Note: For those who aren't familiar with my rambling and anecdotal writing-style, this actually is a movie review, and you'll discover the relevance of the introductory story before long...

Something unexpected happened to me over the weekend--though I can't say that it was totally-unexpected as I've had times when something similar has happened.

However, I just wasn't expecting it to happen at this particular time.

I'd recently learned of this place where I could order 45 rpms of oldies online, so I decided to try it out with a couple of songs I'd been craving--songs that I, somehow, missed out on getting back when they first came out.

One of them, of course, was Tell Him by The Exciters. There's just something so catchy and upbeat about it--and, of course, it's soooooo totally romantic...

"...Tell him that you're never gonna leave him! Tell him that you're always gonna love him! Tell him-Tell him-Tell him-Tell him right now!..."

Then, there is this catchy, little tune with a wonderful Spanish-style brass section backing up this woman with a little girl's voice (someone I was surprised to recently find out was very close to 40 when she did this song, as I'd thought that she might have been 12 or 13 instead). The singer's name is Sue Thompson, and the name of this bouncy, musical story of puppy love is Norman.

After I played Tell Him a few times, I put on Norman.

It sounded so good that I played it again--and, then, it happened:

I was reduced to tears!

Since then, I've played it without this happening, but it happened then.

Why did this cheerful song have this effect on me?

It was because I was suddenly transported back to the late fall of 1962--but, like Emily (Webb) Gibbs in the play Our Town, I was transported back to being nine years old (soon to be ten) while knowing what lay ahead.

I could feel the "misty watercolored memories" of my cousins and me staying in the warmed-up car with Pawsie until we could see the lights of Jesse's school bus approaching, making its final stop (at the McAllister house two houses south of us) before getting to where it would pick us up.

The air was cool enough that we could blow "smoke" out of our mouths as we exited the car and got out to line up to enter the bus.

Jesse's bus had a radio that, at the time, he kept tuned to WIBC 1070 AM (and AM was our only option back then) that was out of Indianapolis and played a mix of the current hits and some from the past.

There were very few mornings that we didn't hear one or both of Sue Thompson's hits: Norman and James, Hold The Ladder Steady.

Listening to that song again here in early 2006 made me remember a time that seemed more carefree than it actually was.

Back then, it wasn't part of a child's job description to know that we had almost experienced World War III (the one with mushroom clouds quickly forming all over the world and ending civilization as we knew it) a few weeks before.

It also wasn't part of a child's job description to be presented with the worst case scenario until it was absolutely necessary.

I knew that Mommy visited Daddy in the hospital a lot and that she could do this because she was a grown-up.

Because I was a kid, I had to stay home, because there would be nothing to do but to sit in the lobby of Robert Long Hospital for hours on end while my folks visited each other way up on some other floor.

My job description was to go stay with my grandparents, uncle, and the latter's four older kids (the youngest living with my aunt who had filed for divorce) and have a great time. They had all moved into the converted barn where I now live--which meant that they would probably be living in Indiana for good so that I didn't have to wait until summer each year to go down to Kentucky to visit them.

And it was also to go to school on Jesse's bus where WIBC (these days, a talk radio station) played the latest hits and old favorites while we went from place to place picking up friend after friend--eventually, to arrive at good ol' FCH (Fall Creek Heights Elementary).

What a wonderful life!!!

I had limited knowledge of some of the grown-up things...

I knew, for instance, that my dad had surgery when I was in second grade and came out of it beautifully. I also knew that (or so I'd been told) the surgery was only temporary (kinda like the temporary filling Dr. Druley would put in before putting in the permanent one in a week or two). He had to go back to the hospital to get his permanent surgery.

Of course, my Kentucky kinfolks were coming up to see how they would like living in Indiana--as well as helping to take care of me while my dad was in the hospital and my mom wouldn't be home that much.

There were also some things that nobody thought that it was necessary for me to know unless things went in the direction where I had to be told...

The open-heart surgery done back when I was in second-grade was supposed to take care of everything for good--but it didn't.

This was the real reason my dad had to go back almost two years later for the second surgery.

Although I knew that he'd come home for a short time and ended up not being able to keep food down, I was simply told that he had a small infection and would have to go back to the hospital to have it fixed.

A few decades later, journalist, Lewis Grizzard didn't survive a nearly-identical "small infection" after the same (or similar) kind of surgery when he was about the same age as my dad had been then.

I also didn't know that, upon his arrival at the hospital, his infection had been initially treated with Penicillin and that his allergic reaction had been near-fatal.

What I knew was that Daddy would be home in time for Christmas (If it didn't turn out that way, it would be dealt with at that time) but wouldn't be home for my birthday or the school Christmas play that year. But Mommy would be there for both--and she was.

And, a few days before Christmas, Daddy was home, too!

He had lost a lot of weight, but he looked really nice. Even when overweight, he looked like a movie star--and he REALLY looked like a movie star all slim and wearing this nice-looking pair of pajamas and a robe that was a royal red-violet.

As I listened to Norman playing, I compared and contrasted 1962 and 2003.

In 2003, my dad would also be home for Christmas (starting several days before) and would stay home through a few days after New Year's Day before going back to the nursing home. Our plans were to bring him home for good as soon as the weather became good enough to make the arrangements.

As in 1962, he was home for the holidays, but the 2003-2004 time period brought a different outcome when he passed away in his sleep on February 2, 2004.

Somehow, listening to Norman at that particular time over the weekend took me back to a time when Daddy survived health problems and came home to stay.

I could feel that carefree time all over again--everything from early morning bus rides to school to the feel of the holiday spirit shared with family and friends to that wonderful Christmas morning when my folks and I snuggled together in front of the Christmas tree and Aunt Jenny took some pictures of us--and it brought me to tears.

More than ever, I knew what Julie was going through in the opening of Penny Serenade.

She and Roger (who wasn't present and was letting her decide what she would be taking with her) had been married for several years, and most of their memories were very happy ones.

In fact, they seemed to have had a marriage made in Heaven!

They'd had some tragedy early in their marriage and some challenges at other times, but there had been nothing that had been able to topple their marriage.

Now, something had happened that seemed to be doing just that.

Julie--who was trying to decide who would be getting custody of the various parts of their record collection--put the first record on the victrola.

A man crooned to a woman that she was meant for him.

This was the song that had brought them together back when
Roger was a newspaper reporter with big dreams of going far in his career.

One day, he had passed by a store that sold sheet music and records, and this song was being piped through a speaker that had been placed on the outside of the building.

Almost immediately, he spotted an attractive clerk in there and decided to do a little shopping in there for the purpose of checking her out. He ended up listening to and buying lots of records--and it wouldn't be long before he would have to come clean about his "real" purpose for coming into the store. I'll leave how that happened for me to know and for you to find out....

I'm now going to bring this review to a close to leave a lot of other things for me to know and you to find out as well.

Such things as...

Who got custody of which records and why?

What had brought them to this place in their lives?

Is there a lesson--perhaps, even more than one lesson--to be learned when it comes to making a marriage work even in the worst of times that can be gotten from this movie?

Are Uncle Applejack and Miss Oliver a lot like guardian angels? If you think so, in what way?

Was Miss Oliver telling Roger and Julie the truth when she said that Trina (find out how she fits into the picture when you watch the movie) was like no other baby?

Does this 65 (as of this writing) year old movie have anything important to say to us today here in the 21st Century?

Roger and Julie were played by Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, two well-known stars, to say the least.

Uncle Applejack and Miss Oliver were played by Edgar Buchanan and Beulah Bondi. As with Grant and Dunne, they were both in a great number of movies.

Most of us have, likely, seen Bondi as George and Harry Bailey's mother in It's A Wonderful Life.

With Buchanan, a lot of us Baby Boomers fondly remember him from a TV role as "...Uncle Joe who is movin' kinda slow at the junction. Petticoat Junction! ... Woo!-Wooooo!"

I highly recommend this wonderful movie that shows the life of a family being movingly unfolded through the meaningful placement of popular tunes.

I predict that this drama will linger in your heart long after the last song on the victrola comes to an end.


One final note...Visit my online store at CafePress.com, and you'll see one of the pictures Aunt Jenny took of my folks and me that wonderful Christmas morning back in 1962. I'm using it to decorate a section of my store, and you'll spot it almost immediately, I believe. The URL to take you there is:

http://www.cafepress.com/babybear1952

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Good Date Movie
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12