For me the movie is "The Learning Tree," written and directed by Gordon Parks.
It's the tale of a young black boy living in Kansas coming of age. It's an old film, came out in 1969 but ibis world is much like my childhood growing up in rural Ohio.
I don't remember the story line truth be told, I just recognize the terrain, I walked similar roads.
We called our space "The Country" growing up. Any relatives living in the city laughed at us and our Green, rural life. But those dirt roads? it felt like they could lead anywhere.
I remember wandering the back acre of our piece of land, building forts, hunting for wild dogs or monsters with my cousins and neighbors.
I remember cutoff jeans and bare feet and working in the small garden behind our house on the hill just below the watch tower.
the locals and people in the film immediately takes me back. I'm eleven again and sad at the news I'd have to leave all that for the uncertain life of the city.
The saying goes "You never knew how good you had it," but I think I did. The city turned out not to be the horror story I feared, just another mystery to crack.
But the country? That will always be Oz, or the great forest James Fennimore Cooper describes at the beginning of "Deerslayer," breathtaking and magical.
No comments:
Post a Comment