Lifelong loves

Most children have a list of things they love to do. Fun stuff that makes being a kid the best thing in the world to be. And as we cross that invisible line into adulthood these loves suddenly seem silly and , well, childish. We fold them up neatly, pack them carefully into a big box and quietly store them away in a dusty closet somewhere in a far corner of our memories. Sometimes, however, there's that one thing that we keep with us. Something so near and dear to our hearts that we could care less what the rest of the world thinks about it. As far as my fellow 2o2p'rs are concerned, I'm guessing smart money would be on gaming for most.

For me that love is movies. More specifically, horror movies. Good or bad, doesn't matter. I was hooked the first time I watched "The Curse of the Werewolf" when I was but a wee child of 6. This was at my grandmother's house and was crowded around the TV with my some of my aunts(my mother has 11 brothers and sisters, the youngest only 6 months older than me). I was scared shitless and loved it. I wanted more. It was a tough sell with my parents seeing as I was only 6 but when the nightmares failed to appear(they were expecting me to wake up screaming for a week, silly fools), they begrudgingly decided to indulge me.

After that my passion manifested itself in three ways. First was the Saturday afternoon ritual of grabbing a giant glass of Koolaid and parking my butt in front of the TV for Monster Movie Matinee. This was a show produced by and shown on a Syracuse tv station. It came complete with a couple of weird, goofy, poorly made-up hosts and showed just about any kind of horror and sci-fi movie you can think of. From the classics like Dracula and Frankenstein to the stop-motion gems of Ray Harryhausen and all of those wonderful "oh no! look what we've created with our nuclear testing" creature features. This being the late 60's-early 70's, the gore level was generally very low so my parents didn't censor my viewing.

Next came the one thing that stopped me from blowing my allowance on that humungous bag of candy 50 cents could buy back then. FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. I would save my allowance and bottle collecting money and make that once a month trek to the drug store where I had a standing order with the nice woman behind the cash. The magazines came in and she would keep a copy for me behind the counter. And every time she would ask the same question: "What's a nice young boy like you doing reading this garbage?" She would then shake her head and take my money. I left the store and parked it right there on the curb to give it a quick run through. When I got home I would read it more thoroughly and proceed to laugh hysterically at all the Forryisms(the editor, Forrest J. Ackerman, filled that puppy with just about every corny play on words you can think of...plus some more).

Lastly, when I reached the ripe old age of 10 my parents let me take in new movies at the local theatre...at night....all by myself!!! Ok, it was only on weekends and only if I was with my friends. And what was really great was the fact that it only cost me the price of popcorn and a drink. One of my best buds at the time was Brian. Brian's mom ran the cash and Brian's sister's boyfriend was the usher ( Town's population:9000, crowd control not really a problem). AND back then, one ticket...two movies. Yep, one at 7 and one at 9(give or take depending on the length of the movies). Of course anything rated R was a no-no but hey, you can't have everything.

So here I am quickly approaching my 45'th birthday and my love of the cinema macabre is as fresh as the day I peeked out from behind my aunt to see a man change into a wolf. I hope that all of you are lucky enough to have been able to hold on to a chunk of your childhood as I have and get to relish in it as often as you can.

Edit: After posting this I was inspired and photoshoped me a new background. Wadya think?