Mak is currently our in-house Mr. Nosy who wants to know everything about everyone. First it was birthdays, then ages, then weight. Lately he's been asking what MacDaddy and I were up to "two hundred years ago when we were small". First movie we ever saw? Blame it on all that anesthesia or the aging process or that it sometimes does feel like two hundred years ago, but I'm blank. I can't remember. I gave him a lame answer like Jaws but I'm pretty sure that wasn't my first flick ever. MacDaddy has no problem remembering his. We're not supposed to forget our firsts, after all. His is Charlotte's Web, the 1973 screenplay adaptation of E.B. White's book. One of his all-time favorites, he says. Busted. Bike-riding, golf-playing, run-happy Macdaddy, as it turns out, is a sentimental one. And because they are plain nosy, Macdaddy is forced to dig deep, clear his own cobwebs and tell them all about Wilbur the Pig and Charlotte the Spider and all the trouble she goes through to keep him out of being the main enchilada on the dinner table. He tells them about one of the most beautiful pieces ever written about friendship, trust, sacrifice, birth, life, you know the rest. Even I'm all ears.
Fifty eight years later, we can all still learn a thing or two from Charlotte. "You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life anyway? We're born, we love a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."
And then in classic MacDaddy fashion he ends with ".. and then Charlotte died. The pig was sad. The End". And I see pure shock in my little boys' eyes because mommy usually ends her stories with ".. and they lived happily ever after" and I am once again ever so grateful for MacDaddy who keeps it all so real.
P.S. MacDaddy is determined to find the DVD. Our search is on. In the meantime, this is the best I can do. Happy reminiscing, MacD. This one's for you.
