look at my baby brother in the flicker of the screen I realize
he’s likely the only person in the world who would drive a total of six hours to watch a
movie with me. That’s pretty special. And so is he.
in a movie theatre slouched down in my seat. The man beside me is handsome; greying
at the temple, silver shot through his dark beard. I haven’t seen him in almost six months,
but we’ve been planning this afternoon since February.
He drove to Ottawa from Vermont and picked me up in his convertible. I didn’t even care
that the wind made a bird’s nest of my hair. We went out for Chinese food. We laughed
and talked so much that we were almost late to the movie.
The lights go down and the film begins; Land of the Lost, Will Ferrell’s new comedy. It’s
campy and silly and actually not very good. But I’m having a wonderful time, because I’m
watching it with my baby brother.
We are children of the sixties. We remember the day we came home for lunch and there
was the family’s first colour TV, a portable sitting on top of the old black and while
console. It was the first time we saw Gilligan’s red shirt, or realized that Dino was purple
and Wilma was a redhead.
Unlike my kids, who live in a house with three TVs that can record two programs at once,
or be paused while they get a snack or answer their cell phone, TV was special for my
brother and me.
You couldn’t watch a kids’ show anytime you wanted. You couldn’t pop in a DVD or even
a VCR tape. You had to watch the clock tick until the Wonderful World of Disney began
6pm on Sunday nights.
The programming jackpot was Saturday morning. That’s when we used to watch the
original Land of the Lost. The show was worse than the movie, but our expectations
weren‘t high.
Because he is four years younger, my brother and I had different friends and different
freedoms. TV was a place where we were on equal ground, (unless his feet crossed the
sacred invisible sofa divide and entered my foot space). Our relationship and friendship
grew from peanut butter sandwiches and Mr Dress-up, right through Saturday Night Live
and late night pizza.
We’re watching Will Farrell run from dinosaurs on this June day, out of nostalgia. After
the movie he’ll bring me home, grab a coffee and head back to Vermont, because he
works in the morning.
He’s here for a laugh. But as I look at my baby brother in the flicker of the screen I realize
he’s likely the only person in the world who would drive a total of six hours to watch a
movie with me. That’s pretty special. And so is he.
What I found in the Land of the Lost
| Me and my brother Clay |
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