It's a Wonderful Reason to Cry

I cry at movies. I know it's not manly so I'm grateful for the darkness. I cried at the end of Red Dawn for Pete's sake. The ending of The Color Purple absolutely destroyed me. My friends made fun of me when we went to see it. They did not cry. What is wrong with me? Or what is wrong with them? I went to a sneak preview of Field of Dreams about a month before it came out. I had no idea what it was going to be about. As I sat there bawling my eyes out I heard the guy behind me laughing and telling his date that he saw someone was crying. I turned around to give him a dirty look and I saw that his girlfriend was already doing so. She was crying, too. So was just about everybody else. Not a dry eye in the house, they used to say, and in this case it was true except for the two belonging to the guy behind me. I'll always remember that moment because it was the one time I cried at the movies that I didn't feel alone and ashamed.

What brings all this up was a Christmas party I recently went to that was held by our local neighborhood association. It was held at a movie theater. They had pizza, pasta, cookies, a raffle and they showed It's a Wonderful Life on the big screen. I hadn't seen it in at least twenty years and had only seen it once, also in a movie theater. I knew it had an emotional ending and I still forgot to bring tissues. That was a bigger mistake than I realzied because I'd forgotten just how powerful earlier scenes in the move were, as well. When young George makes the druggist realize he'd made a mistake I was already off to the races. I found though that I'm now able to temper my emotion, some. Whenever I catch myself getting carried away I can now usually remind myself that it's just a movie and distance myself enough that my throat loosens up again. Of course that's after the floodgates have already been opened. I have a new favorite moment from It's a Wonderful Life, though. It's when Sheldon Leonard repeatedly opens and closes the cash register drawer making the bell ring again and again and callously says, "Look! I'm givin' 'em wings!" I'm laughing now just thinking about it.