It’s 1963. I’m not quite four years old. I wake up from bedtime. I know it’s late because it’s dark outside and I recognize the late news music signing off on the TV from previous awakenings.
I wander into the kitchen, where my Mom is. It’s a short wander, since my bed is in the living room. Did I mention that we’re poor? It’s a one bedroom apartment, with my baby sister’s crib in my parent’s bedroom. I know enough to go to the kitchen, rather than my parent’s room because the one and only TV we own, a small B&W portable, is set up on a counter in the kitchen. Normally if I’d wake up at this time of night, I’d be given a sip of water, sent to the bathroom, then back to bed. Dad’s working two jobs and we don’t get to see him much. Mom must be wanting some company, ’cause she asks if I’d like to stay up for a while and watch TV. Do I ever! Staying up at night and watching TV - for a kid of three, what a treat! Heck, back in those days, I think most teen-agers were asleep in bed before the 11 O’clock news came on. Darn tootin’ I’d like to stay up!
Mom shares some bullion soup with me. To those of you who only recognize “hungry” as “I haven’t eaten in a couple of hours”, bullion soup is a cup of hot water with one of those cubic centimeter chicken or beef bullion cubes dissolved in it. Just one cube. With a cracker or two, or maybe a slice of bread, that was a full meal for folks short on bucks.
Anyway, there I am, late at night, having food after bedtime, watching a movie with my Mom about this giant gorilla. I’m totally fascinated, not scared at all - it’s only a movie after all - but my 3 year-old brain somehow thinks this is a re-creation of something that actually happened, because (get this): part of the movie takes place somewhere that I know is real, that actually exists, good ol’ NYC. Eventually, when I get a little older, I figure out that fictional things happen in real places, not only in “once upon a time” enchanted woods or in “far, far away”, story land places etc,. For a while though, I would occasionally wonder if any of the grown-ups I would see had been in New York and had seen Kong when he was there for his short and sad visit…
But King Kong, the 1933 version, that’s the first movie I actually remember seeing, in what was, for me, special circumstances…
