3rd Place Essay Winner in Oct/Nov/Dec 1997
I think the first blow came two or three years ago, back in seventh grade. I had been practicing a Jule Styne medley on the piano, and was eager to show it off. However, when I played it for a friend, I left out the last song. "I don't know any more," I stammered. "Good," she said. "I didn't like it much."
It goes on, even today. At lunch this past school year, my circle of friends and I discussed piano music. I was awaiting Gershwin's three preludes at my next piano lesson, and told them so. There was a hush. "Don't you know who George Gershwin is?" I asked. "I've heard the name," one of my friends said.
Raised by my grandparents, I was exposed to such movies and music as they grew up loving. My father and uncle were raised the same way. Believe me, I couldn't do without some of today's entertainment. Hollywood, Broadway, and the music world put out some good, enjoyable stuff. But have you ever felt that something is missing?
I see some movies and wonder what happened in fifty years. I even experience this with comedies, many of which stoop to low, base humor to evoke laughter from its audience.
My aforementioned uncle once taught film appreciation. After showing Singin' in the Rain, a favorite of mine, he asked his college students what they thought. One young man complained, "It's just some white guy singing. I don't have anything to sing about."
That's the problem. With all the negative images the world is shooting at us, of course we feel down. Something really is missing. The sad thing is, many people don't know it.
The one friend I have whom I have rarely seen depressed was also raised loving the great Hollywood musicals. She and I banter about the greats of that time, asking if we've seen such-and-such a person in such-and-such a movie, while our other friend groans, "I don't know what you guys are talking about."
Everyone remembers the day George Burns died. He was a legend in that he lived to be a hundred years old. But have these same people ever heard of Burns and Allen, the partnership he had with his wife? We remember him only as the aged comedian with the cigar and thick-rimmed glasses.
On the same note, how do we remember Gene Kelly? Or do we? The press was loaded with stories on his life, mixed with clips of his old movies. Those clips, I regret, may be the only pieces of Hollywood's golden years that the general public has ever seen or will ever see. And even then, the dancer is not recognized. A classmate asked me recently, "Didn't Grace Kelly die a little while back?" I, on the other hand, remember the day. I cried as if I had lost my parents. The memory still hurts me.
However, I believe there is still hope. One day, at a friend's house (the same friend who didn't know who Gershwin was), I showed off what I could of the first Gershwin prelude. At her piano lesson the next day, she called and asked, "What was that song you played?" Feeling my big crowd-pleaser being stolen from me, I reluctantly told her the name. Looking back, though, I'm glad she "stole" it. It means there's someone else in the world who's willing to carry on the memories of the past.