Man … the feels on that movie. Story time. Many years ago during the height of the VHS craze, our family gifted my mother’s parents a VHS unit. My father patiently stepped my Papa through how to play tapes, rewind them, record things etc. This was on Christmas, and afterwards my father spent extra time driving them both home and setting the unit up for them and all that was involved in that.
Flash back even further than that, and as a very young kid, I bonded with my Papa, quite a bit. He was a very loving and generous man, a WWII vet, a watchmaker/jeweler, an avid collector of old technical antiques, and an alcoholic. I didn’t even understand what that meant back then. I loved him even more because I would hear negative remarks about my Papa and didn’t know what the hell they were referring to. But the time he and I spent together, I cherish. He instilled in me a love for westerns, old war movies, classic black and white stars, and old music. I watched so much with him.
So as time went by, the VHS gift was around my sophomore year of high school. I was well aware of all things about my grandfather, but still loved the man. And not a month after Christmas, we started getting VHS tapes in the mail. These were those classic westerns, war movies and oldies that my grandpa watched, only he blatantly recorded them off the broadcasts and would label them and send them to me. “For Kelly. I know he’ll love it!” Eventually neither I nor my family could keep up with how many he was sending and I think at some point my mom had to break the news to him, “we’re good, thank you.”
Papa passed a few years back. I think of him a lot, still. And my mother passed early this year as well. As part of the family going through what was left in the house I cleaned out my old room there. In the closet was a box, filled to the rim with old VHS tapes, nearly all from Papa. And the one on top? Bridge On the River Kwai, marked, “Kelly, please watch this, it’s my favorite!”
That movie will always, always be dear to me, not just for the great performances.