dancing with richard dreyfuss

I'm so glad that Sandy let me know about the free movies on SHOtime.

This morning, I chose a movie I didn't know about, one from 2018 with the quirky actor I've had a crush on ever since "The Goodbye Girl".

Sure, I know he was in "American Graffiti" four years earlier...

but I was just 15 then and that movie didn't really mean anything to me then.

Timing, folks, it's all about timing, isn't it?

(smile)

Likewise, "Astronaut" might not have meant as much to me five years ago.

Here, Richard Dreyfuss portrayed an 85-year-old retired civil engineer, widowed, and newly diagnosed with atrial fibrillation.

That certainly got my attention.

There was no mention of what medication he was on, but I know he had dizzy spells.

That led to his daughter bringing him to live with her, her husband, and son, and their putting the his old house up for sale.

Serious loss adjustment for him... but he still had his telescope to watch the heavens.

His grandson liked to do that with him.

His grandson knew he'd always wanted to be part of the NASA space program, but had never had the opportunity...

and now there was a lottery to be the lone civilian on a commercial trip to space.

Well, life intruded, as it does, and Grandpa ended up in a nursing home.

His late-night hours had been determined to be too much disruption for the son-in-law.

So, Grandpa had loss adjustment again - and fought back by entering the flight lottery.

Of course, his name was one of the dozen chosen!

After announcing the names on the radio, the deejay played a really cool song and everyone started dancing, including me.

I even reversed three times so I could dance with Dreyfuss more than once!!!

And after the movie, I watched the credits for the song title.

"Got To Have It", from 2014, performed by jacksoul.

It was the only song listed.

Seriously.

The above song link is for the tune in its entirety, just as it was in the movie.

Seriously.

The entire song had been played, not just part of it.

Once I knew that, I kept rewinding to play and dance along with them!

When I looked for the song on youTube, the first link I found was this one.

A behind the scenes look at the song?

Sounded like my kind of thing!

That's when I found out the man who wrote it, Haydain Neale, died at 39, from complications after his bicycle was hit by a car.

The song had never been put on an album, so his bandmates had put together a finished song using the recorded bits they had of him singing, then the song had become very popular up there in Canada, where the group is based... and where this movie was filmed.

Very nice.

That led me to revisit the movie from Saturday at the JEA.

This year's SJCAF has had more than the usual share of hard movies, and "America" was yet another of that ilk.

Eli, son of an Israeli policeman who lavished physical abuse upon his son and his wife, had fled to the United States as soon as he had the money to do so.

His best friend, Yotam, was still in Israel when Eli came back to settle his father's estate.

Eli wanted to visit the isolated waterfall they'd gone to as kids, so Yotam went, too, but ending up falling and in a coma for more than a year.

Yotam's fiancee, Iris, had just met Eli and now, two days later, the man she was to wed was in a vegetative state and their future was on hold... so, she had disliked him.

Eventually, Iris and Eli had a working friendship, then more than that... and that's about the time that Yotam came out of his coma and started physical therapy for his atrophied muscles, requiring help from her and his parents.

Eli went back to the States, to get out of their way.

More time passes.

Then, one night, as the couple are listening to the TV, a story catches them: Eli has died, rescuing a child that fell into a river.

The next day, Yotam makes a pilgrimage to the waterfall... and that's when I started crying.

All I could think of was Christa and the corn maze she and I went to last fall.

I don't think I could go there again.

I gave Barbara and Sandy hugs in parting, then made it to my car before sobbing.

Perhaps the loss of the squirrel mistress was fresher for me because I'd received last week and unexpected, and very nice, 'thank you' note from her parents for the Arbor Foundation tree I had planted in Christa's memory.

Perhaps the loss of this friend was recently sharpened because I'd stumbled upon this book she made for me back in 2013.

She and I and Lauri were having a conversation about punctuation marks and dingbats and which ones were to be more highly regarded.

You know, one of those late-evening rambling chats promoted by a glass of wine or a margarita.

I had spoken at length of my love of ampersands: not just the look of them, but the writing of them, with their curves and flourishes!

She than surprised me with the book containing 19 photos of the symbol throughout her travels in Savannah, annotated and with a bibliography, too.

I'm fairly certain she gave it to me for Christmas that year, before she headed off to New York to be with family.

(smile)

I'm glad to know the fellows in jacksoul have that song out in the world, in memory of their friend.

I'm glad mi amigas were there at the movie last night.

I'm glad Sandy let me know about the free movies on demand.

Timing.

i thank You, God.