Canadian Bacon

I was ten years old when my father took me to see the movie “Grease.” I remember feeling so completely mesmerized by the music and the energy. I wanted to be Sandra Dee. And not the Sandra Dee crying by the kiddie pool. I wanted to slither about in a black cat suit and red high heels while men who moved like John Travolta fell at my feet. I had no idea what it meant to “skip a period” but I was certain that when I grew up, I wanted to be just like “bad Sandy.”

And not because of some sexual fantasy. I was in awe of her independence.

The sexual fantasy came later.

My mother had forbid my father to take me to see the movie. My mother, hell bent on raising a good Catholic girl, insisted that an impressionable young mind such as mine should not be subjected to a movie filled with sexual innuendoes and gyrating dance moves.

But my dad had a reputation to uphold. He was the one that took me with him every time he went drag-racing under my mother’s radar. He was the one that let me stay up late and watch “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons” while my mom was at PTA meetings. Ice cream for dinner. Mismatched clothes. Uncombed hair. Dad was cool.

Until I became a teenager. But that’s a story for another time.

So he took me to see the movie with the obligatory sworn oath that I would never tell my mother.

So there we were, sitting in the dark theatre. Both of us fantasizing about “bad Sandy.” Although in very different ways, I’m quite sure. And there were a few moments, when I could feel my father cringe… and question whether taking his ten-year-old daughter to a PG movie was a good idea. Catholic guilt is a bitch.

But true to his wrong-side-of-the-tracks-of-Chicago-Catholic-boy roots, he was rebellious to the bone marrow. And that moment of guilt was followed by a flash of his Hollywood smile, and a shrug. Enjoy the moment. Memories like these don’t come around very often.

A few weeks later, my mother found out. I don’t know how it happened. Neither does my father. But we both remember the fight they had because of it.

Fast-forward to present day.

We don’t have television. Let me clarify. We have television sets in our house, but we have no reception of any kind. No rabbit ears. No snow channel. Nada.

The man of the house has set up a sweet home theater system, complete with surround sound and a projector that shines glorious images from classic films to new releases on to the opposite wall, putting big screen TVs to shame. Nemo is suddenly four feet long and the infamous car chase scene in “The French Connection” grabs you by the balls and takes you along for the ride.

And so it has become a family tradition every Saturday night. We have family movie night. I pop popcorn the old-fashioned way… in a pot of hot oil on the stove. And we gather around the projector and watch a flick with the kids.

We are determined to broaden their horizons and give them and education in film, introducing them to the classics as well as the magic created by Pixar and DreamWorks.

The kids have seen “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “The Great Escape” and “The Blues Brothers” more than once. They love “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” They sing along to the amazing soundtrack and my son can imitate Pete’s exclamation “you stole from my kin” as if he spent his entire young life in the marshlands of the Mississippi delta.

So, last weekend we rented “Canadian Bacon.” From what I remember, it seemed harmless enough. Poorly acted. Political messages that would certainly fly under their seven-year-old radar.

But somewhere in the middle of poking fun at the self-centered nature of Americans, one of the main characters spews the line, “The American public’s attention span is about as long as your dick.”

And all of a sudden, I was back in that dark theatre. Only this time I was my father. Cringing, wondering if my round-faced, naïve children picked up on the euphemism for a penis. I looked over at them and saw no response at all on their little faces.

My son didn’t get it. My daughter looked bored to tears.

I wrestled with whether this was due to their young minds or the fact that they have been exposed to so many great films, that they understood that what they were watching was really bad—and so they weren’t phased by the bad jokes and gross humor.

I opted for the latter. And then the fight scene at the hockey rink sent them reeling with laughter. And I looked at them, flashed my father’s smile and shrugged.