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John Williams - Jurassic Park

I love my father dearly, yet we have always been quite different. When I was younger, he would ask me to go hunting with him and I had absolutely no interest, as my days were better spent catching toads or nursing injured baby ducks back to health. He’s a staunch republican, and I am…not. He can’t get enough red meat. I’m a chicken and fish guy. Sports consume his life. It would take me a good week to notice if sports vanished from the face of the earth. You get my drift. However, the one thing we could bond over while I was growing up was movies. I have loved going to the movies since as early as I can remember, and my dad was consistently the parent that would take me. Unless a movie contained talking dogs or the phrase, “Based on the best-selling novel by Nicholas Sparks,” my mom usually was not interested in going, so that left poor old dad.

One of my most vivid memories of childhood happened when I was the wee age of six. I had been begging my parents for weeks to let me see Jurassic Park, as they though it would be too scary for their six-year-old son. Finally they gave in (I’m an only child and learned quickly to whine until my demands were met), and dad and I set out for the theater. We took our seats in what I believe to be a sold out auditorium. I was so excited. The movie started and within five minutes I knew that I had made a poor decision. Before the first scene had ended I was underneath my seat in the theater, screaming and cowering in fear at what I had just seen. “Get back in your seat,” my dad whispered to me. “You wanted to see this, and we’re staying!” My dad’s plan was thwarted, however, when a manager told him that I needed to be removed from the theater because I was “causing a scene.”

Thinking back upon my childhood, I have a newfound respect for my father, as he sat through some of the worst junk imaginable simply because I wanted to see it. Any film with Freddie Prinze, Jr. was fair game, as was about every teen slasher flick, although I think my dad hit rock bottom when he agreed to take me to Pokemon: The First Movie. While I watched Ash catch ‘em all, my dad rolled his eyes and checked his watch, occasionally letting a “So what the hell are these Pokemon things?” slip out. The good news was that I loved everything, so for every Down to You my dad got an American Beauty or Jackie Brown. His catchphrase, “Well that sucked!” usually reverberated throughout the car on the ride home, however.

My dad is a hunter, so his hearing is not the best, as shotgun fire has worn it down over the years. As a result, dad doesn’t really realize how loud he is. My friends are all terrified of him, as they think he is shouting at them when in actuality he’s a pretty friendly guy. It is for this reason that I used to get so embarrassed while in the theater with him. Especially after previews, when one preview would end and the next be about to begin, my dad would exclaim, “That movie looks like shit!” so loudly that people in the next theater over could probably hear him. What a character.

I guess all I’m trying to say is “Thanks, dad.” Going to the movies with you so much over the course of my childhood and adolescence has certainly made me the movie lover I am today, and has also probably contributed to the fact that I am constantly told to lower my voice and stop screaming.