One night in the eighties, way before Tom Cruise got so weird, I was surrounded by a bunch of sailor boys, including my own, in a packed theater a couple of miles from the largest Naval base in the world. Back then, watching fighter jets, aircraft carriers, and guys in tight bell-bottomed dungarees saluting each other was just something I did every day, but to be a part of that when Top Gun came out was on a whole different level. There was such a sense of pride in the theater that night. All those guys who worked so hard, getting to spend two hours in a spiffed-up, Hollywooded-out, complete with beach volleyball, version of their lives, and for a few minutes they were Maverick and Goose, Iceman, even, and they got to take a little credit. The testosterone was on overtime and the crowd went wild. Fast-forward a few decades to the 3-D version tonight, sitting in a pretty crowded theater in a mall somewhere in suburbia, far away from any ocean, but still close to my sailor boy, as the view was improved, the adrenaline was still overflowing and the sense of pride from way back when was still there.
Go Navy!
miss you my lovely~!
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