The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself, And That's Plenty

 I spent the weekend with a friend from high school. Not my oldest friend, but he is certainly in the running. The moment that bound us together was our first viewing of the movie Halloween back in 1978. Another time. Another century. Disco was in its death throes along with the King of Rock and Roll. Jimmy Carter was president. We had only recently stopped going to see Star Wars, later to be known as "A New Hope" in theaters. Video tape was something that television stations used to record news events. The preview my friend and I received was a nearly shot-for-shot retelling from an upperclassman who had seen John Carpenter's classic the week before. 

Seeing the seminal babysitter-killer movie with my friend remains one of my all-time favorite movie-going experiences. Even though we were prepared for the events of the story, we were not prepared for the manipulation we were about to encounter at the hands of a master. We had, since the coming attractions rehash we got in the band room at Boulder High School, spent days leading up to our trip to the movie theater pushing ourselves ever closer to the brink of terror. 

We had prepared ourselves to be scared. 

And we were. 

Coming out of the evening show, the sun had gone down, and walking around the block to where my friend's car was parked was eerily reminiscent of the streets of Haddonfield, Illinois on that fateful night. "The night HE came home." We were sure that Michael Myers was laying in wait in the back seat, or hiding behind that big tree just across from that dimly lit house. We had succeeded on burying the needle on the fear-meter, and it wasn't clear just when we might recover. 

Decades passed. We watched many more movies together. We went to college in different places, but whenever we got together, watching a movie was almost always on the menu. 

But none of them could touch our encounter with one of the most frightening films of all time, a bond we share today. My father joined the army with his high school buddy who would eventually become my godfather. My son's godfather and I lived through that one night of terror. It's interesting to see what things stand the test of time.