Childhood memories -- the good kind.

[janradder]

When I was in grade school, one of the most exciting days in the school year was when the teacher wheeled the film projector down the hall from the library and told us that it was a movie day. We'd pull our desks or tables away from the center of the room to make a large space on the floor. Then, after the teacher had pulled down the screen in front of the blackboard, she'd turn off the lights and we'd gather on the floor.

Under the flicker of the projector, I sat mesmerized by the antics of Uncle Smiley or some nature film about the desert. The best film of them all, though, had to be Paddle to the Sea. Each year, starting in second grade, we'd watch it at least once and sometimes twice, if we were lucky.

I loved watching the boy carve out his toy canoe and carefully paint it, then send it down a stream with the instructionswritten carefully on the bottom to put put the canoe back in the water so that it could reach the sea should anyone happen to find it. And though the wooden Indian in the canoe remained expressionless throughout the entire film, his face seemed to change as he reached each new point on his journey to the ocean.

Today, I found a site dedicated to the book and movie. I'd always thought that the movie was a true story -- that some Indian boy who lived far from the sea really had carved this beautiful little boat and figure and sent him on a journey to the ocean so that, even though the boy could never see what it looked like, his wooden figure could. Apparently, though, I was wrong. Still, if you go to the website, there is a link where you can download the film for free (as well as read the book online or order it and the film). So, for those of you who also remember Paddle to the Sea, enjoy!

Comments

[vee-ecks.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I loved that one at the school or library, too. Also My Side of the Mountain - I kind of connect the two in my head.

When I was eleven, we moved to Hawaii to join this church/commune, a singularly stellar feature of which was that the community showed free 16mm movies on Saturday night. I went up and introduced myself to the guy who ran it, the first time I went, and he recognized a fellow geek, I guess. I ended up helping him run it for a year or so - ordering movies, running and maintaining the projector, etc. It was a lot of fun - we were required to show a certain amount of religious material, but really only cared about old movies and were on a very limited budget, so we just ordered the cheapest religious crap we could. We'd show hilarious old Adventist screeds about how if you have alcohol in your house it'll kill your kids, then the real movie.

That was one of the best things that ever happened to me in my life.

[silk-noir.livejournal.com]

Holling C. Holling has always been amazing. Have you looked into his other books?