My Rebecca was fishing around in the free movies for something for us to watch last evening and came across an early Kathy Bates film called “A Home of Their Own”. I probably mentioned at some point that Kathy and My Rebecca go back to high school days together in Memphis. And they were college roommates at SMU. So, what does that mean? It means that we must watch every film that Kathy was ever in, which is a bunch I can reassure you. Not that this is a chore but it is a thing.

Personally I rate films by how much I think about them the next day. This isn’t totally accurate because I have seen some really dreadful B Grade movies that haunted me but discounting that. Anyway, this film left a mark on me. So, here we are and you are going to hear about it.

The setting is LA and small town Idaho in the mid 1950’s. Kathy plays a mom with six kids who the hubby has run out on. Mom gets fed up with low rent LA and packs everyone up in their 1948 Plymouth jalopy for parts unknown to search for a home of their own. Yea, a pilgrimage.

The car finally breaks down in rural Idaho and Mom using every bit of her native intelligence and knowhow moves her clan into an abandoned house on Mr Moon’s property. Mr Moon nor the town is not too sure about the whole thing but over time Mom and the kids persist and win everyone over as they hurtle endless challenges. It is the kind of film that can wear you out and give you the definite feeling that your own life is not half bad.

On reflection the film seems to me to be about heroics in ordinary circumstances. It is not wartime nor in the midst of natural disaster nor famine nor in the midst of a bank robbery. The society’s times aren’t heroic only the protagonist’s personal times. It is the massive fight that some folks put up in the midst of the calm around them. Times are good aren’t they?

Off to walk. Overcast but dry out.

this is the life loves, Felipé.