Well I'm up late again ... too late ... but I can't be too sorry, since Momma, our favorite OETA Movie Club was showing a wonderful movie, Dillinger (1945 )http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037644/
With the lovely actress Anne Jeffries. Looking at her bio, I see she was married to Robert Sterling. Oh Momma, how we would have talked and talked about them. Jeffries is still alive ... very much from your generation, Momma, since she was born in 1923. Her hair in this movie was very 1940s ... and we would have talked about that, too, wouldn't we Momma?
But it's Lawrence Tierney as Dillinger that really captured my attention. Tierney was born in 1919 ... only a couple of years before you Momma ... and again I know we would have talked about him. Alas he is decesaed ... perhaps God willing you are talking with him even now, Momma. He only died a few years ago. But his Dillinger ... so 1940s. I can imagine Dad wearing the same kind of hat ... the men all wore hats like those back then ... and then that famous sequence in which the suspicious Dillinger lets himself be beguiled by his "mo'" (Jeffries) into entering the movie house ... and becoming captivated by the movie ... and laughing with abandon at the cartoons ... only to be trapped and gunned down by the "feds" outside the theater ... how very microsmically true to your generation, Momma, wasn't this? Fear - worry - pervading the days ... then a "break", a movie or a trip to the lake or Coney Island ... a welcome break indeed ... but you never knew what you were walking out of that brief respite to find waiting for you.
Oh Momma ... there was a time ... there was a time to my deepest shame ... that I actually dared to despise the prosaic days and nights of your generation. What a fool I was. What a fool I am for that matter. But at least I am no longer completely blind to the wonders of your generation ... doing the "Next Right Thing", day by day, night by night, taking a break every now and then, but generally just Doing Life ... and, let's be clear, doing it far far far far far better than I have ever managed to do it ... well, Momma, I have nothing but deepest gratitude and thanksgiving for all of you, for all of you, Momma .. the Greatest Generation, indeed, Tom Brokaw's sentiments are mine as well on this ...
And ... and ...
Looking back at my very last post ...
Hey here I am doing much the same thing regarding my days and nights ... full of fear and worry and stress during my day ... grabbing a brief respite in the cinema from time to time ... and returning to find the day's stresses awaiting me once again ... until that day that I too am propelled from this life to the next ... even if not in a hail of bullets like Dililinger ... otherwise not so different ... except of course that I have not accomplished 1/1000th of what you and Dad accomplished ...
Ah well. What is, is.
Thy Will be Done O Lord
I love you Momma
I love you Jesus
Thank you thank you thank you Lord
For my Momma and my Daddy ... and for the Greatest Generation ...
I love you and thank you all.
Charles Delacroix
Sunday 12 in OT
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