Glue is quite fascinating, don’t you think? This liquid - or sometimes semi-liquid little wonder has been around since the time of the ancient Babylonians. It is a constant adhesive substance that we have grown so accustomed to using in our daily lives, that we sometimes take its importance for granted.
As I sat there mending my old shoe together with some Mighty Bond, I couldn’t help but be fascinated with the wonders of glue. It’s a piece of technology that has remained virtually unchanged through the years. Glue can fix even the most fragile of broken bonds – working its magic as precisely or imprecisely as the skill of the mender allows. And after it has worked its magic, it leaves almost no trace that it’s ever been there, although this is partly brand-dependent.
As I was engrossed in my rather leisurely task, my thoughts drifted back to the days of my youth long past. Back then, life was so much simpler, so much happier, and people seemed just a little bit more trustworthy.
Before the advent of television, the local plazas were the only source of entertainment apart from shady establishments, which most people frowned at.
“Celia! Hurry up! We want to get a good spot for the movie.” My younger sister used to bug me like this whenever there was Coca-Cola or Marlboro sponsored movie to be shown in the plaza.
The way it happened was that some big-name company would sponsor a free movie showing at the plaza’s basketball court. A professional barker would make the announcement all over the neighborhood in a van with a loudspeaker attached. All the kids knew his speech by heart. There were slight variations based on the movie, but it was always something like,
“Ladies and gentlemen, come one, come all! Hear me out! An exciting movie will be shown at 7:00 P.M. tonight! There will be fighting! There will be drama! There will be suspense! And there might even be… just a little bit of kissing!”
As children, I and my playmates would chant along with the barker. A new movie was shown once every week, usually on a Friday. For us kids, it was a chance to stay up late and watch the latest cool thing from the states. Me and my two brothers and three sisters wouldn’t be able to take our afternoon nap in anticipation of the movie.
Come movie time, everyone would dress up in their Sunday best and arrive at least an hour or so early. The important people, such as the event organizers or the politician who sponsored the movie would. There were limited seats available, so some people would actually bring their own chairs. There were also some people climbing the trees and watching from there. I wanted to try it myself, but my parents expressly forbid any one of us to even try that.
That also reminds me, parental authority was so much simpler to impose back then.
“Don’t even think about it or I’ll spank you with a ruler when we get home!”
That was quite an effective deterrent. I think this whole anti-violence against children movement nowadays is a bit silly. We grew up fine with our parents’ traditional Spanish disciplinary method. My own children did fine with a slightly toned down version of the same thing.
Over the course of time, as I grew from being a child, a teenager, and eventually, a professional educator, the plaza movies reflected the transition of eras.
At first, there were only silent movies, like the old Charlie Chaplin comedy shows. Then came Technicolor and with it, a host of “Cowboys versus Indians” movies. These shows actually had sound! We could hear what authentic American English sounded like for the first time! Incidentally, parents didn’t think much of the amount of violence their children would be exposed to back then. The movie was good as long as there were no sexual connotations. The occasional kiss was fine and wholesome.
The last few shows I saw were during my college years. I was already married at that time. This was the time of vaudeville and musical type of movies where the actors would suddenly break out into song, “Annie,” was a film that I would never forget. The singing and dancing made me feel like a child again at times. Of course, as I would later discover, I really was still pretty much a child on the inside during those early parts of my adult life.
“Nyaaah! Mama! Mama!”
My 9-month old granddaughter’s protests jostle me back to reality. It seems that she’d just woken up from her crib and I happen to be the only person in the house who is still awake at the moment… convenient.
I prepare my aging, but still relatively strong knees to get up, but first I turn to my handiwork and realize that the adhesive had already set while I was reminiscing. Glue is indeed a wonderful substance; able to mend almost anything in a sticky, transparent liquid (or semi-liquid). I think about how it would be wonderful if life had such a catalyst - something that could mend a broken family, a lost friendship, or perhaps, even a wounded heart that has never healed in over a decade from the loss of a husband in an unobtrusive way that you wouldn’t even notice unless you were looking too closely.
I smirk at the thought. Making my way into my granddaughter’s room, I noticed that she’d thrown her favorite piano/laptop toy to the floor and it was now broken into two pieces. She looked inconsolable as she continued to cry out, “Mama! Mam! Mam! Mamaaaa!”
“Don’t worry, dear. Mama will fix things in a jiffy.”
Ah yes, the wonders of glue.
