When my sisters and I were children, there was a stretch of Christmas mornings that provided a 55 Walker Avenue version of Hollywood. Our father had a new movie camera and blindingly bright, hot floodlights, and each year he wanted to film us coming down the stairs, acting surprised to see presents under the tree, and laugh like maniacs as we opened them. Every year there would be a little glitch, or a detail shy of his director’s-eye perfection; and we invariably re-staged the scene multiple times. After the fifth “take” or so, the surprise was hard to feign, including over the presents we ultimately were permitted to open.
It was a little tedious, frankly, for us children. But such are the demands of show business. Ah, the burdens of being a star, even of amateur 8-mm home movies. We laugh about it now. Dad meant the best, wanting to create instant memories. Those few years actually stand out from all the other years of orgiastic wrapping-paper frenzy. Home movie cameras were new toys for guys like Dad; and, frankly, so was fatherhood. Part of the fun of life is trying to program life, and another part of the fun of life is when the “programming” doesn’t quite work out — coping, rolling, and watching memories create themselves.
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