Inter Views

I've met some very helpful people on my way to and from the Genealogical Research Center of Northeastern Pennsylvania. When I'm in downtown Scranton a few people have asked me what bus I'm waiting for; someone actually once asked me if I was waiting for the Carbondale bus, so I'm assuming I had asked this person more than once about the bus over the preceding weeks. Sometimes for exercise, I walked home from Walgreens which is about nine blocks from our house, and sidewalks are occasionally blocked because of construction. At these times construction workers are more than happy to help me across the blocked areas.

Now I'll review some movies.

These won't be in order, since I don't remember the order in which I saw them. First comes The Help, which was a pleasant surprise. The Help is based on a book about the fictional travails of a number of maids in the pre-civil rights South. My mother wanted to see it, so I grudgingly went along. The movie told an engaging story, and probably a fairly accurate one. Next comes the Three Musketeers, which I wanted to see because I read the book. As of yet, I haven't listened to the entire book, but not for lack of interest. I have so many other books to listen to, and I'm always getting new ones. The character portrayals are fairly good, but creative license took its share also. I don't want to say too much because I obviously don't know who's seen what movies.

Along came The Debt, which seemed a good movie to see at least by the previews. The movie is a fictional account of an Israeli covert ops team sent after a high-level Nazi after the war. However, the reality proved different from the expectations. The characters just didn't seem that believable. We saw J. Edgar fairly recently, and it was very good. They aged Leo fairly well, and if a legally blind man can say that you know the makeup artist must've done an excellent job. I know people would rather see something inconsequential by the fact that the film was never number one, but people should see it.

Two disappointments came next, in the forms of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and the Iron Lady. One of my biggest complaints about both movies was that I couldn't always tell when a flashback occurred, and when we were back to the present. When we went to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy I asked my mother if I could say at the ticket counter that we wanted two tickets for the alliteration, but she said no. I thought this unfair. I didn't find the movie very thrilling, even though it was billed as a thriller. It was especially difficult with the Iron Lady to tell when flashbacks occurred as their ages grew closer together. Iron Lady is the story of England's first and so far only female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.

To close where I begin, I recently had an interview with The Valley advantage, one of our local papers. Joe Bryer, the head of the Genealogical Research Center of Northeastern Pennsylvania thought it would be a good idea for someone to come over and interview me, and I agreed. Joe thought it would be a good idea for the same reason I'm writing this blog, to show that people with disabilities can do much more than sit at home and twiddle their thumbs. The web address is www.thevalleyadvantage.com.