i readily confess i am a mushy old man. i don’t know how i got there. Strangely, i think i got it from my father. i saw him cry twice and heard him cry once.
The two times i saw him cry i was with him walking outside our home. He was in his eighties both times. He cried because he was so moved in appreciation of his wife, my mother. i heard him cry once in his nineties. My mother was ill enough for be to be back home to help him deal with it. She was in rehab. We had watched a baseball game. He wrapped up the evening at 10:30 p.m., a routine he had since the television evening news became our last evening event in the early 1950s. i stayed in the family room of their duplex condo to read a bit. i heard him praying and crying for my mother. Needless to say, it was a pretty emotional event for me. i never told him i overheard.
He was a man, the kind that went through hard times worst than what we have experienced, war, depression, and they not only survived but became, or perhaps already were, men of substance, caring, hard workers, and eventually success. That kind of man back then did not talk about his emotions. But he cried.
i feel like that gives me the privilege to cry. i don’t think i’ve ever cried, except, of course, when i was an intolerable toddler, for not getting what i wanted. Nearly all of my cries have come when something touched me deeply, like when my two daughters gave me a framed photo of them holding each other for my birthday. They both knew i would cry.
Today, an impulse hit me. i have no clue why. Maureen was at her hairdresser ensuring she was beautiful, Maureen, not the hairdresser. i had done a number of home chores, fighting through a very mild reaction to the latest COVID booster. Tired. Since she wasn’t here, i headed for, what else, a golf course bar. Bonita Golf Course, one of my favorites. Now, i’m not saying i wavered from dieting healthy, but i suspect there are a bunch of nutritionists whose neck hair stood on end. On the way home, i listened to my records, digitized for my phone. The song playing for most of the way was Richard Harris singing Jimmy Webb’s 1968 song, “MacArthur Park.” That’s when the impulse hit me,
i called Maureen. “Let’s watch “Camelot,” tonight.” To put it mildly, she was surprised but readily agreed.
So last night as usual, we set up our dinner trays in the family room. Maureen served, as usual, a terrific healthy dinner. i started a fire in the fireplace, and we turned on “Camelot” on the television.
Now folks, musicals in 1968 were different than now. The movie began with a musical overture. No credits. No screen action, just a pleasant scene on the screen and about five to ten minutes of nice music. i was enthralled. Then, this wonderful, tragic, magical love story of majestic folks but like you and me, trying to do right while plagued by all of the impediments, mostly people with less than noble intent, that disrupt harmony, caring for individuals, common sense, and a willingness to buy that snake oil the bad guys are selling.
Maureen and i were taken back to a more innocent time. Ours. She sang along on most every song. i came close to weeping several times. i was captured by the story of King Arthur and enthralled with the idea of Camelot and the Round Table again. i rooted for Richard Harris and never liked Sir Lancelot or his portrayer, Franco Nero, since i watched the movie 54 years ago — However, thought the first movie in which Nero starred, the Italian Western ‘Django” the most outrageous, and funny movies of that genre, even banned in many countries.
i was enraptured, enraptured for three hours. There was even an intermission. What a concept.
i don’t do movies anymore. They seem to be so contrived. Sex scenes and excessive profanity seems to me to be some attempt to distort reality, to titillate our senses. All of the new graphics capabilities are apparently thrilling to many, but again, they take away from the essence of the story. “Camelot,” for Christ sakes, was a musical. It was sexier than any movie i’ve seen since Brigette Bardot movies without throwing it in our face. It was moving. It was magical. It made you think. And the music fit.
When it was over, Maureen went to bed. i sat in my chair and confessed i am a curmudgeon. But damn! They don’t make ’em like they used to. That makes me sad.
However, regardless of your age and your take on movies, i think you might enjoy “Camelot.”
