The Moral of the Story:

The Wizard of OZ

The movie The Wizard of Oz twines around the events of my life like a stray sepia-toned thread in an otherwise multicolored tapestry. Though the balance of the movie is in vivid technicolor, I remember it as sepia-toned. Maybe because it's so intertwined with memory.

My first nightmare, as a tiny girl, was about The Wizard of Oz, and, strangely, though I was little more than a tot, I still recall a confused whirl of tornado and witches, flying monkeys, and expanses of fenced prairie from that dream. Maybe that's why, to this day, I dislike the prairie. (which is a thought for another day...) And though it may have put me off prairies, that early nightmare never dimmed my love of the movie.

I still watch it several times a year, which, at my age, means I've viewed it two or three hundred times, at least. I pretty much have it memorized.

The Wizard of Oz has an interesting connection for me to socks. Socks and my next-down brother, Greg. When we were still in the single digits, we would spend time with our NC grandparents at Eastertime. It was during the Easter season that the networks used to air the movie, and so, visiting Mommom and Poppop became strung together in my mind with Dorothy and her companions, too. One spring, I remember lying on the floor watching the movie with the extended family. Somewhere around the wicked witch on the roof part I think, I became aware of an odd smell. Something burning. It was Greg's sock, that he had put too close to the propane stove ~ smouldering!

An experience with "smellavision" that remains forever etched in my memory ~ and Greg's, too, I bet!

Later on, we found out about the the "high-tech" special effects that produced the tornado imagery. Apparently it was someone twirling a sock. At least that was the legend. And that sock connection has always made perfect sense to me, in some strange, ironic way.

Now I watch the movie with my children, and because it has sentimental, historical significance to me, I find myself looking for some deep meaning in it. Maybe to justify watching it? As if pure entertainment really needs justification! Nah, it's my nature to ponder such things. Odd things.

Here's what I come up with for lessons from the story:

1) Well, first of course, the obvious lesson ~ Don't hang around windows during a tornado.
2) Friends will show up in the most unlikely places in your life!
3) Though you may know the where the "yellow brick road" is, that doesn't mean the trip on it will be easy.
4) One pair of shoes may be all you really need, if they're the right shoes.
5) Though you may visit and enjoy technicolor places, your real home is usually sepia-toned ~ not very spectacular on the surface, but warm and comfortable and safe. It's where the love is.
6) And trite though it may sound, there really is "no place like home."