It's Not The Size, It's The Principle

My love affair with "American Graffiti" started the year that it came out. I was eleven in 1973, and when I read the tag line "Where were you in '62?" I knew the answer immediately: I was being born. Maybe that's the association, or maybe it's the bittersweet nostalgia that appealed to me even then, as a pre-teen. Whatever the case, I was lining up for multiple showings of this George Lucas film long ago, in a hometown far away. We had the soundtrack on an eight-track tape - no mean feat since it was a double album - and we all but wore it out. I memorized the banter between the characters, and especially the bizarre segues between songs provided by Wolfman Jack.
It made such an impression, that by the end of sixth grade I was ready to put together a whole talent show based on my intimate understanding of the music, styles and fads of the fifties provided by this one film. My teacher thought I was inspired. I think a better term for it would be obsessed, but I managed to string together a few skits, and a musical act or two, culminating in myself and two friends as "Bill Flaley and the Vomits" bashing about on cardboard guitars and drums as we lip-synched to "Rock Around The Clock." We closed the show, and at the end of our number, all the girls in my class chased after us, like "A Hard Day's Night," screaming and tearing at our white t-shirts.
When it was all over, I thought again about "American Graffiti," and how Curt struggles with his decision about what to do when he's run out of things to do in his hometown. I stayed in Boulder another nineteen years, and the night before I moved to Oakland, we rented that movie and watched it again. For those nineteen years, I had been Steve, choosing to stay behind and try to keep my life in control by sticking with the things I knew for sure. Now it was time to get up and out. Fourteen years ago. Now I listen to Wolfman Jack on mp3s in my office across the bay from the streets where George Lucas filmed his last night of summer. Seems the more things stay the same, the more I change.