Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1954)

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We have been deluging Pete with books since he was able to read, and we’re probably as strict about his schoolwork as any other parents we know. His teacher grades him each day and, if the grade is unsatisfactory, he doesn’t watch television or listen to the radio that night. Two years ago, when Pete had the measles, Glenn and I taught him his work by playing school. We were the pupils and we sat in Peter’s small chairs and said, “Yes, teacher,” and were disciplined when we missed the questions Peter asked. Like his dad, Pete is basically kind. A few years ago he somehow got the idea that our gardener liked root-beer floats and practically forced the man to drink himself to death by making two or three every afternoon and waiting happily for the gardener to down them. We hope that Pete is becoming the type of person we would like to meet and know. Something that happened last spring makes us think that he is. He had a crowd of boys up in the pool, and Glenn and I sat in the patio and listened to the splashing and shouts. Suddenly Peter ran across the lawn. “I just found out,” he said, “it’s Jack’s birthday today, and nobody’s given him anything. I’ve got plenty of toys. May I give him some?” His words all rushed together. “Of course,” Glenn said. The screen door banged behind him, and we could hear the sound of drawers being opened and shut in his room. In a few moments he was downstairs again, his right hand dragging a bag of old toys. Cradled under his left arm was a new sailboat. It had been given to Pete a few days before, and he had never sailed it. “He’d love a boat,” Peter said. “He’s never had a boat. Can I give it to him?” “Of course,” Glenn said. “That would be very nice.” He didn’t say that Pete shouldn’t expect another boat or another present to make up for this one. He didn’t need to say it. That Pete already knew. But Pete didn’t hesitate; he didn’t even look at the blue enameled keel or the tall white sails. He just started running toward the pool again, shouting, “Hey, Jack, come here. Jack.” The boy’s mother called me up the next day, and she said Jack had slept with his sailboat. Glenn and Peter are basically very much alike — although Glenn would never admit it. He has the same generosity, the same impish, teasing sense of humor, the same solid quietness. Because they are so alike — so reserved and sensitive — they were never quite friends, never quite at ease with each other until last summer and a place called Guaraja, where Glenn had to go on location. He would be gone the entire summer. The problem of Glenn and Peter’s relationship was a serious one, the type that comes up once or twice in every family and must be solved. If it is not, it leaves a deep crack in the foundations of family life. We solved this problem, drawing on all the things we had learned in ten years together and all the growing-up we had done. We solved this problem as we have solved so many less important problems, by talking it over with understanding and common sense. Our common-sense solution was for Peter and me to spend the summer on location with Glenn in Brazil. We had never gone on location before. Glenn and I had felt that Peter was too young to change homes at the drop of a movie camera. On the other hand, our family was being endangered by the long separation, partly because Peter and I had been alone together too much while Glenn was away and partly because Peter and Glenn were a little unsure of each other. We realized this and we solved it. In Guaraja, Peter and Glenn really discovered each other. There was nothing but the hot work of making a movie during the day. At night the three of us were alone with the spiders and ants that occupied our tropical house. During the day, I never saw Pete. I sent him off to the set, being just motherly enough to slip a sandwich into his blue jeans pocket in case he got too hungry before lunch. He and Glenn had breakfast on the set with the crew. Peter got himself gloriously dirty helping the men put up lights and bury wild-looking cords. He was water boy for the crew and messenger boy for the director. He ate what he wanted and worked alongside his dad. His hands got calloused, and his language got professionally technical. Glenn and Pete got to know each other, spending day after day together — working together for almost the first time in their lives. And they became pals. It was a little thing that made us realize this. There was a joke about Guaraja water being poisonous to everyone except Guarajans. And maybe the Guarajans weren’t quite sure of the water, either, because the common drink for the picture crew and for Guarajans of all ages was beer. Pete, of course, wanted beer too. He didn’t get it and, since milk was unavailable most of the time, he managed to survive on soft drinks. This particular afternoon the two of them came home dirty and exhausted, Glenn’s arms loosely tossed around Pete’s shoulders. Glenn, as usual, opened a bottle of beer. Pete, as usual, begged for some. I, as usual, said, “No.” But this time Glenn got an extra glass and poured about an inch of beer into the bottom for Pete. “I guess my podner can have anything I can,” Glenn said. “Thanks, pard,” Pete answered back. And they both started laughing. For the rest of the summer they followed the same ceremony every night. The bottle was opened, shared, laughed at. And the laughter signified that as a family we had solved another problem. Since we are still human, there will undoubtedly be more problems lurking in the future. But we had taken another step towards strengthening the foundations and smoothing the rough edges of the family life that we’ve built. We had brought ourselves a bit closer to the day when perhaps our marriage — our life — can be perfect. The End (Glenn Ford can currently be seen in Columbia’s “ Human Desire.”) 110