"There is no such thing as a bad boy."
Yesterday I was talking about Boys Town with my paralegal. She had just gone out to visit a kid client of ours there and she innocently asked, "Who was Fr. Flanagan?"
It's times like those that I feel a deep chuckle and I sit back and say, "Come here, yungun and Uncle Remus will tell you about the founding of Boys Town." Actually, I said, "You should rent the movie!"
"There's a movie?" she said.
"Oh yeah!" I said. "Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney were in it."
"Micky Rooney? That short, old guy?"
As you can see, my work is sometimes legal and sometimes it is just schoolin' these younguns about their pop culture.
"Yes, that's Mickey Rooney, but he was also a famous child actor. He starred in National Velvet with Elizabeth Taylor," I began.
For some reason, Boys Town was a favorite of Kate's and mine when we were little. I don't even know how many times we watched it. I think it was a frequent late night movie on the local tv channel.
We drove by Boys Town on our way into Omaha and when we would approach the front gates, we would start moaning, "Oh, oh, oh! Here! Here is where PeeWee died!" We would lean against each other in the backseat and comfort each other as we shed fake tears. Of course, we also shed real tears, but just when we watched the movie. The famous line from this movie is Mickey Rooney's of course: "He's not heavy, he's my brother." But Kate and I prefered the Spencer Tracy line, "There's no such thing as a bad boy." We would tease each other with that line when one of us got in trouble. It has a nice note of irony to it when said to a child who has just been punished for a small transgression.
I should rent this and watch it with my kids. I wonder if I can even find it at the neighborhood Blockbuster where "classics" are Indiana Jones movies from the 80s?
It's times like those that I feel a deep chuckle and I sit back and say, "Come here, yungun and Uncle Remus will tell you about the founding of Boys Town." Actually, I said, "You should rent the movie!"
"There's a movie?" she said.
"Oh yeah!" I said. "Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney were in it."
"Micky Rooney? That short, old guy?"
As you can see, my work is sometimes legal and sometimes it is just schoolin' these younguns about their pop culture.
"Yes, that's Mickey Rooney, but he was also a famous child actor. He starred in National Velvet with Elizabeth Taylor," I began.
For some reason, Boys Town was a favorite of Kate's and mine when we were little. I don't even know how many times we watched it. I think it was a frequent late night movie on the local tv channel.
We drove by Boys Town on our way into Omaha and when we would approach the front gates, we would start moaning, "Oh, oh, oh! Here! Here is where PeeWee died!" We would lean against each other in the backseat and comfort each other as we shed fake tears. Of course, we also shed real tears, but just when we watched the movie. The famous line from this movie is Mickey Rooney's of course: "He's not heavy, he's my brother." But Kate and I prefered the Spencer Tracy line, "There's no such thing as a bad boy." We would tease each other with that line when one of us got in trouble. It has a nice note of irony to it when said to a child who has just been punished for a small transgression.
I should rent this and watch it with my kids. I wonder if I can even find it at the neighborhood Blockbuster where "classics" are Indiana Jones movies from the 80s?
posted by Lea at 6:20 AM
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