This changes everything
On any of my wife’s and my dozens of trips down the coast, we pass close by a stretch of Pacific Coast Highway just within the city of San Clemente, where my mom died 69 years ago this month in a multi-fatal crash with a semi-truck killing her as well as a couple from the Inland Empire.
Mina was her name I only found out decades later because I always thought of her as Joanne, the name she preferred and the one that’s on her grave. She was 24 when she died.
Joanne was driving that September morning, while my dad, probably freshly off the night shift, was likely dozing in the passenger seat; my sister was in the back. They were off to help a friend move (the friend was a faithful copy of Pat Conroy’s “The Great Santini” and would later go on to become a colonel in the Marines — I’ve made the assumption he was stationed at the time at Camp Pendleton). They left me behind with my dad’s parents, likely because at just 10 months old I would’ve been of no use lifting my end of the davenport); my dad was near death with multiple critical injuries (they put a hold on my mother’s funeral, waiting to see if it would be a double) and my sister Debra’s arm was badly lacerated.
Over the years, with Debra’s help, I’ve pieced together bits of facts about our mom, though a huge question remains: My parents were married in April 1953; they had Debra in early 1954; and they had me, Debi’s younger Irish twin, 11 months later in January 1955.
That raises the question of exactly how many siblings my sister and I might’ve ended up with had things gone considerably more swimmingly for our family. My parents were on an epic pace, averaging a bit better than a baby a year.
And there’s more: What kind of parent was she to have been? Strict? Tyrannical? Nurturing? Unconditionally loving?
I drove by the house where my parents lived when I was born. It was on a stretch of Bacarro Street east of Studebaker. Living in Long Beach all my life, I am forever reminded of my childhood. The hospital where I was born, the house on Keever Avenue where my beloved grandparents, my dad’s folks, raised me during my early childhood.
And they all bring up dim memories and, always, questions.
But it’s pointless to speculate about what could/would have been, especially after my life veered off on a totally different track after my dad got remarried in 1959 to the woman who would raise me. In life, I’ve resigned myself to accept with a certain amount of cheer, you get what you get and there’s much that you can’t change.
What I watched looking for the plot twist
Ever since the release of M. Night Shyamalan’s 1999 film “The Sixth Sense,” viewers of his movies approach them with an eye toward “the twist,” the utterly unexpected moment when the plot makes an acute-angled U-turn and everything changes.
While I haven’t seen all of Shyamalan’s films, I’ve seen enough to expect, if not predict, those moments. And, while part of the suspense is finding if the latest picture will be as imaginative as “The Sixth Sense,” invariably, they have not.
Perhaps the biggest twist in his latest film, “Trap,” is the fact that there isn’t a twist at all — certainly not one as jolting as in the writer-director’s debut movie.
The premise is a stretch: A musician of Swiftian popularity, Lady Raven (played by M. Night’s daughter) gives a one-off concert in order to trap a serial killer (unimaginatively named “The Butcher”) in the audience because it is known he is a huge Lady Raven fan. The killer, identified fairly early, is Cooper, the father of a tween who’s also, and more vocally, a dedicated fan.
The plot twists are the way Cooper eludes the hundreds of lawmen who are thoroughly searching every male in the audience of some 30,000 people — the whole task would’ve been a lot easier if Cooper had instead been a fan of open-mic night at the local bistro.
So there’s plenty of action, but action’s easy to find these days with better acting and a more compelling plot than “Trap.”
21st-century books
Sunday’s New York Times Book Review was filled with the Best 100 Books of the 21st Century, which has given me tons of reading suggestions. And, in anticipation of your next request, here are my favorite books of the still-young century:
- “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoot,” David Mitchell
- “The Orphan Master’s Son,” Adam Johnson
- “The Year of Magical Thinking,” Joan Didion
- “The Corrections,” Jonathan Franzen
- “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” Jennifer Egan