It was 1980s-something, and I had come home late from a Saturday-night babysitting job. My mother rented A Christmas Story from the local Pop-N-Go rental store and stuck a post-it note on it with the message, "Watch this, Amy, it's hilarious." Let me sideline for a second and tell you about the time she scored a sweet deal on twenty free rentals in exchange for the purchase of a Beta video machine--which I programmed to record live TV and little did we know the thing was a dinosaur the second the ink dried on her John Henry. Anyway, while I was gone on my job she and my older brother, on break from an all-boys Catholic seminary, had watched the movie without me.
I went to the kitchen to grab a snack and came back to start the movie. Scenes from 1940s welcomed me, a time that was my mother's and thus somehow my own. It's like that, isn't it? Your parents' time is yours, and vice-versa. And to be honest, I wasn't unfamiliar with the small town, nor the red brick school Ralph Parker attended--mine had rocking, bubbling boilers and a huge auditorium with red velvet curtains. I also knew that horrible feeling of the sun going down (perhaps forever) while walking through the snow-packed alleyways of town; a strange yet poetic hue of orangey pink pulsing through silver clouds lined with snow--more snow. I too had a bully and dealt with him or her, as well as the shame of poor grades and the fear that another Christmas would pass without getting the one gift I'd asked for, yet still I asked and believed. The loss of innocence would have been the worst depravation of all. A Christmas Story encapsulated all of this--hope, desperation, loneliness, agony, euphoria. Namely, I think it was the sarcasm mixed with a nine-year old boys' logic that got to me. Triple-dog dare . . . brilliant. I hated to admit my mother was right, I mean, she was the one who frequently pointed at the TV, nearly missing my eye, to say that some random actress was so-and-so from a totally different movie. "It's not her," I'd say, but she always persisted. "It is, I'm sure of it."
One Christmas mother and I went out to find a tree and she wasn't in the best of moods--finances, career, family . . . my father . . . who knows? We pulled up to the lot in her Pinto with the windows you had to manually roll down and no tape deck in the dash to peruse a small collection of trees all priced around $30, our breath freezing before our faces. "I can't afford these, and anyway, we end up throwing it away," she told me. I was upset--invisible tears burned my throat. We came back home treeless, and I spent the rest of the night in bed listening to Phantom of the Opera on headphones, thinking no one understood what it was like to have a mother like this, and life would always be a terrible ordeal.
My rich cousins across town said they walked out of A Christmas Story after only a few minutes because, quote and unquote, It was horrible and no one acts like that. Sitting there in my mother's livingroom in that tender glow of 16, auburn hair permed to a frizz, freckles splashed across my Statue of Liberty nose and skin itching with a bad case of bacne, I watched the end credits roll across the screen of a black and white TV and thought to myself that I'd never seen anything more relatable. Who hasn't touched their tongue on frozen metal to see if it sticks? Who hasn't taken a dare, or been the aggressor? Who hasn't tried being the teacher's pet in hopes for an A or had someone hold your arm behind your back long enough for you to think it might break? And then the moment you lost it and go postal on your bully, vulgarities flying (the ones Mother taught you).
Years on, I read the short-story collection the movie had been based on called, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepherd who, ironically and fantastically interviewed The Beatles for Playboy magazine in the 1960s. You can't get more iconic than that. That is indeed Shepherd's voice in the movie, the adult version of Ralphie, and he is immaculate with his intonations. The guy had quite a sense of humor and a vivid way to describe life in the Midwest. Sadly, our dear Ralphie probably didn't grow up to squeaky clean, but the memories are great. Really great. My favorite story is about the time his mother and every mother in town collected Depression era dinnerware from the local grocery store, one piece at a time. It turned into a race, who could get every piece--a full of set to replace the chipped, mismatched collection they currently had at home. It was akin to the father's crazed leg lamp ordeal, though a bit more tasteful (pun intended). There was a coup at the local movie theater when the mothers found out the grocery store who had run the scam held no intention of giving them the last and final piece--a gravy boat. For me, this is brilliant writing. The best. A Christmas Story only shows a hint of Shepherd's storytelling.
Recently I caught a new addition to the franchise, a movie based on a now adult Ralphie--wife, kids and all--who comes home after his father's passing. At Christmas, of course. All the familiar faces are there, and some of the same schtick, but it works. I like the idea of seeing Jean Shepherd on film, even if it's a bit glossed over. He did not have a perfect adulthood. What is perfect though, is the sentiment they capture in A Christmas Story Christmas. It makes you feel all the same happy feelings from the original, like you came home again. What's really uncanny is the voice--adult Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) narrated not by the (sadly) deceased Jean Shepherd, no, it's . . . Ralphie. He sounds just like Shepherd. I can hear my mother say, "Hey, isn't that so-and-so from the original?" Yes, Mother, you're right. It is." Though, it's not. It's the kid. But it's such a close timber I want to believe . . .
I'd love to see them make another movie about Jean Shepherd amid his Playboy days interviewing the likes of The Beatles and Rolling Stones. Wouldn't that be great? I hope they get on it. I triple-dog-dare them.
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