Not *Quite* a Full Circle...but...

...getting closer.

Daughter Lyn called mid-afternoon yesterday. Her words brought back some memories from 1982. The twins were five years old. The commercials on television had them begging us to take them to a "real" movie.

He is afraid. He is totally alone. He is 3 million light years from home.

"Mom, do you and Dad want to go with us tonight? The Recreation Department outdoor movie this month is over in N.R. Park. We can meet here and walk over together."

"What's the movie?"

"Mom," she laughs. "It's E.T."

I told her I would check with R when he got home from work, but that even if he didn't want to go, I would meet them. But, I figured that R would want to go - I knew the memories would be just as fresh in his mind as they are in mine.

In 1982, parents didn't take their kids to the movies as early as they seem to now. The exceptions were cartoon movies, which were, of course, primarily Disney movies. It was almost a rite of passage for kids to be able to tell their friends that they went to a movie theater. And, this was a movie on film, not a cartoon!

The promo commercials had been on for weeks. E.T. stuff was touted everywhere. And the kids all wanted to see it.

So, we made plans to go with Barb and Darald and their son, Matt. We had them over for hamburgers before the movie. The kids were all impatient and far too excited to eat, naturally.

They wiggled around in their seats, anxious for the movie to begin. If there's anyone reading this who hasn't seen the movie, it starts out very "dark". The family is saddened over the recent break-up of Mom and Dad, and it's easy for Elliott to be thought of as "acting out" when he finds a strange creature.

Kirk, to put it mildly, was a scaredy-cat. He freaked out, crying, begging to go home, and R finally had to take him to the back for a bit to calm down. E.T. on a movie screen is far bigger to a frightened kid and it's pretty easy for parents to overlook that possibility. He finally agreed to come back to his seat as long as we told him he didn't have to look if something scared him.

Of course, by the end of the movie, he was totally in love with E.T. So were the rest of us.

So, Lyn's invitation to see E.T. once again with our grandbabies was something not to be missed. Luke is four, Milana is two. Robert and I wondered if Luke and Laney would follow in the footsteps of Uncle Kirk.

We walked over to the park, Laney chasing every bunny she saw along the way. Luke stayed pretty close to his dad; I wondered if he was apprehensive. As we got close to the place in the park the movie would be shown, we saw that one of the local banks was in attendance to hand out bags of popcorn. The bank mascot was there, too, hugging all the little kids.

Laney is totally in love with animals. And the bank mascot happens to be named Penny the Bear. It doesn't matter if Penny is just a human in a costume. In Laney's mind, she's an animal and thus, is deserving of two year old attention. Penny got lots of hugs from Laney.

Once we peeled the kid away, we were able to get our blankets and chairs set up. Luke plopped down on the blanket and immediately covered his ears. It was still at least a good 20 minutes until the movie would begin. I invited him over to my lap and he snuggled in, refusing to remove his hands from his ears. He was afraid, but not so afraid that he wanted to go home. After Jared stretched out on the blanket, Luke jumped off my lap, hands still over ears, and sat as close to Jared as he could. A few minutes later, Jared took Luke over to the playground to do a little stress relief.

Laney, on the other hand, crawled up in my lap with her bag of popcorn and entertained us as the movie began.

"E.T. lost."

"That's a boy. (Elliott) I'm a girl."

"I like pizza."

"E.T.'s a monster, but this is just pwetend."

"The sky is bwoo. Bwoo's my favowit color."

Lyn said, "Laney, it is NOT! What's your favorite color?"

"Pwerpul."

And it went on, and on, and on...and Robert and I sat there and laughed. I wish I'd have had a voice activated recorder with me.

After the closet scene, where Elliott's mom looks in the closet and sees nothing but stuffed animals, Luke took his hands off his ears. He was totally mesmerized. Eventually, Laney crawled from my lap to Mom's and fell asleep.

I'd forgotten what a tear-jerker that movie is at the end. I sniffled my way through the ending with the old memories of a terrified Kirk, and new memories of a terrified Luke. And I wonder if they'll be walking around their house for the next few months saying "Be Gooooood" and "E.T. phone home". I wonder if Luke will be like Uncle Kirk and love all things outer space, be they fiction or not.

We tucked Laney in the wagon, wrapped in blankets for the ride home. The moon hung low in the sky in the west, low enough that the rays of the sun, invisible to our eyes, colored the crescent a beautiful gold tinged with red.

It was easy to believe in the magic, easy to think of space travel. It was good to snuggle with my grandbabies, and share something come full circle.

And, entertainment aside, I hope that the message of compassion and love for all beings planted yet another seed within those seeing the movie for the first time, and jogged the rest of us into remembering to turn on our "heart light", too.