Many years ago I saw a movie that I loved called The World of Henry Orient. I think I was 12 or 13 years old. The story follows two young teenagers who themselves are coming of age and have fallen under the spell of an eccentric, womanizing classical pianist named Henry Orient, played brilliantly by Peter Sellers. The real star of this movie, released in 1964, is the music. The soundtrack by Elmer Bernstein (no relation to Leonard) is wonderful. Elmer had a long and distinguished career as a composer, writing music for such films as The Great Escape, To Kill a Mockingbird, Ghost Busters, and The Magnificent Seven. I revisited this movie recently and feared it would feel dated, but it held up wonderfully well, in part due to the music. The film, directed by George Roy Hill, has many layers. The teenage angst of two young girls plays out against a backdrop of a changing time in America. Men and women cheating on each other, the old and new generations struggling to coexist, and the cultural landscape of the nation coming apart at the seams. The film captures a precarious balance of comedy and sadness...hope and despair. It's fun and bittersweet, and I confess that I had a crush on both Tippy Walker and Merrie Spaeth.
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Several years ago, I shared the story about my son Jack's blood clots, and my midnight drive from Kansas City to St. Louis to be with him in the hospital after he was taken to the emergency room. I don't remember many details about that drive, but the one thing I do clearly remember is listening to the song Welcome to the Boomtown by the songwriting duo David and David (David Baerwald and David Ricketts.) This song was released in 1986. I love this song. Lyrically and musically, I attached to it instantly when I first heard it. And on this cold, dark night driving across Missouri, it came back to me for some odd reason. I don't understand why...it has nothing to do with what I was facing at that moment. I think it may have reminded me how I felt when I was 21 and facing an uncertain future. Now, in 2016, my son was also facing a future that at that moment was very much uncertain.
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Spacial self-awareness is not an attribute many people seem to have mastered. How many times have you been in a public space...a restaurant, coffee shop, store, etc,etc..and someone is coming into the space that you currently occupy without seeming to have any awareness that you are already there? I see it very often at coffee shops. The coffee prep station is ground zero for this annoyance. Someone gets their coffee out of the urn, then stays there and spends what seems like an eternity pouring in milk, flavoring, then stirring, then adding more of something else....and all I want is to get to the urn to pour some coffee into my cup. Then they turn around and seem shocked that you are standing there. These people have no radar. They only sense themselves. There is plenty of room for them to move down a bit and let others get coffee instead of making them wait behind them. Or, while I am venting, how about people who come though a door that you are holding open for them, yet do not acknowledge your kind gesture, or offer any thanks? Like it was my job to do it. This just happened to me this week. I held the door open for a woman and her two children as they were coming into a restaurant. They all walked through the door and none of them said a word to me....like I was invisible. I said "You're welcome" in a very strong voice after they had passed by. I felt like a jerk for doing that, but it just came out. Where is our sense of thanks? Where is courtesy?
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