Wow, thank you for the blow by blow descriptions of your sensurround experiances, I feel like I just saw the movies with you!
Sounds like you had/have a wonderful dad who indulged your hobbies and made special memories with you.
My dad is awesome - when I was a kid he'd go through the newspaper each week and pick out old movies that were playing at the drive-in's (Albuquerque had an abundance of drive-in's until the early 80's) he wouldn't tell me what we were going to see that Friday or Saturday night and would surprise me with double features at the drive-in of films like "War Of The Worlds" and "When Worlds Collide" - I didn't know they were 'old' films! I just thought they were new films shot to be set in the 50's! How stupid was that?
He and I loved the Godzilla films, so we saw everyone that came to town - and, like me, he loved the 'bad' films from American International Pictures like "Empire Of The Ants" and "Frogs" - oh, and the Hammer films too - we saw all the Hammer Dracula films and the rest of Hammer's "Bodice rippers" - the Hammer films have warped my vision of history - to me, London in the 1800's is filled with people in period clothes but with hair and makeup from the mid 1960's. The film of "Jesus Christ Superstar" did that to me too - while Jesus was preaching there were fighter jets, tanks, modern guns and money and everyone wore 1970's tunics and bell-bottoms.
Dad would also look through the TV guide for fun late-night films we could stay up and watch together - like the TV movie "Gargoyles" (I bought that on DVD when it came out - it's a damn fine TV movie and Pioneer actually did a good job with the video transfer and making a stereo soundtrack.) If there was something I was interested in or wanted to know more about, he'd take me down to the public library on Saturday's and teach me how to use the card catalog. I was so glad when the Abq libraries put in computers to replace the card catalogs!
My mom died last August after a long battle with Alzheimer's and dad took care of her the whole time till the very, very end when she had to go into hospice - so he came out here for Thanksgiving and I had such a good time. He was tied down so long taking care of mom that now he travels to see family all over the US - he said he wants to take me to Washington DC in August so we can go to the Smithsonian together. If we do, we're gonna take the train - when I go to Albuquerque, I always take Amtrak and get a private room - there's no better way to travel if time isn't an issue. That's how he came out here for Thanksgiving.
So yes, I am blessed with a really awesome father. My mom was amazing too; one of my friends said once that my mom was like a real life "Auntie Mame" in her personality and love of new things and living. I was so lucky to be adopted by them - I couldn't have asked for, or received, better parents.
