Tonight is the Academy Awards. For years I would stay up well past my bedtime to see la crème de la crème of the current year’s offerings. I always hated that they made you wait until the very end to see who left with a coveted Oscar. Of course I could have watched “Entertainment Tonight” the next evening and caught the highlights, but nope, I had to stay up, causing me to be bleary eyed the next day. But it was imperative that you stayed up ‘til midnight so that you were able to discuss or dis outfits, moments and too-long speeches the next morning when you assembled around the office coffee machine. Back in those days there was no social media buzzing throughout the evening. Going way, way back … there were no VCRs or DVRs to capture the too-long awards ceremony for viewing later. You had to stay up or be out of the loop. I’m not a big movie buff and I haven’t seen many of the classic films. When we finally got cable, we had The Movie Channel and my mom would pick out alot of the movies we’d watch, or tape to view later. I’d never heard of most of them, but she’d wax nostalgic about the stars or the music, and sometimes gave me a sneak preview about the plot, so I, too, would look forward to that old film. For years I heard about my parents’ Saturday night ritual: dinner out, then off to downtown Toronto’s Odeon Theatre for the feature film, a second film, cartoons, previews, news clips and a piece of real English bone china dinnerware to boot, all for the price of admission. We had a complete set of fine china acquired while my parents were courting, if I may use that rather archaic term. I guess my favorite old-time movies were the two favorites from 1939: “The Wizard of Oz” and “Gone With The Wind”. As of this date, I’ve never seen “Casablanca”, “Citizen Kane”, “West Side Story” nor ‘Giant” just to name a few. Unbelievably, I’ve never even seen a John Wayne movie! I shocked co-workers one Christmas when they were standing around debating and rating the best holiday movies and they asked me what was my favorite of these classics: “It’s A Wonderful Life”, “Miracle on 34th Street” or “White Christmas” ? I replied I’d never seen any of them. They were further shocked when I revealed I’d never seen “A Christmas Story” and didn’t know who Ralphie was, however I’ve watched “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman” so many times I might be able to recite portions of those movies from memory. I understand it will be a tight race for the Oscars tonight since there are quite a few good movies this year. So get out the Jiffy Pop, settle into an easy chair and be prepared for a long evening. I shall turn in early and catch the Oscar slideshows on Comcast tomorrow. Toodles and air kisses to y’all.