Listening to: Folk singers Mason Daring and Jeannie Stahl, on The Early Years. When I was in college nearly twenty years ago, I loved their song "Marblehead Morning," which used to get occasional airplay on the Boston radio stations. I looked for the record for years but never found it. Years passed and I forgot all about Daring and Stahl.

Then last year, watching the credits for HBO's miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, I noticed Mason Daring's name as the composer, and I remembered. One short AltaVista search later, I had the title of an album that included "Marblehead Morning" and ordered it through my local Borders. I'm glad to say that I was not disappointed by the song; it was even better than I had remembered.

I Love a Parade

This morning we all went to Lawrence Township's Memorial Day parade for the third year in a row. Lawrence Township lies between Trenton and Princeton and is where we hope to move soon. A few pretentious new housing developments have been built in Lawrenceville recently, but even if we could afford to buy a home in one of these developments, we wouldn't. The neighborhoods I like best are the older, well-established ones with fifty- and sixty-year old houses and big, shady trees. They remind me of the neighborhood in which we lived when I was growing up.

It was a beautiful morning for a parade, sunny and warm, but not yet humid. We parked the car in the bank parking lot and walked to a shady spot by the road where we spread a blanket to sit on. We were near the starting point of the parade, so we didn't have to wait long.

Members of the armed services and veterans led off the parade. Then came the county and township political hacks, followed by floats manned by the township's schools churches, and civic groups.

The floats were simple affairs, decorated with posterboard, crepe paper, and balloons. One of the best one was from the middle school and represented the battleship New Jersey. (There is controversy about where the battleship should be docked, with Camden, Bayonne, and a few other Jersey cities vying for the honor.) Another school float I liked had "Reading" as its theme and featured scenes from children's books. Matthew recognized Good Night, Moon right away. In general, though, the boys were more interested in the candy that was thrown from the floats than in the floats themselves.

As the parade passed, people walking along the road handed out various freebies: packets of flower seeds from the garden club, bookmarks from the literacy float, and flyers advertising Vacation Bible School from some of the churches. Vacation Bible School--now there's a memory. When my sisters and I were young, our mother used to send us to every Vacation Bible School possible. Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist: no matter the denomination, there we were making our little papier mâché creches and Noah's Arks out of popsicle sticks. I didn't understand why at the time, but I do now. Depending on the scheduling of the various bible schools, we would be out of my mother's hair every morning for most of the summer.

The parade lasted about a half hour, just the right length of time for the boys' attention spans. It concluded with fire engines and ambulances from the township's fire department and rescue squads. The only thing the parade lacked was enough music. An armed services band led it off, and midway through there was a group of bagpipe players (one of whom was Miss Patty, mother of Daniel's classmate, Patrick, and music teacher at Daniel's school). That was it for music. We heard later that the high school band was marching in the P-rade at Princeton today.

This afternoon Tab and I took Daniel to the new AMC 24 Theater to see The Phantom Menace. We had arranged to meet Daniel's kindergarten teacher, Miss Dawn, and her boyfriend there. They had seen the movie at its first screening on opening day, but they wanted to see it again. Miss Dawn knows Daniel is a big Star Wars fan, and I guess she wanted to see his reaction. If she was expecting Daniel to be very excited, she was disappointed. He is always very solemn at these big events.

Both Tab and I liked the movie. The effects are amazing, and I thought Ewan McGregor was a perfect Obi-Wan. I guess the only thing I really missed in the movie was a sense of humor. In the original Star Wars trilogy, Luke, Leia, and especially Han Solo all had some zingers; in this movie, Jar Jar alone is the designated comic relief. Though I didn't find the character as obnoxious as most viewers seem to have, he just doesn't measure up.

This was our first visit to the new 24-screen theater in Hamilton. It is tied with some other theater in North Jersey for the most screens. The seats are marvelously comfortable, with removable armrests so you can convert them into love seats. The stadium style seating is great, too: no heads in the way! Half way up the room was a landing, and we sat in the middle of that row so even Tab, a tall guy, had plenty of leg room.

[Spoiler Alert: If you haven't seen the movie and don't want to know any of the plot, read no further.]

Daniel dressed up like Darth Vader for the past two Halloweens, but he thinks Darth Vader is passé now. Before the movie even started, he told us he wants to be Darth Maul this Halloween. He claims it is because he likes Darth Maul's double light saber, not because he identifies with his dastardly deeds, though I have to wonder at Daniel's penchant for the villains. I thought he would be disappointed by Darth Maul's death, but when I asked him what he thought, he said he doesn't believe Darth Maul is really dead but instead will be back for the next movie.

previous       index       e-mail me       next