Who Is This Person I Am Married To?

Do you ever have one of those moments when you ask yourself this question?  I have to admit that it does not happen that often.  In fact, before this morning, I cannot remember specifically the last time I asked myself this question.  First, a little background for you.

Both the wife and I are from Indiana.  We grew up in bordering counties and for part of my life (and most of hers) we lived in small towns.  By small town I mean a town that only has 1 stop light.  The kind of town that rolls up the sidewalks around 8 PM (earlier on Sundays).  My small town had about 2,500 people and hers around 1,500.  Since we grew up in Indiana, we could relate to the movie, Hoosiers.  In case you are not from Indiana, or not from a small town, or perhaps do not like basketball (or maybe sports movies, or perhaps Gene Hackman) let me give you a brief overview of the movie.

• In the 1950’s a small town high school has a small basketball team
• They get a new coach
• Despite all this, the coach gets them to believe in themselves and they start to win
• They make it all the way to the state finals
• …(last bullet point removed in case you have not seen the movie)…

A pivotal scene in this movie is when the team arrives at the venue where the finals will be held.  The players are obviously in awe of the size of the stadium compared to where they play most of their games.  There is a tense moment of silence when everyone is overwhelmed.  The coach then has a few of the players measure the height of the rim.  It is (of course) found to be 10’ tall, just like every other rim they have ever played with in every other game leading up to this game.  The coach assures them that if they took measurements of everything else on the playing area that they would also be the same.  The players get what the coach is saying and (…last part of this sentence removed in case you have not seen this movie…)

A point that I want to make is this: if you have grown up in a small town in Indiana, you have seen this movie.  They play it all the time on Saturday afternoons on the local channels.  You can’t not have seen this movie.  It might even be required watching to graduate from certain, small town high schools in Indiana.  My wife has seen this movie, probably multiple times.  She likes sports (her sport was softball).

So this morning the wife and I are sitting in bed, drinking coffee and watching an episode of Parks and Recreation.  If you are not familiar with the show, no worries, it is not important to the point of this blog.  Basically the show is set in a small, Indiana town and is about the parks and recreation department.  This season’s main theme has been around the main character running for local office.  She (the main character) is behind in the polls and her only chance is to do a good job during the one and only debate.  In this episode (about the debate), she and her campaign manager arrive early at the hall where the debate will be held.  She comments that this place seats 800 people and is much larger than where she used to compete with her high school debate team.  Her campaign manager (who is also her boyfriend) takes out a measuring tape and measures the podium.  He them confirms that it is the same size podium that she has been using all of her debating life.  I immediately caught the Hoosiers reference.  Later in the show there is another scene that is very similar to the final scene of the movie where (…last part of this reference removed in case you have never seen the movie…).  Anyway, if you have ever seen this movie AND if you live in Indiana AND if you live in a small town then there is NO POSSIBILITY that you DO NOT catch the references.

That is to say, I THOUGHT there was no way to miss them.  As you might have guessed, my wife missed them.

Now, it may be due to lack of coffee in her system (she was only about 1/2 way through her first cup) or there could be other reasons, but as I explained the subtext and references to her (I got up and paused the show when I was dong this) she just looked at me as if I was insane.  I pointed out that if you had seen that move (and she admits that she did) then you could not have possibly not known that that scene (the measuring of the rim) was a pivotal scene.  It embodied all that had happened previously.  It confirmed that despite their surroundings they believe in their coach and, in turn, in themselves.  The movie would be much less without that scene.

After my 5 minute explanation of how this all tied together she gave me a look / hand gesture that conveyed “whatever” and asked me to un-pause the show and come back to the bed.  I did so but dumbfounded that she did not see why the reference was so important.

Who Is This Person I Am Married To?  She is probably asking herself the same question after reading this blog.

Jon