Defining Moments

There are times in our lives that somehow become embedded within our brains and stay in our thoughts as memories. These memories are either pleasant or they can be very negative in their content. They are often lying just beneath our thoughts in our subconscious , just waiting for a signal to emerge and remind us of a past experience. Sometimes these memories will emerge from events that happened years ago or they can be something that happened only days ago . If you're old enough you will readily remember what you were doing when JFK was assassinated. , or you can see in your mind what was going on when 911 occurred that morning. Sometimes even a smell will take you back to childhood as maybe the first day of school when you enter a classroom saturated with the whiffs of books and paper. Or a certain scent of perfume will take you a time of mini skirts and peace marches. The sound of soldiers marching still takes me back to ROTC and ugly baggy uniforms and even uglier, pie faced NCOs trying to get us to sign up for Advanced ROTC and become "Lifers". I can still smell locker rooms at gymnasiums as we dressed in shiny, short basketball uniforms, usually in advance of getting our country- boy asses humiliated all over the shiny hardwood floors. I can still feel the bruising punches in my skinny back as ugly, pimple faced forwards tried to intimidate me , hidden from the view of the referees as they tried to control the game. Just the sound of a bouncing ball brings back the smell of the old gymnasium with its balcony that was obscured from view by cigarette smoke and loud catcalls. The real games  were being played up there and out in the gravel parking lots. Back in those days 57 Bel Aires and Impalas weren't classics. They were means to get from point A to point B. You could smell 39 cents per gallon ethyl gasoline as they rocketed out of the parking lot on their way to the burger joints or some dirt road guaranteed for privacy. We were left on the hardwoods getting bruised and beaten. Sometimes we would go to the drive in if we had a ride or admission money. It didn't matter what was on because no one watched the show anyway. Again the show was really secondary as Social Rituals were taking place at the concession building. People met there to find romance, to fight, or to learn things, sometimes all at the same encounter. Many times the first taste of beer was found at the drive in. We didn't have drugs of any sort back then ,unless you counted Polio oral vaccine on a Sugar Cube. We did have talk of fallout shelters and local civil defense as we prepared for Nikita Khruschev and his Promise to bury us in Communism. The Cuban Missile Crises still comes to memory at odd times, and I still can see Lee Harvey Oswald shot in the stomach in black and white on our snowy old tv. We didn't know that down the road HDTV was lurking or that scratchy 45 rpms and 33s would be replaced with digital. A defining moment was installing an Arthur Fulmer 8 Track under my Gran Torinos dashboard and listening to Led Zeppelin . The Immigrant Song was perfect coming out of 4 speakers as a skinny brunette drank Boones Farm straight from the bottle. That smell of alcohol and strawberries seem to be positive in my memory.Then there was a Homecoming where my friend's date slowly ate her football mum corsage during the first half of a hazy football game. It was bright yellow with a large ribbon that was certainly a defining moment to me. She was chasing the flower petals with Bacardis Rum and left nothing but the bow and a green stem. I have wondered what happened to that girl from 1970. I imagine she went on to live a normal life and be a productive member of society, probably with children and grandchildren , who would be aghast at a picture of grandmother eating her corsage as a sexy young coed. Obviously this was a very defining moment as I have beaten it to death. Nevermind that my date and I were to be married after graduation, a pact that went different directions.Movies are an incredible source for memories both from the actors and the audience. Again the differences in male and female perception is nowhere more acutely displayed than in movie attendance. No chick flicks for me! No actor stands out more in male moments than Clint Eastwood. Dirty Harry is what we all want to grow up to be. "Do you feel lucky Punk?" or "Go ahead , Make My Day". What about "Beam Us Up Scotty"? Or how about Maverick and Goose? Especially when she lost that loving feeling, or when Maverick called the ball?How about Maverick requesting a fly by? Even when the pattern was closed?How about Doc Holiday Telling Ringo"I'm your Huckleberry"? Or how about Val Kilmer's portrayal of Doc?I think we all need writers to pen us scripts for daily conversations. That way we can all create defining moments for future generations. Sometimes I do get quoted ,but it is by Sandy's friends and generally of the negative type of defining moments.How about when Quigley shot that bucket from 10 miles away? Or when Quigley told a dying Alan Rickman,"I didn't say I didn't know how to use them. I said I didn't have any use for them". Almost Shakespearian. Another favorite Defining Moment is Lonesome Dove.Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall could have quit because everything else is commonplace after that.The soundtrack is perfection.The final two minutes of A River Runs Through It should be on everyones Desk Top.Norman MacClean said it all right then.I'm still trying to figure out whether I like "American Pie " or not.Most of the time I do ,But this driving my Chevy to a dry levy at times renminds me of that dirty, pimply faced SOB that punched me in the back nearly fifty years ago . That seems to have been a Freudian moment. Maybe I need some counseling. Take us out of here Mr. Sulu.