Step In Time

We’ve become members of the George Eastman Museum. This is a glorious mansion/museum/theater in the heart of East Avenue, our “street of the biggest houses”.

Membership has its privileges, one of which is that you can attend movies at the Dryden theater. The theater hosts an elegant and educated lineup of movies highlighting Kodak’s involvement in the height of film’s glory years. The film tonight is elegant and educated indeed: Mary Poppins.

Getting there took a gentle 30 minute walk. This was a change from our normal bike routine and we saw different things at the slower pace; streetlife, fern gardens, porches, dogs. There was a wonderful diversity of houses that ramped up and up and up as we neared East Ave.

The walk was filled with planning for the future. We arrived at the theater to find we’re maybe the youngest people here. I hope everyone else is living their dream life.

The movie started with a brief introduction by a curator about the challenge of getting the movie made. The conflict between P. L. Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins tales, and Disney’s aesthetic was profound. She disliked the music, the animation and the tone. Mary Poppins was too soft and fuzzy for her. This led to thoughts of how British writers process their trauma. 

Ginnie’s memories of Mary Poppins are interwoven with memories of a time when there were only two children. In the early days of Juice, Buddie would fly from Iowa to Virginia for a week at a time as the work to build a company was underway. Gin was at home in the big yellow house with 2 under 2, then 2 under 3 for several years. Mary Poppins and Winnie the Pooh were the movies young Monkey watched while Ginnie worked to get Buster to sleep.

The audience was enthusiastic and we had a couple in their 70s beside us who had just seen the movie for the first time. Then we strolled home in the gloaming dark.