Jaws

One item on our agenda this Fourth of July that we weren’t able to fit in was watching the movie Jaws on the big screen. Doug and I had been doing this for at least the past five years and had had a lot of fun watching one of our famous thrillers during the holiday weekend.  Cameron had decided this year that he wanted to be part of it as well as he had never seen the movie in its entirety. I was a little surprised by that, but glad that he was ready to make a night of it as well. We chose this evening and as a twist to our normal watching routine, we actually set the projector up inside and put the movie up on the wall in our living room. That way we didn’t have to worry about the rain and the heat outside ruining our fun.

Cameron did not find the first half of the movie as exciting as the second half. I could agree with him on that, especially since Quint is my favorite character. I was happy to hear, however, that he got a kick out of the some of the side characters as much as the rest of us. The scene where they found the abandoned boat provided the perfect jump scare for him.  I was impressed that he didn’t close his eyes like I did.  Cameron also appreciated the line, “We’re going to need a bigger boat” even more now that he had seen all of it. Although I was on the edge of my seat like usual, I was very glad that we were finally able to watch the entire movie with him.  

The three of us weren’t the only ones that decided to watch Jaws this holiday weekend. Cal had watched it earlier this week with Maggie and said that it was now his favorite movie of all time.  I wasn’t too surprised to hear that as he had been talking about the film for years.  After our experience with Covid, the mayor insisting on keeping the beaches open even while the town was under a shark attack became even funnier to him.  In a strange coincidence, Nick texted me right before we began the movie to let me know that he was watching Jaws on his flight home tonight as well. There’s nothing more fun than passing on some of your favorite things to your own children. The best part was that no one was traumatized by it in the end.