30th Anniversary (Spoiler)

I know I'm three weeks late in posting this, but on Friday, March 9, 1984 Splash opened in theaters, and this past March 9 had its 30th anniversary. My family and I had become really into movies the previous year and a half, getting our first VCR, renting and buying VHS tapes, and seeing movies in theaters. I saw ten movies in theaters in the spring/summer of 1984, my sister saw six, my mother five, and even my grandmother got in on it, seeing four. And one of those was Splash. We actually saw it on Tuesday, April 17, 1984, at the Cinema 4 in Rock Hill, SC (about a 50 minute drive from where we lived). That was during our school district's spring break, when we were out that week (I was 16 and in tenth grade, my sister was 13 and in eighth grade, and our mother taught fifth grade). So all four of us went over to the old Rock Hill Mall that day and spent some time in it, then went to the theater (right behind it) to see Splash. Earlier that morning right after we had left our house we dropped by the post office to get the mail, and in it was my weekly Sports Illustrated (I subscribed and got SI from 1981 to 1991). On the cover was New York Mets star Darryl Strawberry, in a batting stance, with the headline "The straw that stirs the Mets". I looked at this magazine on the way over to Rock Hill and while in the car waiting in the theater, and while waiting we also talked about the New York Yankees and how difficult it was for a manager to stay with them because of their owner. We also talked about the Los Angeles Dodgers, and my mother said something about them, and I asked her, "Was that when they were playing in Brooklyn or Los Angeles?". And she said, "Los Angeles. I don't think they played in Brooklyn in my lifetime". Actually, that was not true, as she was born in 1934 and they moved to LA in 1958. But enough about baseball, getting back to Splash, we went in and saw it and liked it pretty good, though my mother said she did not like the ending, she wanted them to stay on land, and that did bring the movie down for her. But it did not really matter for me, and I did like Splash, it got on my favorite movies list. We never brought it as we did with a lot of movies in the 1980s, but I did rent it out and saw it on our VCRs later in the eighties, and last fall I rented it out from Netflix and watched it on my DVD player, the first time I had seen it in over two decades. And I think I might get it out from Netflix and watch it again this spring for its 30th anniversary.

"I happen to be a vegetarian". Lex, from Jurrasic Park