Setting the Record Straight

My middle daughter said, somewhat tauntingly, “Your crying movie is on.”

I knew immediately what she meant. You see, several years ago, I took my kids to see the movie Brother Bear. It is a nice story, but somewhere near the end, a flying piece of extra salty popcorn lodged in my eye. Before I got it out, there may have been the slightest dampness in my eye, caused, of course, by the salt.

Somehow, my daughter figured I had become overwhelmed with emotion and actually shed a tear. She’s never let me forget it.

Now, I will freely admit that in Field of Dreams, when Doc forever gives up his dream of playing baseball by stepping off the magical field to help the girl choking on a hot dog, I sobbed like a baby. When, in The Natural, Robert Redford slammed the big home run and chose his first love over the glitzy city girl, I wept for days. And in Bang the Drum Slowly, when the beloved catcher died of cancer (?), I was inconsolable.

But Brother Bear? Nah. It was popcorn, I tell you.