It seems to me that every day I am getting closer to becoming a delusional "Don Quixote." I decided to visit for the weekend Universal Studios in Orlando with my girlfriend, my 15 year daughter, and three of her friends for the “Halloween Horror Nights” scare fest. I brought a portable DVD player on the trip and selected two classic movies. One was recent and the other classic. They were respectively, 1408 and Frankenstein (75th anniversary edition). They enjoyed the 1408 on the way up and we rode many rides during the day. Needless to say, I was just as exited and felt the thrill of anticipation like they did.
Upon our early arrival we enjoyed the shops, attractions and fabulous decor. As evening encroached and the moon faded behind tropical clouds and darkness was replaced with an incredible array of Halloween Jack o Lanterns smiling in an eerie orange glow. Loud sounds of terror and music pervaded the makeshift town. The girls were in a state of glorious terror…laughing uncontrollably and screaming with mad fear. Ghouls, zombies, ghosts, aliens and every monster in the world it seemed were engaging us. I was truly enjoying this as well.

After a few more attractions and a lot more walking through this transformed town I suddenly felt a great sadness. Although we had seen hundreds of monsters and ghosts most of which were from current movies I realized that we were missing something…something great. As the night wore on I realized that none of these were my monsters. Where were Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Invisible Man and The Creature? How could there be a Halloween without the old Universal characters. I felt even worse when we came across the images that I had long to see. They bannered the entrance to the theater where the Rocky Horror Picture Show was playing with these characters but the faces were not that of Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Elsa Lanchester etc. “That is not Lon Chaney Jr.”, I yelled as I stare at this blank faced werewolf. “That is not the Mummy that Karloff played.” I insisted disappointedly. What has happened? Are they sending them all into oblivion? This is an emergency I thought. They will soon disappear into oblivion. My God! Every kid new Boris and Bela in my generation and the generation prior to mine and we all loved him. No homage to the past or even kind remembrance.

Then I thought who remembers Caruso, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable and Perry Como. I even realized that most kids don’t know who Frank Sinatra is. Are all the greats destined to be footnotes for historians? I also thought about Mr. Bradbury. Sweat and panic overtook me. Is he destined to obscurity as well?

I continued on my trek through the park. In all honesty we did have fun although the hoards of drunken college kids did at one point become scarier than all the monsters in the park. The kids new many of the characters at the park like Scarecrow, Saw, Bogeyman, Freddie Kreuger etc. and I new only a few.

I realized that I was on my way to being “Don Quioxte”. They laughed at my monsters or even worse ignored them.

On the way home I played Frankenstein. The kids watched it silently. Two fell asleep during the three hour ride home. My daughter and her awoken friend were discussing a boy named Julio who had just dumped my daughter’s friend. My girlfriend attempted to engage in a conversation about work tomorrow but I could barely hear her.

In the back ground I could hear “Look! It's moving. It's alive. It's alive... It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE!

Question for the forum: Will Ray Bradbury still be read a hundred years or five hundred years from now or will the vortex of time erase him from current memories…?

Ray Bradbury will join Shakespeare and Mark Twain among the ranks of the unforgettable few. Look how long Don Quixote has been around and the character remains recognizable despite numerous portrayals, not all of them necessarily great. When you start calling your girlfriend "Dulcinea," you can really begin to worry.

Now cut that out! My wife is Dulcinea, and she drove around in a '62 Chevy called Rosinante. I have been tilting at windmills for years, just ask Dulcinea!

BTW (that's text talk for By The Way)
I have recently begun the arduous task of reading the exploits of the Galant Knight Errant, quite a long read, and can be at times tedious and somewhat repetitive. My wife of 37 years was taking a class in Cervantes at UCLA when I met her, and thus, the metafores that have always surrounded us on our mutual questing.

(Please pardon any misspellings in my posts. I have now reached the age where a spell chiecker is mandatory, and not having access on this board is just driving me crazy. I know, i could compose this little tomes using Word, spell checking as I go, and then copy and paste into the board format, but that would eliminate the spontinaity of the task. So now, I tilt at metaforical windmills, with some trouble.

I think Bradbury will still be read in a hundred years, and the reason is not just the quality and timelessness of much of his writing. (I fear that the decline of literacy would mean that quality and timelessness are largely irrelevant...)

What will keep Bradbury's stories around is (a) the continuing interest in adapting his stories to other media (look, one of his minor shorts written 65 years ago - Chrysalis - just got made into a movie!), and (b) the huge presence of his stories in the classroom (in the US at least).

As for 500 years? Who can tell? There aren't very many writers from 1508 still in the public consciousness. To survive that long you have to be very special indeed, and continue to be relevant to many passing generations.

Sorry, patrask, old bean, but I refuse to accept your assumption that age has anything to do with forgetting how to spell, or some such nonsense.
I'm probably your age (maybe older) and I daily improve my vocabulary and spelling skills!
Most Americans in the generations after ours can't spell for toffee.
Straighten up and fly right, ol' buddy!
By the way (English for "BTW"), I absolutely love your Quixotic cognomens!

Maybe its just early Alzheimer's or else my mind works too fast for my fingers on the keyboard and I am loosing control of finger dexterity, 'cause all the things I type must now be gone over carefully to remove the letter transpositions and other such.
And, I just can't remember how to spell simple things that I once took for granted. Just ask Dulcinea, she will tell you I am just loosing it with age. Thank goodness for spellchecking and grammer correction in the word processors that I use. Most peole would never know that I kant spell anymore.

Fear not, book. The grand old classics will be discovered by new generations of kids forever, as I discovered them when I went through the classic horror movies/H.P. Lovecraft phase when I was a tyke. Very early this morning (probably around 4 a.m.; I got up extra early because I had to put supper together in my crockpot), I went outside on my front stoop to change my Hallowe'en flag and fall wind whirler for the day, and I wondered (at first) what that blazing yellow light was shining through the trees up the street. I walked up, and there was the one-day-from-the-full Hunter's Moon, balanced almost right on the horizon, en enormous yellow blob ("It creeps, and weeps, and so BEWARE") Talk about a jaw-dropping sight! Then, unbidden, that famous bit of doggeral popped into my mind: "Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night--" You know the rest--

quote:

Originally posted by patrask:
Maybe its just early Alzheimer's...

Now you feel guilty, eh Mr Braling?

quote:

Most peole would never know that I kant spell anymore.

Well now you're just having sport with us!

quote:

Originally posted by Viktoria:
I went outside on my front stoop to change my Hallowe'en flag and fall wind whirler for the day...

There is something entirely right about this sentence. Especially the way you spelled Hallowe'en.

quote:

...and there was the one-day-from-the-full moon, balanced almost right on the horizon, an enormous yellow blob...

And you didn't rush back for camera?

I think faster than I type, and I type faster than I thought I ever would, therefore I am.

Doug, Hallowe'en was still commonly spelled like that when I was a kid; it is the old-fashioned way, so I like it. And, you know you NEVER have a camera when you need one! Happy Hallowe'en!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Viktoria:
Happy Hallowe'en!!!

And a glad-sad Hallowe'en to you!

As Mr B says.