Keenan Park (Krell's Class)

I got in my car and headed South.

I wondered what the guy who had brought all of those boxes of books to the library would have thought if he knew his beloved books would not even get into the door of the library.

His donation was in vain.

It reminded me of the time that a buddy of mine accidentally ran over a cat. He was backing out of my family's driveway at the time. He heard a tiny thump.He got out of the car. He found the lifeless cat. He put the cat in a bag. There would be no letting this cat out of this bag, not as a functioning cat anyways.

My buddy brought the bag full of broken cat to our front door. He rang the bell. When my mother answered the door, my friend said:

"This cat died in vain"

I've often wondered about that quote. My friend was suggesting that the cat in the bag had been ripped off before realizing its purpose in life. This suggests that cats actually have a purpose in life. If that purpose is to live nine lives, then the cat in the bag definitely died in vain.

Or maybe the cat's purpose in life, like all of ours, is to simply not be hungry.

I was feeling hungry so I stopped at Dee's delicatessen and bought a ridiculously huge submarine sandwich with everything aboard.

I continued to aim South, heading towards Keenan Park.

Keenan Park is a great place to relax, meditate the purpose of cats, contemplate American education, take a nature walk and/or eat a sandwich.

As I approached the Park, I noticed paper plates with arrows and words nailed to telephone poles. The plates read Civil War Re-enactment ahead. The arrows pointed towards Keenan Park. I noticed another word on some of the plates. That word was FREE.

Hey, if it's FREE it's me.

Me, the words, my car, my submarine and the arrows were all headed for a collision at the same place.

Keenan Park.

I got out of my car at Keenan and started looking for a bench upon which to sink into my submarine. That's when I came face to face with Robert E. Lee.

General Lee was heading North as I was heading South. I was amazed to see General Lee. What do you say when you're walking South into a park to eat a submarine sandwich after a morning with Krell and you run into the replica of a  dead rebel general who has reconstituted himself and is heading North?

I figured a crisp salute would be a good start. I snapped one off. General Lee smiled beatifically upon me and said "At ease, Johnny".

I relaxed and spoke "General Lee, you were a genius. You waged one hell of a campaign. If only the artillery had been more accurate, Pickett's charge might have worked and we'd be in a whole different ballgame right now."

"Actually," said General Lee, "Maybe not all that different. American politics today are more or less dominated by the old Confederacy if you think about it. So my men who were slaughtered goin' up the hill didn't totally die in vain"

"Unlike a cat I once owned", I replied.

"I have a cat too" said General Lee. "I mean not me as General Lee but me the guy who dresses up like General Lee at these here re-enactments. My cat once killed a Doberman named Duke"

"That sounds like one helluva story, uh General Lee"

"Just call me Lee. That's my given name, son. Lee Edward Roberts. I guess it was inevitable that I would end up masquerading as Robert E Lee. For all my years in school, they kept calling my name directory style whenever they took attendance. Ovah and ovah and ovah. One day, it hit me. My purpose in life. A simple twist of fate"

I wanted to hear about the cat and the Doberman but my stomach was starting to growl. I resisted my urge to inquire further. I snapped off another salute and said the only thing I could think of at such an odd moment: "Thank God for Aristotle"

General Lee nodded in agreement.

"Generally, I agree" is what I think I heard General Lee say as we parted and I headed further down the path, deeper into the Park.
I continued to head south towards the bench in front of the pavillion past the meadow. As I strode towards the bench, two dozen people on horseback began to congregate at opposite ends of the meadow. A dozen were dressed in blue, another dozen in grey. All twenty four were brandishing wooden swords.

I reached the bench. I vowed never to be hungry again. I unwrapped my sub and began chomping just as the two dozen calvarymen began to charge towards each other.

I didn't mind the noise. I actually kinda liked it. The submarine tasted a little better because of it. It wasn't the noise that was causing my thought processes to grow blurry and dark.

I wasn't sure if what I was watching was a calvary or a cavalry re-enactment. I knew one of them was the correct word for the place where Christ got nailed and the other was the correct word for soldiers on horses.

I knew that soldiers on horses must have been quite the military breakthrough and quite an advantage over terrified, soon to be trampled soldiers not on horses. 

I knew that soldiers on horses turned out to be quite a disadvantage when the fabled Polish calvary encountered German soldiers not on horses but rather in tanks. The Polish cavalry was blown to smithereens.

Even in my mind I started using both words for one meaning. I could settle for a fifty percent grade on my internal vocabulary. If I kept my mouth shut, no one would discover that I didn't know the difference between calvary and cavalry.

My muddled thoughts grew darker when I thought of that proud Polish calvary splattered across their particular slaughterfield. That was a bad scene for sure but nowhere near as bad a scene as nailing the son of God to a cross after whipping the crap out of him and crowning him with thorns like they did at cavalry.

Meanwhile the cavalrys in the meadow were having the time of their lives running into each other while flailing their wooden, fake swords. I realized the swords were crosses painted black and silver with one perpendicular four times longer than the other.

These replica forces were attacking each other with crosses.

I imagined all of the crosses with an outstretched figure upon them. I imagined the blue and the gray horsemen attacking each other with half-assed crucifixes.

In that way, my description of the charge as either calvary or cavalry would have been correct. 

Oh yeah, even on this bright afternoon my thinking had once again grown dark and out of focus.  

".........................  .................... in focus"

I heard her before I saw her and I didn't clearly hear her until after I saw her. When I saw her, I didn't really see her. I saw Scarlett.

"Are you talking to me?" I said in subdued DeNiro as I turned my head to the left. The face I saw inside the green bonnet belonged to Julia.

"Yes, I am" said Julia," and I was talking to you before when you were lost somewhere in dark space. I said 'hi', you didn't answer. Then I said, 'get your thinking back in focus' and you turned your head my way, all Taxi Driver. If you don't mind me saying so, you still don't appear to be seeing things too clearly"

I returned her greeting, told her that I didn't mind her saying so and added "that's quite a projection", even as I noted with internal alarm and external denial how accurate she was.

Julia said "I know a lot about projection. My grandfather was an arc-light carbon projectionist at the old RKO Palace. My father was a projectionist at Loew's before he became a megaplex manager. He would like me to become a professional projectionist but my mother has different ideas. She wants me to keep my projections intuitive."

"Well, what made you project that I was out of focus?" I asked

"Guys between eighteen and twenty five are always out of focus, sometimes more so than other times but always muddled, always absorbed by noise. Lots of times the puddle grows darker than it ought to be" said Julia.

I remembered how much the noise of the calvary charge helped me to enjoy my sandwich.

Julia/Scarlett was starting to scare me.

I feigned indifference.

"And upon what does your Dad base his projection"

"He bases his projection about the attention span of people on his policy for projectionists at his plex".

"He bases his projection about the attention span of people on his policy for projectionists at his plex? Is that what you said" I asked Julia.

"That's what I said", she answered."There's nothing wrong with your listening"

"Well, Julia, do you want me to project as to how your Pop's policy for projectioninsts at his plex affects his projection about the attention span of people or are you going to explain"

"Ovid, I'm flattered, You remembered my name. Why don't you go ahead and project"

"Julia I'm afraid my projection, according to your father's projection, would be dark and out of focus. Why don't you go ahead and explain"

I finished up my plastic twenty ounce bottle of Diet coke and tossed it at the waste basket next to the bench. A miracle...it went in. I pumped my fist and said 'yes' which Julia took as a signal to explain.

" Fair enough. Back in the days of Grand- Dad" Julia began, "movie theaters could seat many more viewers. Some, if not most theaters could sit a thousand folks at a time. Still, for all those people, they had only one projectionist operating two projectors. Each projector would carry a reel of film. Just before the reel ran out on the first projector, the projectionist would flip on the second projector which he had just loaded with the next reel. Didja ever notice those little scratches or circles that show up on the upper right corner of movies and wonder if you were seeing things?"

"Yeah, I've noticed those marks. They even show up on teevee when the old movies are played"

"Those marks signalled that the reel that was playing was coming to an end. The projectionist would fire up the second projector and at the exact second that projector one ran out of film, projector two picked up the slack and threw its light on the screen. As soon as projector two took over, projector one went into rewind. When the rewind was finished, the projectionist would take that rewound reel off the projector and replace that reel with the next reel which would be ready to go on projector one as soon as the film ran out on projector two."

"That's reely interesting" I punned as I felt my focus starting to slip. Julia missed the quip and continued.

"Those were the old days. One theater, one screen, two projectors, one projectionist. My Dad's multiplex has sixteen theaters, only two of which have more than three hundred seats. One has five hundred, the other has four hundred fifty. The other twelve range from one hundred to three hundred, Most of them are three hundred."

"Ya know, Julia, it's funny. I've always wanted to bowl a three hundred game. I think I'd rather bowl a three hundred game than hit a hole in one. It's close though. Which would you prefer"

"I'd prefer that you maintain your focus and let me finish what we started. If that's too much to ask just say so"

Here I was presented with the perfect storm, the ideal situation to use the greatest line of all time. I knew that all I had to do was say, 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn'  turn my back on Julia and exit stage North. I would have a story for my future wife, my future kids, my future grand-kids maybe even Krell.

And I was pretty sure Julia would sit there, watch me

walk

away

and

say

tomorrow

is

another

day.

I'm polite. I blinked. Castles made of sand melt into the sea.

Julia continued.

"Nowadays, in the megaplex, we have one projectionist operating eight projectors.This bit of planning saves us seven salaries for starters. That's part of the reason why we stagger the starting times of movies. Another reason is to keep a stready stream of customers passing by the concessions stand".

"Who can watch a movie without popcorn?" I asked.

 Julia, at least one step ahead of me answered "And who can eat popcorn, especially popcorn loaded with extra salt and butter, without having a soft drink.?

"I'm getting thirsty just talking about it", I said while glancing at the empty Diet coke in the waste basket and wishing I had more.

"That's why the invention of cup holders in megaplex seats actually saved movies" she said while unfastening her bonnet.

Julia continued.

"The projectionists can change the reels on eight projectors at a time by changing reels on one while the other seven go unattended. This more efficient operation does run the risk that other films not being attended to might snag in the projector and get burnt by the lamp. To prevent this from happening, the projectionists who work for my father routinely expand the gap between the gate that supports the film and the lamp. This provides a margin of safety. It also results in the films being shown out of focus.The higher the population of males between eighteen and twenty five in the opening weekend audience, the greater the gap between the gate and the lamp. Nobody ever complains. Ever."

Whoa. I thought that I was beginning to see the big picture.

I reflected back to Julia's original projection with a question"And you're projecting that we young guys don't complain because  we don't know the movies are not in focus because our perception of life itself is out of focus therefore in synch with the out of focus film being projected behind us that shows up in front of us ?."

"Exacata mundo". replied Julia "And there's more. See, Dad's got to save money on projector lamps. Those things cost a grand a pop. The more play we can get from the bulb, the more money we save. So we play the out of focus movies that you guys watch on the projectors with the dimmest lamps.These are the lamps that we should replace but we can use on you guys because you never complain about the darkness or the out of focus projection because we turn the volume ten percent louder in the dim bulb auditorium than we do in the other auditoriums. As long as you guys hear a lot of noise, you don't particularly care what you see. And whatever it is that you're seeing, you don't mind if it's dark as long as it's loud."

The cavalry charge in the background had quieted down for a moment. I hoped the noise would begin again so I could concentrate on what Julia was saying and not be so distracted by looking at her.

Especially without her bonnet. 

She was starting to piss me off.

Julia stood up suddenly and took a furtive look North followed by a lingering look South. As she stood, I got another look. Julia was vee shaped, or should I say vee vee shaped with the bottom vee inverted and the top vee tottering precariously on the the bottom vee.

No woman looks like that.

Julia was wearing a corset.

Why not, Scarlett wore one.

Julia was channeling Scarlett .

To my great relief, the calvary in the meadow started another charge. The din helped me relax. I wanted to ask Julia about the corset but didn't know where to start.

I figured that I'd feign innocence and since she was so good at reading my mind maybe she'd take the bait.

" Julia, your dress is beautiful. Is your outfit authentic?"

She smiled infuriatingly and changed the subject.

"Where did you ever get a name like Ovid."

"Well, when I was young, I had a problem with my eyes and......"

Julia interrupted, "don't you have a nickname or something"

"Until Bush got elected, people used to call me by my middle initial....Dubya"

She seemed interested. "And what perchance does the Dubya stand for Ovid?"

"The Dubya stands for Warren. That's my middle name."

Julia repeated my name aloud a couple of times "Ovid Warren Peets hmmmm.Ovid Warren Peets.

I had the feeling she'd get half the puzzle and she did.

"War and Peace. Damn, your last two names are war and peace"

"That's only the half of it" I confessed.

"Explain, Warren" She demanded.

"My first name is Ovid. Ovid was a Roman poet. His most famous poem was The Art of Love. If you put the whole thing together, my name is Art, Love, War and Peace. My father thought that pretty well summed up life"

I could tell Julia was impressed because she shut up  for a couple of minutes while she once again stood and looked North and then South.

I tried again. "Is your dress comfortable"

She sat down, smiled her Mona Lisa smile and changed the subject once again. "Have you ever seen the video O, Ovid"