rosebud

8/26/2006 11:37 AM.
I haven’t fallen off my bike yet, so it must be a good day.
The last saturday of the month is when I pay bills. This is car insurance month, so it is especially painful. I still have checks left, so I can't be overdrawn.
I got a reality check recently. It was returned for insufficient funds.
After the checkbook carnage was done, I got on my bike and went to the neighborhood yard sale.
I hit the jackpot.
I got four books, nine videos, and a camping mattress for $10.
I now own a copy of “Citizen Kane”,” The Graduate”, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, “Lawrence of Arabia”, and “Forrest Gump”. In a few hundred years, people are going to look at Forrest Gump as literally accurate history, they way contemporary man looks at Homer and the Bible.
Citizen Kane was a find for the archivist. There was a period in the late thirties and early forties which produced many of the most worshipped films of our culture…”Citizen Kane”, “Casablanca”, “Gone with the Wind”, “The wizard of Oz”, and others. This was an era when America was struggling with the aftereffects of a depression, and Germany was trying to conquer the world. Perhaps if Germany had focused on making family movies instead of taking over Europe, the world would be a better place.

Sacrilege. The only one of those four movies that I don’t have a copy of is “Gone with the Wind”. For a native Atlantan, this is not acceptable. However, I refuse to pay retail for this, and will wait until I see it at a yard sale. If I am curious, all I need to do is consult my memory, which is where most of that movie is already.
Of course, the book of cartoons by Gahan Wilson has the most truth in it.
I used to be a Charles Addams fan. I would look at the table of contents in New Yorker, and see the artists with cartoons, and look for his. Then, I noticed he was missing.
A few years later, I saw a book of his comics, and learned that he had died four years earlier. This would explain the lack of production, but is not an acceptable excuse for a man of his talent.
After I got my loot back to the house, and washed off the camping mat, It was back on the road. I had seen something last night, and wanted a picture.

Somebody is going to be surprised when they get home.