European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 04, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 18 the stars and stripes wednesday september 4, 1985 columns & comments Aback of the future is Story for All by Ellen Goodman i must have been 16 or 17 before i wondered about my parents. I mean wondered about them As separate people with their own pasts and psyches. I had heard stories of their childhoods before that of course. But it took a greater leap of imagination than i could linage to Sec them As they had been at 10, to truly believe that the had once been my own awkward age of 13 or 14. Only toward the end of the lengthy transition from child to adult did i begin to know them in their own context in terms of their own histories As people who had lives before and beyond my own. Now i am the Parent of a teen Ager and i find it qualy awkward to transmit whole the younger image of myself. I thought about this when i spent a muggy night going Back to the for once a movie was As advertised a film for the whole family. Or maybe a fantasy for whole families. This time science fiction was the tool of psychology. The Story touched lightly whimsically on some of the dramatic chords of family life. The son in this movie Marty drives a car Back into the past. He finds himself a peer of his parents. He faces them As they really were not As they remembered or pretended. The plot is out of psych i or greek mythology. What More primal fantasy for a boy than to discover that his father was a kick Sand in his face wimp and that his Mother Young Beautiful and sexy prefers him. But Marty is in a position More awkward than that of oedipus. Having interrupted the flow of history by his time machine visit he must be the matchmaker for his parents to assure his own birth. The rest is a Midsummer night s fun Wacky and delightful. But i was most touched by the final scene. Marty returns to his own 1985 Home to discover a family transformed by his tinkering with their past. His parents sterile marriage is now a Loving one and maybe this is the greatest fantasy of All. For every teen Ager who would use one wish to satisfy his curiosity to Sec his Mother and father As they were in an old rerun there must be two who would use that wish to fix things. The fantasy that somehow you could straighten out your family if you could Only go Back and find the key that you could make it All work out right this Lime belongs to every child of an unhappy Parent. To a certain degree the fantasy is a Power trip not unlike the one that fuelled this movie son Back to 1955. Today children arc routinely portrayed As smarter and More world by than their ciders. In the i $55 Media world television was Black and White and father knew Best. In 1985, the colors Are More vibrant and the roles arc reversed. I can t name a film or a Telf Ision family with the exception of Bill Cosby s where the parents take their rightful place. The Burden of that premature Power must be As exhausting in real life As it is in the Cinema. But it s striking that this movie son uses his Power to rewrite the script of his parents lives and give them All a Happy ending. It symbolizes the moment in a child s life when he realizes his own vested interest in the happiness of these people who Are his parents. I have seen that understanding As most of us have among legions of children who have been through divorce and ravish for repair. I have seen it too Amon children whose parents like Marty a have stayed miser ably locked together. Even As adults Many carry the cos of parental self sacrifice and the Burden of their unhappiness. We know this or most of us do. But in the last Hazar Dous Tunnel to adulthood when teen age kids tug and pull their Way to separation it s easy to forget what this movie remembers our children wish us Well. C Botlon Globe Washington poll hit and run Parker strikes again by Art Buchwald while Buchwald is on vacation we Are reprinting some of his columns from the past one of the most dastardly criminals in America today is the hit and run Parker. Almost everyone has been a victim of a hit and run Parker. You go into a shopping mall or an underground self parking garage and do your errands. When you return you discover the Side of your car has been bashed in or there is a Large Gash in the Radiator Grille or the bumper in the rear has been pushed three feel into the trunk. You look around desperately to see if the guilty car is still in the parking lot. Obviously it in t. The mad hit and run Parker has struck again i went to see chief inspector Renfrew at the police department who is in charge of the hit and run Park ing division. He showed me a Chart and said proudly hit and run parking is the largest growth crime in the country. It s risen 400 percent in the past three years. There was a time when someone who had smashed into someone else s car in a parking lot or on the Street would leave note on the Windshield with his or her name address and Telephone number. I Haven t seen that happen in Ages. Now it s smash bang and let s get the hell out of Here have you Ever caught a hit and run Parker i asked inspector Renfrew. No but we be been close a few times he said. Once we had a Man staked out in the basement of the Kennedy Center who saw a Chrysler smash into a new Buick. The Chrysler took off and my Man followed ingot Pursuit. Unfortunately he smashed into a Chevy As he was backing out and had to leave by another exit so no one would know he had done if you Haven t made any Progress in solving hit and run parking accidents 1 ask cry Why Are you still in business because we re getting closer All the time he said. For example we now have a profile of the average hit and run Parker. She s either a Man or a woman Middle class respectable and usually votes for the Law and order candidate. Her weakness is getting into a parking space without going Over the yellow lines. She has trouble backing up and panics easily when she sees anything moving in front or behind her. When she wants to go Forward she will put her car into reverse when she wants to go backward Shell put it in drive. When the car is perfectly positioned Shell put her foot on the Gas pedal. You keep saying she docs this mean the hit and run Parker is usually a woman i would t say that but a recent Survey of Auto Mobile body shops around the country indicates that More women than men Are sneaking in to have their cars maybe they have More possibly but we find a majority of them Tell the body shop owner they la pay in Cash on condition that their husbands never find out about that s Good sleuthing i told Renfrew. The thing that really has us confused the inspector said is that nobody wants to admit that they were in a moving Accident any More. Therefore when someone inthe family comes Home with a dented fender that person always says it happened in the parking what should a person do if he actually catches a hit and run Parker in the act of smashing into his car look around for a witness. Otherwise it will be his word against but Aren t people reluctant to get involved in some one else s hit and run parking Accident most arc unless you Promise to give them your Park ing space in Exchange Tor testifying in court on your c lol Antaki time Sayi Tuffe to 1dki&k vitm6cast\k itch i Ufa vtm6e.jm 1 Estt Soei , eur be. Akas Sun. 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