“Shane! Come back!”

The Movie: Shane, 1953 (A. B. Guthrie, Jr., from the novel by Jack Schaefer; George Stevens, dir.)
Who says it: Brandon De Wilde as Joey Starrett, child of a homesteading family on the Wyoming frontier.
The context: The gunfighter Shane (Alan Ladd) had hoped to put his violent past behind him. But he can’t help who he is – all he can do is try to put his violent nature to the service of others, and stay away from peaceful people. This is the last line of the movie. Anyone who doesn’t cry at the end of Shane is someone I don’t want to know.
How to use it: To say goodbye to someone you're really going to miss.

It makes my mother crazy to think of me talking on the phone while I drive, but the only place I have a cell phone signal is inside about ten square miles within the Augusta city limits. I can and do sit in parking lots to use my phone, but I haven't been able to avoid driving and talking. Yesterday I was talking to my friend Matt when the signal disappeared, and this line immediately came to mind. "Is there anything you miss about L.A.?" Matt had asked, and I said, "Just you guys."

But the good news is that the land-based phone line should be hooked up this afternoon, and Dizzy and I are moving into the apartment for real in a couple of hours. I spent yesterday afternoon painting the bathroom and getting a few things set up in the kitchen, and I'll sleep on an air mattress until my furniture arrives (anyone's guess).

And the even better news is that my cousin Kathleen and her husband Mark welcomed Owen's baby sister into the world yesterday afternoon. Which is yet another line from yet another movie... Olivia de Havilland in Gone with the Wind, "The happiest days are the days when babies come!"

It would be nice to imagine that I'll stop thinking in movie lines when I get to the end of this blog. Since the blog exists because I think in movie lines, it's not going to happen.