To Kill a Mockingbird, Part 2

Had to pause To Kill a Mockingbird DVD ’cause it was Saturday and I wasn’t fully awake, and then today I decided I must watch Before Sunset, primarily because Before Sunrise meant so much, SO much. And it was good, Sunset, but it was different, and mostly all I could think about was how Ethan Hawke and I have that same lil’ dent in our foreheads, and how Sunrise had all this other significance because it was all mixed in with my life, at a particular time ... and how sometimes, it almost seems as if it all happened to someone else.

Which, in some ways, it did.

Which makes me wonder: If someone likes you, really likes you, then shouldn’t that be enough? If you have a connection with someone, and, for whatever reason that people like each other, you like her or him and she or he likes you, then shouldn’t that get you past when one or the other or both of you do/does something wrong? Don’t the 1 or 2 “bad” deeds or qualities or whatever get snuffed out by the 101 good things?

Anyway, Ethan and I have both gotten older, Julie Delpy still has that adorable French accent, and Jesse and Celine are listening to Nina Simone as the film comes to an end. What more could you ask for, except that perhaps the first film was complete in and of itself, and there never really is a good reason for making a sequel?

: )

I was thinking some more about To Kill a Mockingbird, the book, and I was glad to get some feedback from Patti. She has read a million and one books; matter of fact, when I think back to our college days, I can remember her almost always being in the middle of a book. Anyhoo, I think I had heard her mention To Kill a Mockingbird, somewhere along the line, and even if I didn’t, I knew, somehow, that of course she had read it.

And, of course, she has. Many times. And seen the movie.

And one of the aspects of both that sticks with her is freedom. And how summer seemed especially free from worries or cares, and how, when you’re a kid, the neighborhood seems so huge. She says she remembers running past the “scary” house. I don’t remember a scary house in my neighborhood, but I remember my neighbors’ names: Chris and Melissa, Brandon and Deana (they were all kids); Mabel and Burl, Mrs. Mahnke (her nephew Tony was my best friend in grade school, and some of my favorite days were when he would come to visit; it is because of him that I became a Chicago Cubs fan, and have always envied left-handers), Carl and Daisy Broyles, John Bodell (he always wore dark pants and a white button-down shirt over a Dago tee, which I believe they now call “wife-beaters”), the Andersons catty-corner from us, Charles Longwell (he was a kid, too; one time, he wiped a booger on Debra’s hot-potato game).

When we went to my dad’s house, there weren’t as many neighbors: Kris and Brad Bolt (Brad was my age, Kris a year older), May Miller and her husband, and their son, John (they had a tire swing, but John was much younger than we were), and Mr. Yakey. I guess Mr. Yakey was as close to a “scary” neighbor as I ever knew, and even then ... well, all he did was sit at his back window and peck on it whenever he saw us peeping out from under this huge bush that he had in his back yard.

I mean, that bush was incredible! Me, Bobby and Debra could crawl in there and fit, comfortably. But Mr. Yakey always saw us. He always knew when we were in there!

We were always looking for a place, it seemed. When Dad lived at the trailer court, we transformed a nearby barn or even a large slab of concrete (the foundation for a pole barn, eventually) into our headquarters. On Main Street, we hung out in Mr. Yakey’s bush or the attic of Dad’s house. One time, we even made a clubhouse out of DOORS! Yes, actual doors ... and for the life of me, I cannot remember where we got them, or how, or anything, but we used 3 or 4 of them (maybe more?) to put together a clubhouse, right there in the back yard.

Bobby was the president, I was the vice president and Debra was the janitor, always. Sometimes Kris got to be the VP or the treasurer. Brad, the boy I was constantly fighting with, was simply a member.

: )

Today I shot photos of a 1963 Corvair. It’s torn to hell, but they’re going to renovate it (or whatever you call it when you completely reDO a car: “We can rebuild it; we can make it better ... stronger ... faster!”) and raffle it off as a fund raiser.

In the midst, I shot a self-portrait.



And then, on the way back to the news office, I noticed the word “Scout” on a building.



And it made me smile. : )