Flashback Friday
I’m not sure how we got them, but my friends and I somehow had access to free movie passes at one of the smaller movie theaters in town. One night, we all hopped in the car and my mom (I think it was her) drove us to the theater and dropped us off. And I got to go to my first evening movie with just my friends…no parents. There was a movie theater within bike-riding distance of my house. And we had gone to matinees before. But this was different. This was at night. And we were there without our parents.
It was a monumental moment in my life. And because of that, Top Gun will always have a special place in my heart…well…except the questionable presence of the volleyball scene – what’s the point of that scene, anyway?
Do you remember the first movie you went to without parents or other adults? What was it?
In one of the opening classes of Intro to Mass Media, Prof. Mattingly went on a mini-rant about the influence of this movie on the way news is presented. He recounted how he turned on the news (CNN, maybe?) at the dawn of Operation: Desert Storm and was shocked to see the file footage provided by the US military. It looked exactly like the action scenes from Top Gun. This blurred the lines between news and entertainment in a way he hadn’t seen before. It was a dawn of a new era. And it was all thanks to Maverick.
I don’t think he thought that was necessarily a good thing.
In the spirit of today’s video, I’ve included a picture from one of our Scout Troop’s trips to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. They have an F-4 Phantom on display where you can climb in and sit in the cockpit. When we visited the Museum back in April, the kids got to sit in the same cockpit. I thought that was pretty cool. I even posted pictures.
They definitely look much cooler than I did. Man, I was such a dork.
Still am.
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I thought I recognized that F-4 cockpit. I went to photography school in Dayton, OH and spent a ton of time at the Air Force Museum!
You ask if I remember my first movie without parents . . .
It was Return of the Jedi. (Which, BTW, is a way cooler first movie than Top Gun. Just saying . . .) 😉
It was during our small town’s sidewalk sale days, and to get my brother and I out of her hair, mom sent us down to the Strand in Kendallville, IN to catch the new movie that had just come out.
Great blog. I’ve been enjoying it!
You totally win! Return of the Jedi is definitely a much cooler first movie sans parents than Top Gun!
I remember going to see ROTJ (with my family) and it was a big deal because I got to see it before my friend did. He claimed to be a bigger Star Wars fan than I was. Seeing the movie before he did trumped his owning an AT-AT. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by. I’ve enjoyed your blog, too. I keep meaning to add it to my blogroll. Maybe I’ll do that right now…
The first movie I went to at night without parents was Spaceballs, which is STILL one of my favorites! “Funny, she doesn’t LOOK Druish….”
I also loved Top Gun, probably for reasons much different than yours! By the way, did Christy ever tell you that our cousin (2nd cousin, actually) Billy Cook flew some of the planes for that movie? As a middle-schooler at the time, I thought that was way cool and I told EVERYBODY….
Funny how things stick with you like the Persian Gulf War and the Top Gun effect! I think one of the first movies I actually saw without parents, and without them knowing what I went to see was Silence of the Lambs. They thought we had all gone to see Benny and Joon.
I still don’t think they know we went to see Silence of the Lambs instead:)
Carrie:
Yeah, it’s funny the things we remember, isn’t it?
Speaking of hiding what movie you went to see…Our high school small group (I think we called them D-Groups, but I’m not sure) leaders went to see Wayne’s World in the theater. After it was over, they saw someone from church coming out as another movie let out at a same time. They didn’t want said person (I don’t remember who it was) to know that they went to see such a stupid movie, so they ducked into the closest empty theater they could and walked out, “accidentally” bumping into the other church member.
The movie? Basic Instinct.
Spaceballs was definitely a classic. We went to see that one, too. But I’m sure it was a matinee.
I had totally forgotten about your family connection to Top Gun! If I were you, I’d STILL be telling everybody! 🙂
Billy Madison in 7th or 8th grade. I’m still scandalized. And we with without cell phones! *GASP*
Matt, I just want to thank you for causing me to “waste” about an hour this morning reading your blog.
However, I must point out that you labeled the picture of you in the F-4 cockpit as circa 1990 however, as you can plainly see on your uniform you had already received your Eagle Scout so the picture had to have been taken after 1992. I am not sure how wide a range “circa” is but I just thought I would share my observation. And yes, I was probably one of the other dorks standing behind the dork taking the picture. It could be worse, there could be lots of pictures of you climbing into or out of trash cans like Jarod.
Thanks for the laughs and memories, I wish I had the time or eloquence that you have to make my own blog.
Holy cow! You spent an hour reading my drivel? You need help, my friend. 🙂
In my mind, ‘circa’ means early 90s, but I probably should have just said ‘early 90s.’ Nice catch. I didn’t even think of looking at my rank. That Eagle definitely helps with dating the picture, huh?
Oh, we could do a whole series of Jarod pictures, couldn’t we? Maybe even an entire blog!
Not only has writing on here been therapeutic at times, but it has also helped me craft my words more carefully. That’s kinda important when you have to say something that holds people’s attentions for 20 minutes or so every Sunday. 🙂 It’s kinda like a workout in creativity.
Or something like that.