Glass Castles and Engulfing Fires

This past weekend my adoptive hometown had a fire that destroyed its oldest building, circa 1873. Before the 1930s it was a pool hall and bar but during Prohibition when alcohol was banned across the nation they had to serve food in order to keep their license to run a pool hall so hot dogs replaced the liquor. After Prohibition ended the building became known far and wide as the place you go to get hot dogs and beer. Too young to go inside a bar? No problem. They had a window on the street where you could walk up and order. Many hot summer nights when we couldn't sleep my husband and I would go for a ride and find ourselves getting hot dogs and taking them down to the moonlit river. The place was more than just the town’s tavern, it’s a place where memories were made. As recently as two days before the fire I had dinner there with a couple of my husband’s old classmates. We’ve been meeting there for decades, whenever they come to town, and I’m glad my husband didn’t live long enough to see this fire on the news. It would have broke his heart. He was sentimental about his hometown.

I don’t understand why anyone takes part in hot dog eating contests but this bar has been having them since 1968. The names of the winners lined the walls of the bar, each one printed on a two inch wide slat. The owner said all that information is on a data base and can be recreated when they rebuild. The owners are resilient. Within a few hours of the fire department and gas company getting to the scene the owners had set up the pop-up tent they use for outdoor events and they were making and give away hot dogs to all the on-lookers and people working on the fire. They didn’t quit for two days, until all the hot spots were finally out and the fire department left. True to the character of this tourist town, the other businesses are rallying around their neighbor. They’ve organized a day next week when 15% of all sales will go to the seventy---yes, 70---employees of the bar and a custom tee-shirt shop has already raised several thousand to go to the fund plus offers of temporary jobs are pouring in to tide them over until the bar can be rebuilt. Small towns have big hearts.

Movie Day: Last month my Movie and Lunch Club got canceled because the woman in charge was ill and in the hospital. She’s still not out of the woods but someone else stepped up to the plate to organize our lunch plans and to pick the movie. I don’t always like the restaurants or movies chosen but I sure wouldn’t want the job, so I would never breathe a word of complaint. It involves maintaining an e-mailing list of nearly fifty people, notifying everyone each month of the plans, then calling reservations in to the restaurants for those who promise to show up. We average fifteen to twenty-five people but not always the same fifteen to twenty-five. 

This week we saw The Glass Castle with Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts taking the leading roles in this film based on a memoir written by Jeannette Walls.  IMBd describes the storyline like this: “A young girl comes of age in a dysfunctional family of nonconformist nomads with a mother who's an eccentric artist and an alcoholic father who would stir the children's imagination with hope as a distraction to their poverty.” Wikipedia says the film came out with the critics praising the work of the cast but criticizing “the mishandled tones and material.” I don’t know if that’s a fair observation but several in our group who read the book, said the movie followed the book closely. 

Did I like the film? It’s hard to use the word ‘like’ about a movie depicting four children growing up with no stability, never having enough to eat, never going to school and living in such turmoil and filth. It was an engaging movie that you won’t soon forget. In an author interview Ms. Walls said she believes her father was bi-polar and trying to self-medicate with alcohol but she never doubted that she was loved which is probably why the kids were able to turn their adult lives around. She also said that Woody Harrelson nailed both her father’s dark side and his generosity of spirit. And now I want to read the book. Okay, I guess that means I liked and I would recommend the movie.  ©

 Official Movie Trailer

 Interview with the Author of The Glass Castle