My memory is getting so bad, it is better to say that what follows is just a story, perhaps loosely based on real events.
In the late 70s, I was what is now called a “tween”. I don’t remember that was a thing back then, I was just a gawky kid that would soon become an introverted teenager. My family was living on my mother’s family ranch, in a very old two bedroom prairie house. My older brother and I lived in a very small room that barely fit two desks, a stacked chest of drawers, two hamsters, and two stacked beds that my dad had to build with minimal headroom because the ceiling was so low. Our house was about twenty miles north of the closest town, so we experienced much the same life as the previous prairie generation and somewhat similar to our grandparents childhood experience, which would be pretty unfamiliar to my children. We had a party-line telephone, rode horses and tractors, had a half-hour tiny “commute” to school, swam in stock tanks during the summer, and took care of various small stock, or failed to do so to the angst of our parents. I grew up in a different time and manner from present “first world” sensibilities, the way my parents and grandparents were raised.
This year’s Thanksgiving features one of my own family traditions, the viewing of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, a Frank Capra movie from 1947. My grandparents would have been young adults when this movie was made and both my father and mother were three years old. I just want to give you some context in how dated my tastes are and that they are much more likely aligned with the generations of the past
My parents had a color TV that was bought as a kit and which several people worked on over the years to complete and fitfully operate. Of course, my youth miles away from the nearest TV transmitter, we only had one channel which was sometimes very faint and statically intermittent in that old analog way to which modern digital/internet generations have no experience. My first viewing of “It’s a Wonderful Life” was late at night during the Christmas break from school on a glitchy TV playing with more static than picture. It was a late-night movie, because the Frank Capra “not a classic” movie had fallen into the public domain and TV stations could broadcast it without the cost of royalties to some studio.
I later got a VHS tape version of “It’s a Wonderful Life” out of a discard bin at a discount store and later upgraded to a DVD “un-colorized” version that the local general store had on the “under-$5” rack. My favorite “holiday” movie (it has less to do with Christmas than Die Hard, for instance) really says something about me. I relate strongly to George Bailey and his life-struggles and attitudes.
People try to shoe-horn everyone into convenient “generations” that sound something like the Chinese zodiac we see as tablemats at buffets. My inclusion with “Gen X” is about as relevant as my placement in the “year of the sheep”, which tells me that I should NEVER have married my wife of 36 years. I probably have more in common with my ancestors who actually used a “shoe horn” and had an even chance of knowing how to care for sheep. I’m also more aligned with cultures that work through their marital problems rather than find ways to work around placemat prophecy incompatibilities.
Just as George Bailey would likely get eaten alive in our modern “dog-eat-dog” world, I often nurse a figurative gnawed leg or two. I stare aghast at people looking and being bizarre. Something like George, I am deeply grateful to God for his help in facing (more avoiding) our present day of silliness and decadence. I am grateful for an enduring wife who, like Mary Bailey, doesn’t give up on her fraying husband and orchestrates his eventual salvation. I swear a fleet of angels have been engaged to “earn their wings” helping me.
So, in spite of the antique look and values around “It’s a Wonderful Life”, I encourage you to watch it, even on modern streaming platforms. It won’t appear to be snowing quite so much as it did when I first watched the film, but hopefully you will find a few insights to improve your life and mood!
