A Motion Picture as a Time Machine

This past Sunday, taking a break from weekend chores, I sat down to watch a video.  At least a couple of times every year I have to watch the film On Any Sunday.  I can't tell you why exactly, except that it just plain makes me feel good.  The movie is a stimulus that, in a sense, transports you back in time.  It’s kind of like walking into a cigar shop (or cigar lounge today) and all of a sudden, grandpa’s back.  Or, opening a fishing tackle box and finding a tangled mass of lures and the stale odor of old salmon eggs…Dad.  (Sorry Dad.  That was not meant to be your defining assets…but more of a moment in time that will forever link you to me.)  There is even a certain temperature and late afternoon light combination that will spark the memory of my wife looking at flowers in a mountain park.  Bruce Brown’s On Any Sunday makes me think of (in no particular order):  hot summer days; the smell of grease, oil and gasoline; dust; the color yellow (don’t ask me); laughter; and, yes, even cussing (boys will be boys).    


I was twelve years old when I first saw this movie (summer of 1971).  It was a rainy summer Saturday afternoon and my best friend at the time and I had nothing better to do.  We were not looking to be enlightened by a stream of socially significant consciousness streaming from the silver screen…man, we weren’t even teenagers yet!  All we saw was a poster with the picture of a guy jumping a motorcycle and the name Steve McQueen somewhere below the title.  We both remembered McQueen riding the bike in the WWII POW escape film, The Great Escape…looked at each other and said, “Cool!”…bought our tickets and went inside the theater, not really knowing what to expect.