Two Sundays ago after church service, we found ourselves busy clearing out (and cleaning) that much-neglected space in our tiny house we had originally planned to be our mini-library. During one time, I was absentmindedly sorting out through huge plastic bags filled with what you could call our lifetime accumulation of CDs, CDRs and DVDs, when I came across a few of those restored classics I had purposely bought, collected and stored more than twenty years ago.
Knowing that my mom had been an avid fan of those 60s movies during our years growing up in Ponciano, I slowly compiled these re-issued DVD versions wherever I could find them in the hope that I could re-watch them again with her on some weekend nights in our Bajada mothership. Sadly however, we had merely managed to view only a few movies from that old pile which now lay before me. In the generic sense, things had simply overtaken us. For one, I had moved out, then everyone got busy. A few years later, she got sicker and eventually lost in her long battle with the big C.
My Sunday chore at first had been quite easy, a no-brainer in fact. When I first began to one at a time sort out the titles from out of that dusty heap, the process I employed had simply been, keep, throw, keep and throw. That had been until a long pause, when I came across those few.
Surely, she would have loved these movies: the musical South Pacific and Sound of Music. Then the spectacle of Gandhi. I’d imagine her narrating the background of these titles, down to side-bits about the actors who played in them. I’m not so sure how she’d be taking Patton and the rest though. For one, I knew she wasn’t really fond of war movies. Long ago, I remembered searching high and low for Gone with the Wind as that had been our favorite but sadly no, that had not been on my pile.
Finally, I chose from a few of these oldies and reluctantly put the rest back inside one of the old bags. Later, come early Monday morning, I’d be giving them to our friendly neighborhood garbage collector…along with the rest in the bags…some pirated copies of Star Wars, Hobbits and Marvel super heroes.
At all this, I’m pretty sure, Pat would not really be throwing them or turning them over once the huge trucks came along before their long trip to Smokey mountain. I’m in fact silently wishing he’d keep them for himself. I remember in the not-so-distant past, we discarded our old DVD player which only needed a few repairs. So, I hope he had that player done so he could enjoy watching this recent batch. They don’t really classify as garbage, mind you. Just memories needing new space.
