"If she was here I'd probably be just as crazy now as I was then in about 5 minutes. Ain't that ridiculous? Naw, it ain't really. Cause being crazy about a woman like her is always the right thing to do. Being an old decrepit bag of bones, that's what's ridiculous. Gettin old."
Written by Larry McMurtry and Peter Bogdanovich. From the novel by Larry McMurtry. Directed by Peter Bogdanovich. 1971.
When I was in high school, I played trumpet in band. Every Friday night football game we played, we marched. Which meant heavy drilling during the week, after-school practices, an early end to summer -- all so the fans could come and cheer for everyone but us. A girl stood next to me in the bleachers, this freckled, brown-haired flag-twirler. She played first trumpet. So did I. We shared a lyre of music. Every now and then, her shoulder touched mine. I hated football games. Still do. Lately, I've been thinking about these things. Football games, that girl -- now married, someone's wife, mother, etc., a passenger departed from the everyday train of memory, like most of my hometown. How dull, the utterly ridiculous necessity of high school, the motions we were required to go through, the roles we were required to play. The pain we were required to endure. And yet, there is, from time to time, when the wind blows right and the light slants just, a caul of nostalgia over it all. It's comforting, somehow. I can't put my finger on it, actually. Youth.
I think, just maybe, this movie does.
