S. O. D. Thoughts by Grandpa Jim

Before I see if any responses come in, and thus before I might be influenced by them, I’ll put down my own ideas.

Ninety-nine percent of “Places…” is quite down-to-earth realistic. Everything about it seems historically accurate. From the script to the credits, it is a marvelous movie. It deserved even more Oscars than it won.

Only in that final setting of the church service do we need to suspend our disbelief. There are people in the pews “who couldn’t be there.”

Yes, they couldn’t be in that church, in reality.

They could be “in our hearts,” of course, just as they are in the hearts of those sitting next to them. If we can accept this, we can be saddened and uplifted at the same time as the camera scans the players.”

My mother, who has been gone for 72 years, seems beside me and in church when certain hymns are sung. (She often hummed them as she went about the housekeeping.) My father, who has been gone for 47 years, seems beside me at odd times, because I am reminded of funny things he was in the habit of saying. For one, as we would cross the bridge from Illinois, he would take an audible, deep breath and remark, “can’t you just smell that fresh, Iowa air?”

Our late great-granddaughter, Ellie, looks over my shoulder whenever I pass sticker displays.