When Can I Qualify as a "Buff"??

I love movies. Last night Ed and I settled down to watch The Sentinel, and as soon as the 20th Century Fox logo and music came on, the "yeah, I get to watch a movie" feeling came over me! When I catch one of those AMC 100 shows (100 best movie kisses, 100 best movie lines, 100 best movies, etc.) it brings back so many memories of where I was when I saw those movies, who I was with, what my life was like at that time. Nostalgia at its finest.

The first movie I remember seeing was Cinderella. I was four or five years old when my Dad took me to see it. One of those unforgettable father-daughter events. And I was hooked.

When I was in junior high, the schools were so crowded that we had split shifts. I got the morning shift which meant I had to be at school at 7:00am and was done by 12:30pm. My little sister was in school and Mom was working (this was before Tony was born) so I would get home and have the whole house to myself. Heaven!! Channel 9 was the ABC affiliate in Tucson and every afternoon at 2pm they had the "2 o'clock Movie" (pretty clever name, eh). So I would go home, close the drapes in the family room, make myself a chicken or turkey pot pie, and sit down with one of those new-fangled tv trays, to watch an old black and white movie. My mother loved the old black-and-whites and passed that on to me. There I was surrounded by John Garfield, Robert Mitchum, Clark Gable, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly. Incredible movies like Night of the Hunter, For Me and My Gal, Anchors Aweigh, Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, Rebecca, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights (one of my all time favorites). To this day, give me a rainy day and a black-and-white movie and I'm transported!! (I'm willing to pass on the pot pies....) Or the old black-and-white Twilight Zones (my husband actually bought me the complete set for Valentine's Day).

Okay, there are some favorites among the technicolor variety, too - Gone With the Wind, Singin' in the Rain, Meet Me in St. Louis.

My best friend in Tucson, Maureen, was also a huge movie buff. At least three times a year we would have a movie marathan day. Pick a theme (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940's, R&H musicals, Richard Gere) and find four movies. We'd start with croissants and coffee with the first movie, popcorn with the second, pasta salad and wine for the third, ice cream for the fourth. On Richard Gere day we did manage to squeeze in a fifth movie which went very well with a nice Chardonnay.

My daughter, Jenni, inherited my love of movies. She and her friend, Kathy, did their own production of Chorus Line complete with paper tophats, tuxedo jackets, and a rousing rendition of "One". I still get a smile on my face when I hear that song. And Jenni's kids are hypnotized when watching one of their movies. Should you dare to try to talk to them or give them a kiss, they simply look around you with a catatonic gaze and don't miss a beat.

Another family tradition continues.