Christmas Eve Walk with Frank Capra

Off for an early morning ramble on Christmas Eve. I pretty much finished Bill Bryson's "At Home" last night. Bryson is a good read. In this book he pretty much gives modern history as seen through the architecture of his home in England. It is hard not to read this book and not be impressed with how much we've learned over the last couple hundred years. Bryson turns the book into almost a stream of consciousness. It is fun just to sit back and watch him end up where he ends up. The section on all the critters that inhabit our homes is best not read in bed---for reasons that are obvious if you read the book.

We will be home for Christmas Eve. It's a Wonderful Life is on network television tonight (due to budget cuts in our home, we canceled our super duper cable subscription). We now have pretty much the same selection of channels that I had growing up. We will watch Frank Capra's classic. We will have Oyster Stew (and, as usual, I will be the only one to eat it).

Back in 1981, I  had the honor of meeting Frank Capra. He came to a class I was taking at the time. I was too young and stupid to fully appreciate whose hand I was shaking when I met him. I'd seen a couple of Capra's movies---but hadn't seen "Wonderful Life" yet. I do remember it was January of 1981. Ronald Reagan had just been inaugurated. Reagan's values and Capra's values were so juxtaposed. Reagan's values of greed; Capra's everyday populism and decency. Vive Capra!

With the Occupy protests, Capra's movie seems even more poignant today as it was in 1948.