November 30: Everyone Beamed at Him, Fred Rogers, Niceness

"Hi," he [Zaphod Beeblebrox] said again.

Everyone beamed at him, or at least, nearly everyone . . .

Here he is.  Zaphod Beeblebrox being Zaphod Beeblebrox.  Beloved President of the Galaxy.  Basking in the love and adulation of everyone around him, like some kind of intergalactic Fred Rogers, only with two heads.

Greetings on the last day of November, 2019.  As I have said in recent posts, I am pretty anxious to have 2019 in my rear view mirror.  It has not been the best of years.  For many reasons.  I am trying to make this Christmas season extra special to salvage these last days.  Doing some homemade presents.  Getting something extra special for my kids.  Practicing some self care.  Attempting to be kind to everyone.

Last night, I took my family to see the movie It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood with Tom Hanks playing Fred Rogers.  The original plan was to take in the 6:40 p.m. showing.  However, when we showed up at 6:30 p.m., we found out that there wasn't a 6:40 p.m. show.  So, I made some lemonade out of lemons, and we headed over to Big Boy for a family dinner.

We sat and ate and talked for almost two hours.  It was a really wonderful time, watching my son and daughter kid around, tease and poke at each other, talk about Christmas and snow storms.  My daughter's boyfriend was in that mix, too.  He's been dating my daughter going on three years now, so he's, basically, another son to us.  We care about him a lot.

After eggs and pastas and a cookies and cream milkshake, we headed back to the theater to see the movie.  Everyone was excited (well, my daughter's boyfriend was not complaining, so I count that as excited for him).  I was tired, but really content to be with the people whom I love most.

The movie was really beautiful, and Tom Hanks was ah-mazing.  Of course.  I grew up watching Fred Rogers, as most kids of my generation did in the United States.  I was afraid that the film was going to try to humanize Mr. Rogers, peel away the cardigan to reveal a tortured soul.  It wasn't that at all.  Instead, it was the story of a journalist, Lloyd,  who was out to dig up some dirt on Fred Rogers, and he ends up being transformed by his interactions with the man (and Daniel Tiger and King Friday the Thirteenth).  It filled me with a compassion and love for people.  All kinds of people.  Good people.  Bad people.  Whole people, broken people.  And it reinforced to me the power of being nice and kind in the face of everything life throws your way.

That's a really good lesson for me right now.  I think the whole world would be a much better place if we were all a little more like Fred Rogers.  I know that the man wasn't a saint.  He had his personal struggles.  He got angry, sad, depressed, frustrated.  He was human.  But he didn't let those emotions rule his life, and he treated everyone--regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, political affiliation, religious beliefs--as if they really mattered.

Kindness can make a broken soul whole again.

So, if I see you today, at the grocery store or church or at McDonald's, don't be surprised if I tell you how important you are to me.  How glad I am that you are in my life.  How I wish goodness and love to you and everyone who's important to you.

It's a beautiful day in Saint Marty's neighborhood.

May 4: Zaphod Beeb, "Star Wars" Day, the Force

Ford and Arthur are about to meet Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Imperial Galactic Government . . .

"Yeah, just show them in, would you, Marvin?" came another voice.

Arthur looked at Ford and was astonished to see him laughing.

"What's . . . ?"

"Shhh," said Ford, "come on in."

He stepped through into the bridge.

Arthur followed him nervously and was astonished to see a man lolling back in a chair with his feet on a control console picking the teeth in his right-hand head with his left hand.  The right-hand head seemed to be thoroughly preoccupied with this task, but the left-hand one was grinning a broad, relaxed, nonchalant grin.  The number of things that Arthur couldn't believe he was seeing was fairly large.  His jaw flopped about at a loose end for a while.  

The peculiar man waved a lazy wave at Ford and with an appalling affectation of nonchalance said, "Ford, hi, how are you?  Glad you could drop in."

Ford was not going to be outcooled.

"Zaphod," he drawled, "great to see you, you're looking well, the extra arm suits you.  Nice ship you've stolen."

Arthur goggled at him.

"You mean you know this guy?" he said, waving a wild finger at Zaphod.

"Know him!" exclaimed Ford, "he's . . ." he paused, and decided to do the introductions the other way round.

"Oh, Zaphod, this is a friend of mine, Arthur Dent," he said.  "I saved him when his planet blew up."

"Oh sure," said Zaphod, "hi, Arthur, glad you could make it."  His right-hand head looked round casually, said "Hi" and went back to having its teeth picked.

Ford carried on.  "And Arthur," he said, "this is my semicousin Zaphod Beeb . . ."

"We've met," said Arthur sharply.

Two semi-relatives, trying to outcool each other at a chance meeting.  It's happened to me before.  I've written about it in this blog before--a run-in with cousins at Disney World.  Zaphod and Ford, both from Betelgeuse Five, thrown together millions of miles from home, in a stolen spaceship with an Improbability Drive.

You know, I've been a science fiction fan since I was a kid.  I remember reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when I was a teenager.  I got the original trilogy for Christmas one year and spent the rest of the day reading it.  I think I got through the first two books by the time I went to bed that night.  Zaphod and Arthur and Trillian and Ford and Marvin were pretty good company that holiday season.  Like semi-cousins from Betelgeuse Five.  That was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . .

You've probably figured out where I'm headed with this post by now if you're a Star Wars fan.  It is Star Wars Day--May the Fourth, as in "May the Fourth be with you."  This became a thing many years ago.  A time for all the Solos and Skywalkers and Vaders and Oganas to let their geek flags fly high.  My love of Star Wars goes all the way back to 1977.

I was ten-years-old when the original Star Wars appeared.  This was before it was known as A New Hope, when it was just this little, weird science fiction film that hit movie theaters in May.  I saw it for the first time in June.  I remember the day distinctly.  It was an incredibly hot summer.  The kind of heat where the bugs start sawing the air at 7 a.m. and don't stop until ten or eleven at night.

A whole crew of my siblings and I piled into my parents' van and drove the twenty minutes to the movie theater.  When we got there, the line for the show was already over 80 or 90 people deep.  Before we even got to the ticket booth, the movie was sold out.  We piled back into the van and drove back home.

The next day was just as hot.  We got to the theater two hours early and were the first in line.  The smell of buttered popcorn was in the air, and that original Hildebrandt poster--the one with Luke holding the light saber above his head and Leia by his leg, showing her leg suggestively and brandishing a blaster in her hand,--was in front of me.

I was the first person in the theater and ran down the row to one of the front rows.  It was 45 minutes before showtime, and I sat there, craning my neck around, watching the auditorium fill up.  By the time the lights dimmed, we were packed into the seats like droids in a Sandcrawler.  The lights went down.  The curtain in front of the screen opened.  Darkness.

Then, the initial blast of John Williams' theme.  Buuuuuummmm-ba-ba-buuuuuummm-ba-ba-bummmmmm.  The Star Wars logo blasting yellow against a field of stars, and the crawl of words began.  It was ah-mazing.  I was hooked.

That summer, I returned 27 times to see the movie.  When I sat down in my seat, I would look back at the projectionist (this was still the celluloid era) and wave.  He would wave back.  And then, my dose of Star Wars for the night.

I have nothing deep or profound to say today.  My geek side is exposed for all to see.  I am wearing my Star Wars tee, listening to a Star Wars radio station on my laptop,  basking in his Yoda-ness.

May the Force be with all of Saint Marty's disciples.