Wish Granted

Growing up, my family loved Alan Alda. And what's not to love? Intelligent, talented, funny as hell, attractive, and an all-around decent man. M*A*S*H* was on nearly every week night of my childhood and I still remember my parents coming home from the AMC theatre in our town after seeing The Four Seasons. Aunt Bernadette was babysitting, which meant pizza and TV's Incredible Hulk and more fun than you could imagine. We were still up when Mum and Da came in and I remember them talking with Aunt Berne and laughing as they recalled some of their favourite scenes.

As soon as we purchased a VCR in 1987, The Four Seasons was one of the few films that my parents bought. (Remember now, back in the day, those VHS tapes were pricey as hell. Back to the Future was like a hundred bucks! Mama clearly refused to spend that sort of money on something so frivolous.) Anyway, no matter how many times our family would watch The Four Seasons, we would still bust out laughing as hard as we had the first time.

That film is immensely significant to my youth. I always thought that when I grew up I would one day marry an Alan Alda or a Jack Weston (never Len Cariou - he was a cad and a philanderer) and that we would go sailing and skiing with friends. Our children would go to college in New England and be wonderful children that took a real bite out of life. It never crossed my mind though, until recently, that one day I might have the relationship with my mother that Carol Burnett's character had with Elizabeth Alda in The Four Seasons. It seemed so foreign a thing to even think on. Many, many years later, I'm not married to an Alan or a Jack and I don't go on sailing or ski trips with other couples. However, more importantly, I currently have that mother-daughter relationship that Kate and Beth (Carol Burnett & Elizabeth Alda) had in the film. My mother and I are genuinely happy to see one another and we can talk like friends and equals. 

(much gratitude to cerpts for the above foto! xoxo)