"A Christmas of Miracles"

Dad, Matt, Leanne, and Alisha -- Christmas 1988

A few weeks ago, we watched 8-Bit Christmas. A clear homage to both A Christmas Story and The Princess Bride, the movie features Neil Patrick Harris’s character recounting to his daughter the story of a Christmas in the late 1980s when all he wanted was a Nintendo Entertainment System.

Beyond the 80’s nostalgia, part of the fun of the movie was how close to home it hit. Ages ago, I wrote my own story about the Christmas I desperately wanted a Nintendo but was stymied by my parents. The similarities between those stories prodded me to revisit that old post, and my curiosity eventually led me to take a closer look at what was going on back then.

 

What I found surprised me.   

The Nintendo Entertainment System

 

First, there is the story that made up that initial post – though now with a bit less tongue-in-cheek hyperbole:

 

In December 1988, I was ten years old and in Mrs. Stefalano’s fifth grade class. I wanted a Nintendo Entertainment System more than anything else in this world. A few school friends I knew already had one, and I prized every opportunity to get my hands on one of those rectangular controllers.

 

I’m sure I had other interests back then, but mostly I just thought and talked about Super Mario, the Legend of Zelda, Mike Tyson’s Punchout, and how much I wanted (needed, really) a Nintendo of my own.

 

By that point, I no longer believed in Santa (another story entirely), so I had no illusions that he could be of any help. And I knew my parents couldn’t afford one.

 

And yet, Nathan and I had our own modest source of revenue that winter in covering a newspaper route, and I had conscripted my younger brother into my determined plans to save up the $100 we needed to buy a Nintendo. I had never saved anything close to that much money before, but by early December, Nathan and I had collectively put together $40.

 

In the wild optimism of my youth, I figured we were only a few weeks away from saving the rest. So, by my calculations, it seemed quite possible (if not almost certain) that we would have our own Nintendo by Christmas!

 

That was the plan, at least, before Nathan and I snuck into Mom’s Christmas fudge.

The Christmas Fudge

 

Back then, Mom occasionally made fudge around Christmas time. And at least that year, she kept it in Mason jars, stored high up in the corner cupboard of our kitchen.

 

Mom probably thought the fudge was well-hidden, a mistake my parents made over and over (and over) again growing up.

 

Inevitably, my little hands found their way to those Mason jars. Several times. And unbeknownst to me, so had Nathan’s.

 

Back in the 80s, it was harder to deflect blame for missing food items – the rest of my siblings were still too young to be viable suspects. So when Mom discovered the fudge missing, she wasn’t so much sleuthing for confessions as presuming guilt. And at least in this instance, she wasn’t wrong.

 

What felt odd this time around (these sorts of eating indiscretions were routine, if not expected) was just how upset my parents were.

 

For some reason, they decided this offense warranted serious punishment. As we stood there in the kitchen, Mom and Dad angrily told us that Grandma Feickert (whose presents were always the most expensive) had purchased us a Nintendo for Christmas.

 

I can picture my eyes starting to widen at the prospect. . . before the hammer came down: our indulgence had left them no choice – they were telling Grandma to return the Nintendo.

 

They were also confiscating our $40 (though I believe they later let us spend the money on Christmas gifts).

 

And, for good measure, they declared we would never have video games in our home.

 

[My best guess now is that they’d been nervous about video games from outset – to the extent the movie has any basis in reality, 8-Bit Christmas seems to confirm the parental concern was widespread. Our eating indiscretion was simply the scapegoat justification for what they had wanted to do all along.]

 

As my parents pronounced sentence, I felt an odd mixture of wonder and despondency. The thought that I was so close to having my own Nintendo – without even having to save up for it! And then to lose it without even knowing what was at stake!

 

In the days after, I remember feeling that the punishment felt excessive (in fact, my best friend’s parents had privately told him the same, which felt validating). Maybe that’s why I couldn’t help but hold out hope that my parents’ threats had been idly made, and that the spirit of Christmas might still prevail.

 

Was it possible that a late burst of Christmas cheer might lead my parents to secretly tell Grandma to still go ahead and bring us the Nintendo? And if she did, what games might she get us to go with it?

 

As Bane would tell a crippled Batman in The Dark Knight Rises, “there can be no true despair without hope.”

Disappointment Assured

 

When Grandma and Grandpa arrived at our Ilion, NY home that Christmas Eve, I made a careful survey of their vehicle. I sized up every single one of their Christmas presents.  None, though, came close to the contours of that distinctive oblong box.

 

Still, that night and the next morning, I must have surveyed the presents three times. The Nintendo just wasn’t there.

 

A few days later, I referenced the disappointment in a rare journal entry:

 

“We just had Christmas a few days ago. I got two LCD video games. A Carrom game board a sweater and the game of life. [My best friend] got a Nintendo. I would’ve but I ate a bag of candy.”

The Rest of the Story

 

When I wrote that attempted humor piece sixteen years ago, Dad took the post in stride. He had, after all, been known to do a bit of playful writing himself [Dad would sometimes write up mock newspaper articles for friends and family, which gave supposedly serious treatment to inside jokes between family and friends – think of the Onion, but with a more endearing bent.] Over the years, “My Darkest Christmas Day” became a fond source of Christmas ribbing between the two of us. And even if my parents didn’t seem to remember the incident, Dad often feigned an overwrought apology for the supposed parenting fail.

 

For my part, what I hadn’t remembered until these last few weeks is that this was the Christmas just after the triplets were born.

 

That year, as late as August or early September, we all thought Mom was just carrying one child. Then the news came that there were twins. So exciting! And then, about two weeks later, we learned Mom was actually carrying triplets!

 

Hardly two weeks later, as we were still processing this new, impending reality, I woke up one October morning to find that our family of seven was now ten. The triplets had come six weeks early.

 

Nathan, Melissa, Bryan, and Sarah

Dad took two weeks of “vacation” to assist with the birth and transition. And then, in a twist that could have been written by Charles Dickens, he was fired from his job with The Evening Telegram (a local newspaper) on the day he returned to work.

 

As Christmas approached, Dad was still out of work – he wouldn’t find another job for nearly a year. Meanwhile, my new siblings seemed to each take turns with threatening health problems that required worrisome hospital visits.

 

My parents’ letters to my grandparents from that time give glimpses into the stress of our family circumstances. In one letter in late December 1988, Mom described Sarah’s latest ailments and wrote that “my heart is always in my mouth during these times, and I can hardly stop watching her.”

 

Mom wondered if she would ever be able to relax again.

 

Part of that was due to the myriad health concerns. But, of course, the other part was money. Money had apparently always been tight growing up, but that year things felt especially precarious. Even I could feel it.

“A Christmas of Miracles”

 

And yet, this was also the Christmas that Dad would later describe as the “Christmas of Miracles.” In another turn that blended the best of Frank Capra’s and Dickens’ stories, our young family was almost inundated by the generosity of others that season. As Dad would later write:  

 

Things began appearing on the doorsteps, coupons in the mail without evidence of their origin, and friends from near and far seemed to find out [about our family difficulties] and respond. In one case a group of church women from a former community where we had lived, drove 60 miles with bundles of food and the biggest turkey we had ever seen. [Dad couldn’t seem to help himself with his own allusion to Dickens here]

 

I remember one evening that December when an older couple, best known in town for playing Santa and Mrs. Claus, stopped by our home. I remember watching them visit with Dad in our dimly lit hallway and give him an unknown amount of cash. They seemed to anticipate Dad’s awkward response and heartily put off his meager protests. Even now, I can still see them standing there, and how happy and grateful they seemed to be helping us. 

 

When Christmas finally came that year, far from having nothing under the tree (which had apparently been my parents’ fear for a time), one corner of our living room was nearly overflowing with gifts. In fact, Mom and Dad had set up a playpen by the tree for the kindnesses left by others. By Christmas Eve, the playpen was full.

 

Nathan -- Christmas 1988

So, curiously, at the same time I remember feeling utter disappointment that my Nintendo dreams hadn’t come true (and ostensibly never would), I also remember now the feeling of wonder and awe that my family had been so kindly remembered by so many.

 

I can’t really explain all these years of disconnect. Somehow both threads of memory had occupied separate places in my mind – as though they hadn’t occurred simultaneously. And while the “loss” of a Nintendo that Christmas was as devastating as I’ve described, it's clearer to me now that the list of gifts I received that year left me anything but deprived.

 

With the benefit of hindsight, that does not feel like a small thing.

 

So my meager takeaway all these years later isn’t quite what I expected when I started in on this post: feelings of overwhelming gratitude – for my parents (especially), for my grandparents, and for everyone else who looked out for my family that Christmas. Sure, I didn’t get the Nintendo I had wanted more than anything, and that felt terribly unfair. But I can see a little better now how fortunate I was that I got to remain a little boy through it all. Despite the precarious circumstances of those times, I still *somehow* felt secure enough at home that a Nintendo could have outsized importance, and that losing out on that Nintendo could be my greatest worry. 

[Update 1/5/2022: I published this piece a few weeks ago. Since then, I've discovered that I actually got my years mixed up. Apparently misreading (or failing to read) some key clues, I attributed the Nintendo incident to Christmas 1988. But now, having looked further into things, I can say definitively that the Nintendo incident happened the following year -- during Christmas 1989. In fact, I even found a few lines from a letter Dad wrote to Grandma and Grandpa Clark on December 12, 1989: "Sunday some things happened with the two oldest boys that finally snapped the back of everything and we have decided to forgo Christmas this year in essence, and see if we can't find someone we can give what little we will share to them."

It certainly made for a much better story when I thought all of the events above happened in 1988, and I feel more than a little sheepish now about the error. That following Christmas (1989) Dad was only a few months into his new job as the managing editor for the Amsterdam Recorder, commuting an hour or so each way. The letter I referenced above indicates that the stresses from the year prior had only slightly abated. In fact, his writing suggests that he was deeply depressed (though I don't know that he was in a place to recognize it for what it was, or at least to not feel like that depression was a personal failing). So the sentiments I expressed above still seem applicable, the error notwithstanding.

Still, it's important to me to get these stories as right as I can, so what do I do about the mistake? I considered trying to rewrite the story, as well as just deleting it all together. Neither of those options have felt palatable, at least at this point. So for now, I've decided on this middle ground: keeping the story as is, though including this explanatory note about the error. In doing so, I feel at least some license from Dad, who offered this frequent (good natured) retort to any story that sounded somewhat unflattering or unbelievable: "Never let a few facts get in the way of a good story."] 

 

My Ten (or so) Most Memorable Movie Moments

I love movies. I think I’ve always loved them. And as I look back now, many of my life’s key memories involve that medium, in one way or another.

I want to write down a few of those experiences while I still have my wits about me.

As will be readily obvious, several of these stories center on the practice of former faith. I can’t seem to help that. For most of my adult life, my affinity for movies tended to conflict with my religion. Like the sons of Helaman in the Book of Mormon, I wanted to “obey and observe to perform every word of [God’s] command[s] with exactness” [Alma 57:21]. And in the LDS church, the counsel to youth (which I understood to be just as applicable to adults) was to avoid media that contained “anything that is vulgar, immoral, violent, or pornographic in any way.” [emphasis added] 

Taken literally, that counsel didn't seem to leave much room for would be Mormon cinephiles – beyond a handful of Disney/Pixar movies and Jane Austen adaptations.   

In fact, early in my marriage there was concern about whether we should even have the Star Wars movies in our home, because of the minimal amount of swearing in the films. I felt more justified, though, after reading that LDS apostle M. Russell Ballard had talked about seeing the films.

 

I really don’t intend for this to be another religiously themed post, except to the extent that the practice of my former faith has always been part of who I am. So I offer that background simply to provide context for the tension driving a handful of the stories that follow.

 

These memories span my first three decades of life. However trivial some of them may present now, these moments are a part of me – a part I want to be able to remember. And, who knows, maybe by trying to preserve these memories here, my kids (and maybe someday their kids) will better understand some of my quirks.

 

Honorable Mention

 

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids:

 

It was July 1989 – the summer before I started sixth grade. My brother Nathan and I were spending the week at Grandma and Grandpa Feickert’s house. That week was the highlight of our summer break.

 

In those early days, Grandma and Grandpa lived on Pillar Point, in Dexter, NY. In lieu of a backyard, their house sat up against the Black River Bay – a Lake Ontario inlet. So summertime visits meant swimming, fishing, boating, badminton, and Wiffle ball. Further, they meant breakfasts with the “good kinds” of cereal and, invariably, some kind of meat for dinner. Grandpa also had a satellite dish with a not-quite-legal descrambler. He got every channel imaginable.

 

Fishing (with Dad) off Grandpa's dock

But this particular summer, Grandma also proposed taking us to the movies. I was eleven, and as much as I'd always wanted to, I had never been to a movie theater.

 

So when Grandma took Nathan and me to see Honey, I Shrunk the Kids! one summer afternoon, a part of me felt like I had finally arrived.

My Cousin Vinny:

 

I took Evidence at HLS midway through my second year of law school – in that awkward winter month between semesters. Jared was only a few weeks old, so the three of us weren’t sleeping much in those days. 

 

Following the morning break on our first day of class, Professor Nesson announced that he planned to show us My Cousin Vinny over the course of the next few weeks (in daily 10-15 minutes increments). The movie apparently touched on many of the evidence themes we’d be reviewing.

 

His unexpected announcement made me uneasy. My Cousin Vinny was rated "R" (for language), and I didn’t watch R-rated movies. In fact, I didn’t even watch most PG-13 movies. And yet, maybe this was different? It was for a law school class, after all. And I was going to be graded on the class (to say nothing of the fact that I wanted to someday be a competent lawyer).

 

What was I supposed to do?

 

I looked to some LDS classmates across the room, hoping for guidance in their facial expressions. Or, at the very least, signs of similar struggle. But they appeared to be completely unphased.

 

In the moments before the movie began, my mind raced through all sorts of possibilities and arguments. In the end, though, all that thinking gave way to inertia; I stayed in my seat and watched the movie with the rest of the class.

 

My inaction brought consequences, though. As I was prone to in those days, I spent the rest of class turning over and over my feelings of guilt.  

 

After class, I felt so embarrassed. I spoke vaguely about my dilemma to Michelle, and I avoided naming the movie in my journal. Further, rather than flesh out my inner conflict in that entry, I quickly shifted subjects, noting only that "a conflict erupts in my head that doesn't yet lend itself to writing."

 

The next day, as I remember things, I felt more prepared. I was determined not to endure another self-inflicted guilt trip. So when the movie resumed, I left class (ostensibly for a prolonged drink from the water fountain).

 

But after only a few minutes, I felt so silly waiting (alone) outside the classroom. I kept peeking through the windows on the doors every few minutes, looking for signs that the movie had stopped playing. And also, while leaving class felt like the least guilt-riddled path, I was quite curious about the movie (especially knowing Marissa Tomei had won an Oscar for her performance). So between that, and the valuable evidence tidbits I was surely missing, I dealt with some serious FOMO.

 

I couldn’t seem to win either way.

 

That day (though it may have been the next), my resolve faltered. And for the remaining weeks of that class, I stayed in my seat each time the movie resumed.

 

It really was a terrific and hilarious movie, and it proved to be the perfect vehicle for Professor Nesson to transition to his own war stories from jury trials. Those stories tended to be my favorite part of class.  

 

But when Joe Pesci, Ralph Macchio, and others made F-word laden jokes in the movie, I wasn’t among those laughing.

 

I think a part of me hoped that my discomfort was sufficient penance.

 

Braveheart:

 

Michelle and I attended BYU in the years after Titanic ruled the box office. At least in Utah, the movie caused a bit of a conundrum for many faithful Mormons, what with the scene of Kate Winslet posing topless for drifter and sketch artist Leonardo DiCaprio.  

 

One enterprising Utah video store found an apparent solution to that conundrum when it offered to snip that offending scene out of people’s VHS copies of the movie – for a few dollars.

 

Intentionally or not, this gave rise to a cottage industry.  

 

By the time Michelle and I were married and living in Wymount Terrace (BYU married student housing) in 2001, a business had popped up in Provo (CleanFlicks) that offered DVD rentals of edited movies – removing the language, sex, and violence that faithful Mormons typically found objectionable.

 

“Rentals” surely wasn't the term CleanFlicks was aiming for, as the company claimed it sold “memberships.” The memberships ostensibly made its patrons part owners of the company (and so its collection of edited DVDs). This was their attempt to comply with copyright laws.

 

In the end, the CleanFlicks business model wouldn’t avoid a copyright lawsuit, which they lost. But while it lasted, CleanFlicks was a godsend to well-meaning BYU students like me. Suddenly, a new library of movies had opened to me, and I felt like the proverbial kid in the candy store.

 

Braveheart was one of the first DVDs we rented, and I felt almost giddy as I finally got to watch Mel Gibson courageously lead an (edited) uprising against King Edward I.

 

It was so inspiring!

 

The next day, before it was time to return the DVD, I decided to watch the movie a second time. On this viewing, though, Michelle and I noticed a bawdy joke they’d failed to edit out. The joke left Michelle, who was even more sensitive to these things than I was, feeling rather uncomfortable.

 

Her discomfort made me all the more uncomfortable.   

 

As I remember it, not long after, Michelle asked that we shut off the movie. I may have half-heartedly protested (that’s certainly what I was feeling), but I had no legitimate grounds to disagree.  Afterward, we interpreted those feelings of discomfort as the absence of the Holy Ghost, and we decided to swear off even most edited R-rated movies from CleanFlicks.

That most tantalizing library of movies quickly closed for me, all over again.

 

10. 3:10 to Yuma (2007):

 

Even after we left BYU, I remained fascinated with the edited movie industry. In fact, I ended up writing (and publishing) my 3rd year paper in law school on the copyright implications of the various business models.

 

[I argued that companies like CleanFlicks did, in fact, have a viable Fair Use defense, though a federal district court held otherwise. Rather than appeal, CleanFlicks folded].

 

Clearplay was a rival company in the industry, and it was the only filtering technology protected by The Family Movie Act of 2005. Unlike CleanFlicks (which made altered physical copies of DVDs), Clearplay developed and marketed a DVD player into which one could load normal DVDs. The filters in the player then muted and skipped the objectionable parts of the movie.

 

I bought a Clearplay DVD player in November 2008.

 

At the time, there was still the tacit (though possibly explicit) expectation that I wouldn't use Clearplay to watch filtered R-rated movies. In fact, Michelle thought it taboo to even have the R-rated discs in our home.

 

And yet, I still decided to rent the Russell Crowe/Christian Bale remake of 3:10 to Yuma from Netflix (which was then dedicated to mailing DVDs). The DVD came in the mail on January 7, 2009.

 

Michelle sat with me to watch it that night, and I was quickly drawn to the complexities of Russell Crowe's and Christian Bale's characters. Also the family dynamics between Bale's character and his wife and sons.

 

But even at the highest "violence" filter setting, the movie still had plenty of gunplay and violent death. As she had before, Michelle grew notably uneasy, which again left me all the more uneasy. We still finished the movie, but afterward, I ultimately had to confess (under examination) that it was R-rated.

Michelle was understandably disappointed and upset, and I was in the doghouse.

 

The next day, I wrote Michelle a note, apologizing for my “obvious mistake in judgement” by “letting that movie into our home – even with a Clearplay Filter.”

 

I ended my apology note, as well as the day’s journal entry, vowing that we would “get rid of the Clearplay Player” and cancel our subscription.

 

Reader, I did neither.

 

9.  Quiz Show:

 

The summer before my junior year of high school, a basketball injury required knee surgery – my second in as many years. That surgery made playing football unthinkable in the fall, so I decided I'd "run" on the cross-country team instead.

All these years later, I don't know how much of that decision was driven by the fact that the girl I liked (and had perpetual crush on since 8th grade) was already on the cross-country team. She certainly had some influence.

 

It was a new thing that fall to be 16 (and so, by my faith's standards, eligible to date) and have a driver's license. As I look back, I remember mostly the awkwardness of that time. And yet somehow, I persuaded this girl to see a movie with me one weekend. She insisted, though, that we were going “dutch” (almost certainly to tamp down expectations that this was a “real” date).

 

That Saturday afternoon, I picked her up in our family van and drove to Sangertown Mall. We were going to see Quiz Show, a movie directed by Robert Redford and starring a young Ralph Fiennes. Based on a true story, the movie centers on a man who finds his way onto a 1950's game show and eventually gives way to cheating. This ends up spurring a congressional investigation.

 

The movie was good. The company was even better. And afterward, we got soft pretzels. I felt a small sense of pride when I finagled my way into paying for her pretzel.

 

It helped me hold onto the story that it was a real date. 

 

Afterward, it seemed like everything had gone well enough. I thought about little else that night and the next day, and I couldn’t wait to see this girl again at school on Monday. My not-so-secret hope was that our outing had moved the needle toward a more romantic connection.

 

But when Monday came, she made no mention of our afternoon together. Instead, she couldn't stop talking about a second date she went on that Saturday – after I dropped her off. Someone apparently a little older (and more suave) had taken her to see The Shawshank Redemption. She raved about that movie. And as I remember it, she also gushed about the white roses he sent her the next day. 

 

Sigh.

 

A year or so later, when I finally got to see The Shawshank Redemption (which played endlessly on network TV), I felt slightly less bitter. I mean, it is a top 10 (possibly top 5) all-time movie for me.

 

And to be fair, by then I was also exclusively dating this girl.

 

8.  Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery :

 

In spring 1997, I was a freshman at Utica College. As I've written about before, I was also readying for two years of missionary service. My friend Jamin LeFave was, too, and that shared purpose seemed to draw us closer together.

 

One weekend that spring, we decided to see Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. I can’t remember what, exactly, we expected from the movie, but it was PG-13 [growing up, my family’s red line for movies was an R-rating]. We had also grown-up watching Mike Myers on Saturday Night Live, and he could be so funny.

 

So we made the ½ hour drive to Sangertown Mall, bought our tickets, and found seats somewhere near the front of the theater. By this point, we’d seen a number of movies together.

Not long into the movie, though, something felt off. Maybe it was that we were prospective missionaries. And further, that we were both sitting next to a prospective missionary, but even the PG-13 level sexual humor had me shifting uncomfortably in my seat.

 

Jamin also seemed uneasy.

 

As I remember it, somewhere within the first 20 minutes of the movie – during a hot tub scene – Jamin looked over at me and asked if we should leave. I think I nodded and said “ok,” and we clumsily got up and left the theater. We then spent an hour or so at the nearby arcade.

 

Initially, I felt rather sheepish about the incident. Before long, though, that sheepishness melted into a sense of pride. We’d always been told to “beware of pride,” but I like to think that at least some of what I felt was the healthy kind – an affirming reassurance after having the courage to get up and leave when something didn’t feel ok.

 

7. Ghostbusters (1984):

 

For my birthday in second grade, my parents let me invite a few classmates over for a party. A lot of that event is hazy now, though I remember one friend gave me a toy Bigfoot Monster Truck as a present.

 

What I remember well is that my parents rented a VCR for that weekend, and they also rented Ghostbusters (on VHS) for us to watch at the party.

 

It felt exciting to have something as cool as a VCR in the house, and to get to spend the evening with friends, watching a rented movie at home.

 

6. The Return of the King:

 

I’ve noted already that, as a young adult, I often felt constrained by the letter of LDS media standards. Most of the time, it just seemed to be my lot in life to love movies, but to have to avoid them (at least in theaters) – especially those driving the cultural conversation.

 

So when Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema released their adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001, and it was a clean PG-13 (at least in terms of language and sexuality – orc blood and violence apparently don't count), I fell hard for the fantasy series.

 

We were at BYU when Fellowship released in theaters. The movie made Tolkien's world feel immersive, while also boasting a near-perfect cast, sharp writing, and a moving score.

 

I could hardly get enough of it.

 

I must have rewatched Fellowship dozens of times when it released on DVD. And then, only a few weeks before the theatrical release of The Two Towers, we scored special tickets to watch the extended version of Fellowship in theaters.

 

By December 2003, I could barely contain my excitement for the release of The Return of the King. But there was a looming potential complication: Michelle was due with Jared around the same time. And if he came before the movie released, there was no way we would get to the movie theater.

 

Honestly, I’m not sure if I was more worried about that than the possibility of Jared coming during finals.

 

Fortunately, Jared delayed his entrance long enough for me to finish final exams, and for Michelle and I to catch an opening night screening of The Return of the King at Boston Commons.

 

For me, it was 3 hours and 21 minutes of cinematic heaven, and I wept openly for the last 1/2 hour (through all six endings). Jared even kicked during parts of the movie. We decided that meant he was also fan.

 

Sadly now, he couldn't care less about the movies.

 

5. Rocky III:

 

In the summer of 1986, my family made the long trek from Upstate New York to Grandma and Grandpa Clark's house in Burley, Idaho – for a Clark family reunion. I hardly remember all the driving, but I have lots of memories from the reunion. The most impactful for me was probably when a cousin pulled out a VHS cassette (from Grandpa's collection) and showed us Rocky III.

 

Eye of the Tiger, Baby!

I was eight, and I had never seen anything like it. The freely flowing testosterone, the pumping soundtrack, the training montage, the almost comically menacing villain in Mr. T, and the quick redemption arc aided by a former nemesis (Apollo Creed) – I was in love.

 

That afternoon in Burley, Idaho opened my eyes to the genre of hyper-masculine 80's storytelling, and I would never be the same. I hadn't realized anything could be so cool.

 

It was the greatest thing I had ever seen in my life.

 

4. Wait Until Dark:

 

In the fall of 1999, I was a recently returned missionary and new student at BYU. Michelle and I had just started dating a few weeks before. I had yet to hold her hand.

 

Michelle suggested we spend a Friday evening at BYU's Varsity Theater, to catch a screening of the 1967 thriller Wait Until Dark.

 

Michelle had seen the movie before; I hadn't. After a drug transport goes sideways, the movie follows Audrey Hepburn (playing a recently blind woman) as she’s unwittingly put in precarious circumstances in her own apartment.  

 

That night, though, a pivotal moment in the movie frightened me so much that I nearly leapt out of my chair. . . and into Michelle's lap.

 

In an endearing way, we laughed about that moment for years afterward. I think it's my favorite movie moment with Michelle ever.

 

And a day or two later, I finally had the courage to ask if I could put my arm around her.

 

3. Creepshow 2:

 

I think I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, possibly 4th. My friend Jeremy, who I’d gotten to know in 1st grade in Mohawk, NY, had invited me over to his mom’s house (in nearby Herkimer) for a sleepover. It was for his birthday party.

 

I think this was my first sleepover.

 

I don’t remember if it was just me spending the night, or if there were a handful of us boys. But we were left mostly to ourselves for the evening, in Jeremy’s living room. Maybe it was always the plan to watch movies, but I know I was surprised when Jeremy put on Creepshow 2.

 

It’s hard to retrace some of my steps that evening. I don’t know if I protested. I don’t know if I would have even thought to protest. I just remember feeling terrified through each of the three short stories in the horror film: a murderous blob in a lake, a vengeful Native American statue, and a hitchhiker who torments the woman who hit him with her Mercedes (and drove away).

 

Jeremy seemed to be used to this stuff, but he could apparently tell I was scared. [Maybe I had said something, or maybe I just had a fixed look of terror on my face.] So after the movie was over, he suggested another film to help put my mind at ease: American Ninja.

 

That movie was also rated R, but I think movie ratings were entirely over my head at the time.

 

American Ninja offered a welcome distraction from the horrific images of the last film, but I could still feel those images lurking. And as soon as it was time for sleep, they came back. In fact, I couldn’t think of anything else.  

 

The terrifying themes and visuals from Creepshow 2 would replay over and over in my mind for years afterward. Usually in disturbing detail. In fact, all these decades later, I can still recall – seemingly with perfect clarity – some of the scariest moments from that movie.

 

2. Snow White (1937):

 

We were living in Oswego, NY, which means I was in kindergarten, possibly younger. I must have seen a television commercial for the re-release of Disney's Snow White. I asked Mom if we could see it. Mom turned me down, which didn’t feel surprising.

 

Sometime later in the day, though, I learned that we were headed to the drive-in theater, at sundown, to see the movie. And what's more, Mom was also making ice cream cone cupcakes to take on the outing!

 

At the drive-in, I don't remember much of the movie. I remember Dad fumbling to get the car radio tuned to the movie station. When he couldn’t figure it out, he left for the service desk. I remember Mom figuring out the radio before Dad returned (with a radio in hand from the service counter). I remember blankets. I remember those ice cream cone cupcakes. I remember Mom and Dad decided against staying for the double feature (and since the movie wasn't animated, I didn't care).

 

It is my first real memory of childhood wish fulfillment, of having everything my little heart could ever possibly want.  It is still one of my favorite memories ever.

 

Since becoming a parent, I can't tell you how often I've tried to create that same feeling for my kids.

 

1. The Dark Knight :

 

When The Dark Knight released in theaters, we were still relatively new to San Diego. Even so, by that time I was then a counselor in my second San Diego bishopric in as many years. 

 

It would be hard to overstate how much I had loved Christopher Nolan's prior film, Batman Begins. A grounded superhero movie with an unusually strong (and clean!) script, compelling cast, and deeply memorable score – I was a full-on fanboy, and I was not ashamed.

 

By this point, I followed movie news closely, and I had been keenly aware – for years – of the hype surrounding Nolan's anticipated sequel. This included scouring articles for assurances that the language and sexual themes in The Dark Knight would stay consistent with Batman Begins. My hope, of course, was that the sequel not cross boundaries into non-viewable territory.

 

At the time, we were still just as reluctant to allow most PG-13 movies in our home, and even some PG movies (depending on the language). But Michelle had also enjoyed Batman Begins, and she was excited for the sequel, too.

 

The internal trouble for me began in a week or two before the movie's release. Reports emerged that The Dark Knight pushed the boundaries of PG-13 violence, and some had even relayed that the movie more appropriately deserved an R-rating. 

 

Those reports made my stomach sink, and it resulted in one of the great internal conflicts of my adult life – another conflict I would "fail."

 

I kept these news reports to myself and plodded forward with plans to see the movie with Michelle. In fact, I had agreed with a good friend from work that we'd trade nights baby-sitting each other's kids. This allowed us both to attend the movie with our respective wives.

 

About a week after its release, Michelle and I finally got to see the movie, and I was awe struck. It was violent, yes. And Heath Ledger's Joker was genuinely terrifying. But it was also amazing!

 

And yet, watching that movie came at a cost, one I tried keeping to myself initially. I would later open up about it, though, in a particularly candid journal entry on July 27, 2008. I share the relevant part of that entry below:

 

I should finally record here, too, something I have been struggling with all week.  Surely it shows me to be a fool.

Last Sunday during the administration of the Sacrament, I felt something troubling me.  I asked the Lord to help me figure out what it was, and what I might do about it.  The direction came very clearly, “Do not go see The Dark Knight.”

Rarely has counsel been as unwelcome, and while I hesitantly acknowledged it in my planner, I put it off.  I wanted to see this movie, and I was going to see this movie.

That counsel set off a war inside me that tormented me all week. I agonized over it in just about all of my free thinking, though it was a depressing agony.  I knew that by watching the movie I would be specifically disregarding a prompting I had solicited (though indirectly) and received from God.  Yet, I still went ahead and reserved tickets.

All things spiritual suffered this week because of my resistance and outright defiance in the face of this counsel.  As I read more about the movie, I saw more reason for the prompting: while a very fine movie, it was exceedingly violent – so much so that many expressed surprise at the PG-13 rating.  But this was not enough to sway me.

I told no one.  There were a few early mornings where I came near to having the courage to follow God's counsel, only to abandon it later.  Each morning I recognized the struggling seemed to grow more faint.  This was not because my arguments or justification had [gotten] any better, but because the Spirit would only contend with me so long before departing.  All of the anxiety left me miserable before we'd even watched the movie: Having my heart set against that particular counsel was enough. 

Yet still I would not make myself strong enough to keep it.

Obviously we went through with it and watched the movie.  The movie was engaging, engrossing, thrilling, complex, dark, and violent.  I found I could not recommend it to others – I did not want them thinking I was ok with the violence – and that I even felt slightly ashamed to admit that I'd watched it.

The violence still haunts me, but it's the disobedience that has caused me such misery in recent days.  I felt that keenly today as it seemed like it might be some time before the Lord can trust me again with His promptings.  I am ashamed, and I am left without excuse.

 

In the aftermath, I did end up feeling spiritually dead inside for several weeks. And in that difficult space, I couldn’t help but puzzle over why God was apparently so upset with me and not others. I wondered because so many others within the faith seemed perfectly able to watch and enjoy the movie with no hint of God’s displeasure – with no apparent spiritual consequences.

 

But at the same time, the punishment seemed consistent with God as I knew him at the time. I mean, in a sense, I had sold at least some of my spiritual birthright for a mess of (cinematic) pottage.

 

At one point, I even informally "confessed" the whole incident to my bishop and good friend. I remember him responding with sensitivity and curiosity, though he couldn't entirely mask his amusement.

 

It took a while for me to move past that incident. And it significantly impacted my relationship with the movie in the years afterward.

 

I’m glad to see that memory in a different light now. From this new vantage point, I still feel great compassion for the younger version of me. But mixed with that compassion, there’s also now a healthy dose of my own amusement.