Gargoyles (1972)

In three months I would be five. At any part of age four, three months may as well be a century. Even a couple years later, my summer vacation before second grade would feel like years.

What a glorious time.

This was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Not that I understood what the Thanksgiving holiday meant back then. I’m not entirely sure what my thoughts on the upcoming Christmas were.

Couldn’t tell you what toys I was playing with in the TV room that night: Lincoln Logs? Tinker Toys? Most likely, it was my personal favorite from back then…

...The Fisher Price Jumbo Jet Little People Playset.

In any event, I was content & oblivious to the TV: no doubt left on in the hopes of it providing an extra level of distraction. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special would certainly shut me up.

Why the hush time you ask? My parents were having old friends in from out of town. I actually remember them being excited. Looking back, I think my mom’s excitement might’ve been booze-enhanced.

Either way, they didn’t need precocious me interrupting, announcing and interrogating as I was wont to do. Not while they were trying to catch up.

Back then, social media didn’t exist and long distance phone calls were expensive. Short of hand-written correspondence, this face-to-face was their one shot at getting intel. My siblings were old enough to understand mother’s “Keep the hell out!” signals.

I, on the other hand, was the wild card.

Had they in their haste checked the TV Guide, they’d have seen but a few minutes after leaving me alone with my toys & snacks & juice that a horror movie would be starting.

It was a made-for-TV film with 70's censorship, so I wasn’t being exposed to any Serbian Film level of content. Still, it caught my attention and kept it the whole running time.

The whole running time? you ask incredulously. Yeah. I watched that whole movie. It was the right amount of intrigue & creep to keep my young mind invested. I was genuinely fascinated that the fantasy creatures in fairy tales could actually be real.

Looking back, my parents knew I was being quiet, likely figured I’d fallen asleep & weren’t going to risk awakening me because: A) They were drinking, B) They were incredibly distracted and C) I was being quiet.

Even through the commercials, I contemplated the predicament of these anthropologists facing a race of mythical beings that were in fact real & protective of their deceased. How was I never told such things could be?!?

Then it happened, the very first of many moments that would irreparably alter my mind.

I saw this:

...and I remember my reaction as though it were a minute ago.

“They can read?!?”

Being raised Catholic, even at 4, I’m not surprised I knew about angels and demons. But this! Them reading! That was a revelational concept to drop on an almost 5 year old. It radically expanded my idea of how much more there was in this world to discover.

This was my very first defining moment in that I was clearly aware of not being the same person after, that I was before the moment occurred. I don’t know what level of thinking this is for a child, but I went through it. Unsure how to proceed, I just soaked it in.

Looking back, this one moment is responsible for so many beliefs and decisions in my life. Not necessarily directly, but it definitely cemented the practice of keeping an open mind about things one might not normally accept as fact.

And that has made all the difference.

Young as I was, that probably was an invaluable practice to have chiseled into the thinking of my little mind. And it happened right under my parents’ noses. Obviously, I knew better than to tell them what I’d seen - no need for trouble.

Not sure I had a term for an appetite of the mind but one was certainly created that night. Consciously or unconsciously, I definitely knew I wanted more. Luckily, in a few months, I’d get my next fix...

In the end, Horror movies became the first thing I could consciously be thankful for at Thanksgiving. That & Mom’s cooking.