thedrifter
07-20-05, 05:29 AM
Finding - and needing - the funny while at war
July 20,2005
ANNE CLARK
DAILY NEWS STAFF
I was in the checkout line, holding a basket filled with tube socks, vitamins and clothes hangars. On top of the pile were two DVDs. The woman behind me peered over my basket and clucked, "Well, that's going to be a long weekend for you."
And it would have been, if those movies were meant for me. Instead, we were sending the films "Caddyshack" and "Animal House" to our dear friend Tom, who is in Iraq. Tom lives in one of Saddam's palaces and has a small DVD player with him. This sounds nice, until you realize that Tom leaves the compound walls nearly every day, traveling in convoys that risk roadside bombs and sniper attacks.
He is one of my husband's oldest friends. They shared a townhouse as young, single Marines; they shot pool and ate raw meat thawed in the microwave.
When we first learned Tom was going to Iraq, I asked his wife what he'd want in a care package. More than baby wipes or bug spray or even power bars, he wanted movies, she said. More specifically, comedies.
Since humor is so personal, I asked her for titles; and that's how I ended up with "Caddyshack" and "Animal House" in my basket. (At least she didn't ask me to pick up the "Police Academy" series.)
These are the "comedy classics," or at least, that's what the guys tell me. "Caddyshack" is apparently about Bill Murray attacking gophers on a golf course, while the mother of all classic comedies, "Animal House," is about frat boys popping eggs out of their cheeks. After one viewing, I turned to my dad and my husband and uttered this blasphemy: "You know, John Belushi was not that funny."
They both looked at me in shock.
"That," my husband said, "is something you should have told me before we got married."
I was in a college sorority, so I know about pranks and toga parties and dancing to "Shout." Instead, I find funny in things I know nothing about, like aging rock stars strutting around a miniature Stonehenge in "This is Spinal Tap."
Not everyone gets the same joke. Last summer, our good friend Chris stayed with us. I'd just ordered both seasons of the British comedy series "The Office" and couldn't wait to pop them in. I cried with laughter watching Ricky Gervais sing about the hot-love highway during an otherwise stuffy office seminar. I realize that British comedy is a little strange. Not everyone digs it. And it takes a decoder ring to translate British slang words like "snog." But the other side of the room was quiet. Chris was slightly amused, and my husband Joe was downright bored. There was only one person laughing, and that was me.
Maybe I'll never understand why men think that Burt Reynolds driving a souped-up Trans Am through the South is funny, or why, in the middle of a war, our friend Tom wanted to watch Delts smash beer cans into their foreheads and drive motorcycles up a staircase. Maybe it's because the movie reminds him of his own youth, of happier, easier years.
"Got the movies - thanks," Tom wrote us. "They make life bearable out here."
And maybe I was wrong, because if Belushi can do that, then he was a genius, indeed.
Anne Clark's weekly columns focus on her life as a military spouse. Contact her at (252) 527-3191 ext. 242 or at aclark@freedomenc.com.
Ellie
July 20,2005
ANNE CLARK
DAILY NEWS STAFF
I was in the checkout line, holding a basket filled with tube socks, vitamins and clothes hangars. On top of the pile were two DVDs. The woman behind me peered over my basket and clucked, "Well, that's going to be a long weekend for you."
And it would have been, if those movies were meant for me. Instead, we were sending the films "Caddyshack" and "Animal House" to our dear friend Tom, who is in Iraq. Tom lives in one of Saddam's palaces and has a small DVD player with him. This sounds nice, until you realize that Tom leaves the compound walls nearly every day, traveling in convoys that risk roadside bombs and sniper attacks.
He is one of my husband's oldest friends. They shared a townhouse as young, single Marines; they shot pool and ate raw meat thawed in the microwave.
When we first learned Tom was going to Iraq, I asked his wife what he'd want in a care package. More than baby wipes or bug spray or even power bars, he wanted movies, she said. More specifically, comedies.
Since humor is so personal, I asked her for titles; and that's how I ended up with "Caddyshack" and "Animal House" in my basket. (At least she didn't ask me to pick up the "Police Academy" series.)
These are the "comedy classics," or at least, that's what the guys tell me. "Caddyshack" is apparently about Bill Murray attacking gophers on a golf course, while the mother of all classic comedies, "Animal House," is about frat boys popping eggs out of their cheeks. After one viewing, I turned to my dad and my husband and uttered this blasphemy: "You know, John Belushi was not that funny."
They both looked at me in shock.
"That," my husband said, "is something you should have told me before we got married."
I was in a college sorority, so I know about pranks and toga parties and dancing to "Shout." Instead, I find funny in things I know nothing about, like aging rock stars strutting around a miniature Stonehenge in "This is Spinal Tap."
Not everyone gets the same joke. Last summer, our good friend Chris stayed with us. I'd just ordered both seasons of the British comedy series "The Office" and couldn't wait to pop them in. I cried with laughter watching Ricky Gervais sing about the hot-love highway during an otherwise stuffy office seminar. I realize that British comedy is a little strange. Not everyone digs it. And it takes a decoder ring to translate British slang words like "snog." But the other side of the room was quiet. Chris was slightly amused, and my husband Joe was downright bored. There was only one person laughing, and that was me.
Maybe I'll never understand why men think that Burt Reynolds driving a souped-up Trans Am through the South is funny, or why, in the middle of a war, our friend Tom wanted to watch Delts smash beer cans into their foreheads and drive motorcycles up a staircase. Maybe it's because the movie reminds him of his own youth, of happier, easier years.
"Got the movies - thanks," Tom wrote us. "They make life bearable out here."
And maybe I was wrong, because if Belushi can do that, then he was a genius, indeed.
Anne Clark's weekly columns focus on her life as a military spouse. Contact her at (252) 527-3191 ext. 242 or at aclark@freedomenc.com.
Ellie