On the first day, we saw an informative movie on the sun. The takeaway was that if anything major happened, say, it burned out, we’d be out of luck. That was sobering. On the second day, we took in a flick dedicated to the propositions that the polar ice cap would melt, the level of the oceans would rise, and the entire southern portion of the United States would disappear under “a warm, inland sea.” Remember, this was fifty-five years ago. Finally, on day three, we saw a film about insects—not simply about what insects are, their typical morphology, and the like, but also about their past and future. We got the impression that they’d been around a long time and that due to their adaptability, they could take measures to assure they’d outlast men and women on planet earth. I had seen some Japanese horror films about gigantic insects that were plenty scary, but I learned in school that the happy endings in those movies were unrealistic. After that three-day period, I began believing that with the sun burning out, the polar icecap melting, and the insects taking over, we hadn’t a chance. Oh, I forgot, we also had to worry about the Russians. I didn’t want to learn a new alphabet.
Mrs. Hebblethwaite told us about Hitler, but that was over; we wouldn’t have to speak German after all. She did intimate, however, that there was a good chance we’d have to switch from English to Russian. I wasn’t looking forward to it since we’d spent a great deal of time and effort learning the Roman alphabet just a few years previous. I did okay with it, but I never did learn a few of the characters—for example, I couldn’t get the hang of the cursive capital Q. I had to use the cracked-egg-with-some-yolk-dribbling-out printed version. Anyway, Mrs. Hebblethwaite told us we’d be viewing some films over the next three days. She had Edwards, the aging custodian, set up the decrepit projector in the back of the room. Edwards always showed the films we saw—he was skillful at mounting and stringing the movies so the finicky projector would show the flicks to best advantage.
On the first day, we saw an informative movie on the sun. The takeaway was that if anything major happened, say, it burned out, we’d be out of luck. That was sobering. On the second day, we took in a flick dedicated to the propositions that the polar ice cap would melt, the level of the oceans would rise, and the entire southern portion of the United States would disappear under “a warm, inland sea.” Remember, this was fifty-five years ago. Finally, on day three, we saw a film about insects—not simply about what insects are, their typical morphology, and the like, but also about their past and future. We got the impression that they’d been around a long time and that due to their adaptability, they could take measures to assure they’d outlast men and women on planet earth. I had seen some Japanese horror films about gigantic insects that were plenty scary, but I learned in school that the happy endings in those movies were unrealistic. After that three-day period, I began believing that with the sun burning out, the polar icecap melting, and the insects taking over, we hadn’t a chance. Oh, I forgot, we also had to worry about the Russians. I didn’t want to learn a new alphabet. Comments are closed.
|
Longer
|