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]

I dunno. I miss it, too, but I also remember watching a lot of anamorphic widescreen movies at libraries and schools that couldn't afford the appropriate lens, so the movies ended up all smooshed and tall. I first saw most of the Planet of the Apes movies that way, actually.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

I remember seeing movies like that as well, but I just thought that it was how they were made. It wasn't until years later that I finally found out that the picture was being squeezed.

[vee-ecks.livejournal.com]

Oh, I asked what was going on the first time it happened.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

I was generally pretty clueless as a kid. And if there was anything that seemed strange or out of place or just didn't make sense, my first assumption was always that everyone else got it and it was just me who couldn't figure it out. Which, I realize now, usually wasn't the case.