Parenthood

On May 7, 2013, my wife, Cristina, and I were at the Broadhurst Theater in New York City watching the play Lucky Guy which starred Tom Hanks.  During the intermission, we walked to the bar at the rear of the theater where I bought her a glass of wine.  Suddenly, Cristina told me to turn around quickly.  I did.  And there walking directly toward me was Steve Martin (who is exactly one week younger than I am).  My brain went into overdrive to think of something witty and clever to say.  It came out as “Hi.”  His retort was, “How are you?”  Thereupon he disappeared into the nearby men’s room.

This reminds me of the day in 2004, when I saw Richard Dreyfus walking on a street in the upper west side of the same New York City.  That time my brain came up with, “I loved Moon Over Parador (the 1988 romantic comedy in which he starred opposite the Brazilian actress, Sonia Braga).”  He stopped in his tracks for a second and, without turning to look at me, he responded with, “Good!” 

In 1993, I was on an airplane with my son, Bret, flying from Chicago to New York.  Sitting in the first row, first seat, was Van Johnson (a “matinee idol of Hollywood’s golden age”).  I shook his hand and told him how much I enjoyed his performance in the 1954 film,  The Caine Mutiny.  He asked me if I wanted my money back.  I didn’t mention that I saw it for free on television. 

A couple of years earlier, I was in an elevator of my office building  (800 Avenue, New York City) when I noticed, standing to my left, the actor, film maker, Spike Lee.  I was speechless.  As I was starring at him, he broke the ice with, “How ya doin?”  I gave a “How ya doin?” back at him. 

My speechlessness reminded me of the time in 1967 when I saw the Academy Award winning actor, Ernest Borgnine, in a VIP lounge at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.  He was sitting on a sofa all by himself watching television.  I was too afraid to approach him.  What a dope I was.

On the evening of this past July 16th, I was on American Airlines flight #929 from Miami to São Paulo.  I was offered an incredible entertainment package of hundreds of movies that I could choose from.  As a movie lover, this was heaven.  My first choice was Citizen Kane (1941), a movie I had seen before, but not one I was in love with.  I watched the first forty minutes and then turned it off.  I remembered why I didn’t like it.  The story sucks.  The protaganist, Charles Foster Kane, is not nice guy, the plot is boring, and Rosebud is only the sled he played with when he was a little boy.

My second choice was Gone With the Wind (1939), one of my all-time favorites (the book is one of the best works of fiction).    After about ten minutes I had to turn it off, too.  After all, the O’Haras and the Wilkes’s were slave-owners.  Basically, they were immoral people.  Should I care about them?  The image of their slaves as docile, happy workers who love their masters is repugnant.  Why did I not realize this before?

My third choice was the 1989 comedy-drama Parenthood starring the above-mentioned Steve Martin plus an ensemble cast which included Mary Steenburgen, Jason Robards, Keanu Reeves, and Dianne Wiest (nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, but lost to Brenda Fricker in My Left Foot).  It was directed by Ron Howard who assisted in the development of the story.  I happily watched the movie to the end, even though I had seen it many times before.

The movie begins as Gil (Martin) is with his wife (Steenburgen) and three young children at a Major League Baseball game.  He is day dreaming about a number of times when his father, Frank (Robards), had taken him to a game when he was a child, only to be abandoned to the care of an usher.  It reminded me of a couple of occasions when my own father did something similar. 

On Christmas night, December 25, 1952, my father bought three tickets to the North South Shriner’s football game at Miami’s Orange Bowl, my first time at a major sporting event (7 years-old).  Instead of taking my bother, Paul (14 years-old), and me, my father hired somebody at the hotel we were staying at to take us.  On October 26, 1957, my father had his assistant at work take me to Archbold Stadium on the Syracuse University campus to watch the Orangemen play Penn State in a football game.

Parenthood is a wonderful movie about an extended family that keeps having more and more children, and despite the ups and downs of parenting, wouldn’t have it any other way.  Steve Martin’s performance as a father was outstanding.  I was surprised to learn he was not a father in real life when he made Parenthood in 1989.  However, his only child, a daughter, was five months old when we met twenty-four years later.   

Below is some marvelous dialogue from the film: 

Helen (Wiest, Gil’s sister): It sounds like a boy Garry's (Helen’s son) age needs a man around the house.

Todd (Reeves, Helen’s daughter’s boyfriend): Well, it depends on the man. I had a man around.  He used to wake me up every morning by flicking lit cigarettes at my head.  He'd say, "Hey, asshole, get up and make me breakfast." You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, or drive a car. Hell, you need a license to catch a fish!  But they'll let any asshole be a father.

 

Julie (Helen’s daughter):  If he thinks I'm having his baby now, he's crazy!

Helen:  Baby?

George (Helen’s boyfriend):  Your daughter's having a baby?

Helen: A baby?

George:  You're going to be a grandma?

Helen: No, no, no, no. I'm too young to be a grandmother. Grandmothers are old. They bake, and they sew, and they tell you stories about the Depression.  I was at Woodstock, for Christ's sake! I peed in a field!

 

Gil’s Grandmother:  You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.

Gil: Oh?

Gil’s Grandmother: Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride!

Gil: What a great story.

Gil’s Grandmother:  I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.

 

Frank [watching his son, Larry, get thrown from a moving car and rolling up next to his feet]: What was that?

Larry: [Larry stands up and brushes himself off] Oh, some friends of mine were just dropping me off.

Frank: Friends? Friends slow down, they even stop!

 

Frank: [talking to his son, Gil, about the unending burden of parenting] It’s not like that all ends at 18, or 21, or 41, or 61.  It never, never ends.  It's like your Aunt Edna's ass.  It goes on forever and it's just as frightening.  There is no end zone.  You never cross the goal line, spike the ball, and do your touchdown dance.  Never!  I’m 64 and Larry’s 27.  And he’s still my son.  Like Kevin is your son.  Do you think I want him to get hurt?  He’s my son.