Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Sunday while my dad was at church, I walked on more Wild Violet stuff, transcribing a second interview. I didn't manage to finish that one, but I got a good start on it, considering that the plumbers came by to finish some things for Dad and made a good deal of noise.

Afterwards, Mom was back from church but Dad was still running rounds. I stopped over at her place with The Gryphon. I had forgotten to give her a skirt I'd brought for her, which was in a different bag than the other clothing items. She was happy to receive it.

While we were there, we talked some more, but we didn't have much time. We had to make it back to Dad's in time to catch a special performance at the local classic movie theater. They were showing Charlie Chaplin's The Kid, with a live ragtime orchestra performing music.

This was a charity event to fund restorations to the Art Deco theater, one of the few of its kind left in the country. With this performance, the raised the last of the money needed to receive a matching state grant.

The performance started out with a short, The Adventurer, which was one I hadn't seen. In it, Charlie Chaplin is an escaped prisoner who saves a woman and her mother from drowning and then attempts to woo her, competing with his perennial rival, the imposing Eric Campbell.

The short had some great comic bits, particularly when he was running from the police. It was great to hear a theater of 500 people laughing.

After a brief intermission, they showed The Kid. This was actually a Chaplin feature I'd never seen in its entirety, though I had seen clips and stills. It was fun to see it all the way through.

Parts of the film, by today's standards, were melodramatic, but when you consider that he was just learning how to blend comedy with pathos, it was a good first attempt. The scenes with Jackie Coogan, the orphan kid whom the Tramp adopts after finding him in an alleyway as a baby, are touching. He worked amazingly well with Chaplin, keeping up with his pace during the comic scenes, and when the authorities threatened to separate the two of them, the little boy's cries for his "daddy" were heartwrenching.

At the close of the movie, everybody applauded, having thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The ragtime orchestra continued to play exit music as we left.

After the movie, Dad, The Gryphon and I went to a nearby Perkins restaurant for dinner. I wasn't really sure what on the menu would be best, but I had the grilled salmon with steamed broccoli and a side salad.

Then it was just a matter of loading up the car and driving home. We encountered very little traffic on the roads, probably because of the Super Bowl. At one of the rest stops, we saw a fraction of the game, with the Eagles coming from behind (14-7) to tie at 14-14.

This was why, when we returned home and heard fireworks and the fire siren going off, we assumed the Eagles had won. Turns out they hadn't, but I suppose Eagles fans decided to celebrate a good season anyway. Making it to the Super Bowl, perhaps, was victory enough.

More from my weekend:

February 7, 2005 - Weekend at Dad's

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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