“Donald Trump should build his wall out of Hillary Clinton’s emails since no one ever can seem to get over them!” (borrowed from cute and witty Chicago friend Barb’s Facebook page where she can be seen hugging her dear friend Rahm Emanuel!)

Been penning a “nostalgia” column for nearly a decade!

Thought I’d recycle a fun previous backyard escapade—

The definition of “nostalgia” connotes dreary warped time.

Instead, I’ll salute the “present” while I am still (barely) in my prime?

 

Tricky to join densely populated protest marches at age 72.

Lost children kidnapped at a national border; stunned parents bereaved–what to do?

Travel bans reinstated, barring tired “huddled masses, yearning to breathe free“?

Civil rights imperiled via stackable Supreme Court potentiality?

 

Gerrymandering, political (in)correctness, battling tribes–red, white and blue?

Russian meddling, indictments, congressional hearings, strange Mafioso type zoo?

Health care, tariffs, stock market monitoring, national debt rising, porn stars cursed?

Global warming/climate change, volcanoes, hurricanes, allied-axis terms reversed?

 

Well, what about me?

Still dig a TV!

(or a)

Late night Facebook spree!

Gnarled finger strikes key….

 

(And now,  a segue from poetry to prose, from rhyming couplets to rambling giddiness, from topical poetry which is stranger than fiction to the sublime, instructive, maybe more sensible, yesteryears?)

 

…to investigate The (YOUTUBE) Dick Cavett Shows as that Yale graduate chats with the likes of Jimmy Hoffa, brothers RFK AND JFK, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Frank Capra, Marlon Brando, Jack Paar, William F. Buckley, Jr., Lauren Bacall, Sophia Loren, Rex Harrison, Gore Vidal ad infinitum….

 

…whenever I feel like it, now that I’m ancient, I journey back in time to revisit some folks I did not fully appreciate in my younger, bustling, active days, yes, days, weeks, years that I naively believed would unroll and unfurl before me also ad infinitum!

 

I confess that I recently fell head over heels into deepest infatuation with “Bill” Holden and “Bob” Mitchum…or rather, as misguided adults in the time-warped forties and fifties referred to these two beef-cake-ish studs, “real men’s men”!  Well, phooey on that description!  Reminiscent of the twitty Irish Spring advertising blitz short-changing females with the commercialized implication that possibly only males treasure bar soap, “I like them (Bob and Bill…AND soap I guess), too”…quite a lot!  Why? Both actors appear to be actual human beings revealing rugged individuality, real unashamedly candid candor, sensitivity, compassion, and quirks and delightful insecurities galore — and they are handsome because they were each beautiful inside as well as outside….I KNOW THAT NOW!  Bob and Bill, accompanied by interviewer Cavett, visited my living room quite recently!  And so does dazzling, elegant Loretta Young twirl through THE door regularly at an ungodly hour…in black and white…starring in one 30-minute masterfully produced film after another that she and her second husband created and spearheaded — and which are THE most inspirational televised tidbits that I have ever encountered. 

 

All of this euphoric, highly personal, shared glee is just to indicate that in recent googling, I rediscovered an old film referenced which I have yet to view. Such an oversight is truly odd for me, because I once set my cap as a child to do nothing but watch films, if I could possibly get away with such an ambitious yet probably lazy scheme, for my entire lifetime! Thus, before I croak, while surrounded by household-untended, tedious, boring, perilous chores and routines which are insurmountable at this stage (I need a staff–or I should have given birth to twelve devoted daughters to help me out during these waning days I may or may not have left?), I MUST purchase a DVD! (whoops! only available on video?) This 1948 movie entitled RACHEL AND THE STRANGER intrigues my soul because ever-wise and relentlessly-gorgeous and usually-intuitive PLUS “I-can-land-on-my-own-two-feet-given-any-circumstance” Loretta evidently might need to decide between whether she will stay with her clueless husband played by Mr. Holden, or leave him to fall into the waiting arms of Mr.(empathetic/sympathetic ) Mitchum–a quandary I truly could relish — immediately! Ms. Young, who can capably portray a screwball mother of seven or a spinster or an alcoholic or a nun or a farmer’s wife (at the drop of a fashionable hat!), also faced this dilemma in THE BISHOP’S WIFE. Would she stay with goofy, work-obsessed, uptight, ice-cold, priggish Bishop David Niven OR would she live out the rest of her days with adorable, attentive, gentleman-angel Cary Grant? (The conclusion is rather tragic and incredible, and dare I say disappointing and anti-climactic, for romantics like myself! David wins? Ugh?)

 

I close now, kindred soul Mitchum remaining in my thoughts, knowing full well that I wished to run away with (double preposition–forgive me?) him just the other evening at midnight…only the two of us on horseback (Mitchum owned as many as 32 horses at one time!) into the sunset…if I simply could have willed myself onto the screen and outta this nutty chaos called real life.  If RACHEL AND THE STRANGER is/are available on DVD…or tape…, nobody shall see me again because …well, you can call me — (but “don’t ever call me Shirley!”) — RACHEL…who escapes into another stratosphere, somewhere in some other space and time, with a stranger named Robert Mitchum!  Welcome to the cheeriest and happiest-ever-after TWILIGHT ZONE episode to be telecast for the pleasure of any viewing audience anywhere at any time since the creation of the universe itself…by Rod/God Serling, no doubt about it!

 

“You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop, the Twilight Zone!”  ~ Opening voice-over by Rod Himself!

 

“Film is one of the three universal languages, the other two: mathematics and music.”  ~ Director Frank Capra

 

“Every writer is a frustrated actor who recites his lines in the hidden auditorium of his skull.” ~ Rod Serling

 

“There is nothing in the dark that isn’t there when the lights are on.” ~ Rod Serling

 

“Imagination… its limits are only those of the mind itself.” ~ Rod Serling

 

“Opportunity is often missed because we are broadcasting when we should be tuned in!”  ~ Loretta Young (in a designer dress) prior to closing her half hour of Loretta Young Presents with an invitation: “See you next week?” (broad smile)