Thursday, August 21, 2008

"I'm from lots of places."

The line is, of course, from that most wonderful of B-movies, "Highlander." In this case the utterer is about 500 years old and has, indeed, lived all over. But I use it too, when people say "Where are you from?" When you live in West Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia before you're eight years old, you get to say that. But I guess I've always said I'm "from" Pennsylvania, specifically a little suburb of Philly.

As a kid, I'd look at a cartoon that took place in a suburb, and think "that looks like here," not knowing that basically all postwar suburbs looked pretty much the same. I envisioned Charlie Brown and Linus living down the street, or Billy and PJ from "Family Circus" tracing dashed lines through my own backyard.

And now, almost four decades later, I find out I was right. From Wikipedia's entry on "The Family Circus:"

Thelma and Bill were married in 1948. She moved from Australia to her
husband's hometown of Philadelphi Pennsylvania and eventually settled in the
suburb of Roslyn, Pennsylvania. The couple would have five children between
1949 and 1958.
Roslyn, PA. That's the little Philly suburb I'm from. The house we lived in was built in 1954. Quarter-acre lot, hedge fence in the back, a bunch of young families in their first homes, courtesy of the GI Bill. Playgrounds. Elementary schools. Churches. All within walking distance.

And faint hash marks in the back yard.

Friday, August 08, 2008

Retro Ad

I think he's saying "You're just like your mother." Brings up all kinds of possible angles!



Then again, had Benjamin been driving an A6 instead of that 1.6L Alfa, he might have gotten there before the ceremony...