When we first moved to Texas, we got some good advice about the weather. If we didn’t like it, just wait a couple of days. It would change.
That’s certainly true of the weather this week. We started out with blue skies and summer temperatures. By the end of the week, we’ll be back in the 30’s with an 80 percent chance of rain.
No wonder we’re all sniffling and sneezing.
Shunning the Cold
Because I’m a Southerner by choice, cold weather is a repellent for me, and I hibernate inside until the mercury rises above 70 degrees.
I’ve found a lot of ways to keep myself occupied while waiting for the sun to return – cleaning out closets, rearranging furniture and, when the arctic blast lasts for more than a week, categorizing my T-shirts by color.
But working around the house gets old, so if I know the mercury’s on the way down, I head to a Fort Bend County library for a few classic movies or I search online for some of the best movies from my childhood.
One of my all-time favorites is “Some Like It Hot” with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. Although Monroe lights up the screen, it’s Jack Lemmon who really steals the show.
I’ve watched “It’s A Wonderful Life” at least 50 times because I never tire of the story of how Clarence earns his wings and how George Bailey comes to understand he’s really a blessed man.
My mom gave me a love of the melodramas from the 1950s and 1960s. I can’t count the number of times we sat through “Imitation of Life” with Lana Turner. We always cried when Annie dies and her daughter realizes how wonderful her mother had been throughout her life.
“Madame X” is another Hebert Girl classic, and I tear up just thinking of the ending scene where Lana Turner’s son comforts her on her death bed, not realizing she’s his mother.
The Master – Cary Grant
Today’s teens think actors like Orlando Bloom and Channing Tatum are the epitome of dashing and debonair. They don’t have a clue that the grand master of cool sexy is Mr. Archibald Leach, otherwise known as Cary Grant.
He’s known for many roles, but my mom’s favorite, and mine, is “An Affair to Remember.” I identified with Meg Ryan and Rosie O’Donnell in “Sleepless in Seattle, which relies heavily on the Grant movie, because like them, I’d memorized huge passages of that film. And, yes, winter is cold for those with no warm memories…
Movies that always make me feel better on those cold rainy days are the old MGM musicals. There’s no way a person can stay miserable when Gene Kelly’s dancing and singing in the rain. Nor can viewers keep from smiling when the Pontipee brothers are singing about “Sobbin’ Women” in “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.”
My favorite snippet on YouTube is the opening song from “Fiddler on the Roof” because my family has watched that movie together so many times, we sing along with every song and recite the dialog along with Tevye.
Watching movies together is a tradition that binds the Hebert Nation, just as it did my mom and me so many years ago when we’d snuggle together on the couch and watch old movies on rainy, cold Sunday afternoons.
Most of the time, I want the rainy cold to go away. But when I’m huddled underneath a blanket, watching Cary Grant, Lana Turner and Jimmy Stewart, there’s no place else I’d rather be.
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.