{"id":936,"date":"2013-11-25T10:18:51","date_gmt":"2013-11-25T18:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calirose.com\/blog\/?p=936"},"modified":"2013-11-25T10:18:51","modified_gmt":"2013-11-25T18:18:51","slug":"happy-twilight-zone-thanksgiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/happy-twilight-zone-thanksgiving\/","title":{"rendered":"HAPPY “TWILIGHT ZONE” THANKSGIVING"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Butterballs are on sale along with spiral cut hams, golden yams, Brussels sprouts and pumpkin pies. Harbingers of the \u201cthank you\u201d holiday ahead. But I know it\u2019s Thanksgiving, for sure, for sure, when I see the commercials for The Twilight Zone Marathon on KTLA. Ah, turkey and terror.<\/p>\n

A long time ago, when my parents and I landed in another galaxy far far away\u2014also known as Los Angeles\u2014my father snagged a downstairs \u201ctwo bedrooms and a den\u201d in an adults-only apartment building. I am coached to act like a \u201cyoung lady\u201d so the landlord will not regret his decision to offer a one-year lease. I am able to maintain this charade long enough to make it through the probation period. There aren\u2019t any kids on the block anyway so it\u2019s not like I can go all\u00a0wack-a-doo.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then she appears. A thin scrappy girl, maybe a year older than me. Her dishwater blond hair hangs straight and scraggly over her shoulders. She is probably twelve years old and has a sort of pre-pubescent Jodie Foster vibe about her, straight out of the movie Taxi Driver.<\/p>\n

And she curses. Oh I love that. She made a skateboard. MADE a skateboard. It is basically a board with a set of roller skate wheels screwed strategically in front and back. She named her skateboard \u201cDamn It.\u201d Those old-school metal wheels hiss like fingernails across a chalkboard as she sweeps past me down the alley until she spins out in the dirt. \u201cDamn it!\u201d I hear her wail from afar. I decide this is the coolest thing ever.<\/p>\n

One day she tells me her father is Rod Serling. Yes, THAT Rod Serling. I will never know if she was telling me the truth, but why would she make up something like that? But then again, it’s not like we were living in the “high rent” district either. I wanted to believe her.<\/p>\n

I also got the impression that things were a little dicey at home. Nothing specific is said, as I recall, but thinking about it now, maybe she had a little too much \u201calone\u201d time. The memories of our brief friendship haunt me still.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\"\"<\/a>Then there is \u201cLittle Girl Lost.\u201d Episode 26 from Season 3 of The Twilight Zone. I saw this show when I was also a little girl lost. And it seared into my bones.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the quickie story: Little girl hears voices inside the wall of her bedroom. She crawls under her bed and falls through a mysterious portal into another dimension. All she can do is cry out to her daddy for help. Good daddy dives into the opening in the wall, tears through psychedelic blurs and blobs, grabs the little girl and they escape through the mysterious doorway before it closes forever. (Program note: The family dog earns an extra biscuit for bravery too).<\/p>\n

Commercial. I start breathing again\u2026<\/p>\n

I saw that show light years ago, but to this day, I still cannot look under a bed, or any furniture for that matter, without thinking about the little girl and the doorway to The Twilight Zone. Just last week one of my ukulele students and I are perched on the sofa in the living room, which doubles as my teaching studio. Her yellow pencil topples off the music stand and rolls under the couch. I drop to my knees and reach my hand underneath along the floor\u2026 Oh God, there\u2019s the wall\u2026 Is it opening up? Do I hear voices? My heart is racing\u2026<\/p>\n

The truth is, I have<\/em> not been sucked into any mysterious portal to another dimension.\u00a0So far<\/em>. But then again, some crazy part of me believes\u00a0this time<\/em>\u00a0will be different.<\/p>\n

Actually I have<\/em> been sucked in. By marvelous storytelling. By the work of a genius who understood our collective fears and brought the whole mess of them into the flickering light of day, right there on our television screens. In striking black and white. The truth is I found a little piece of myself in almost every episode.<\/p>\n

So when Thanksgiving rolls around, I remember the gutsy girl who showed me how to ride a skateboard and who probably needed a friend as much as I did. I hope she found her way in the flickering light of this world. I remember the Little Girl Lost too. All I have to do is look in the mirror to find her.<\/p>\n

And I remember to say \u201cthank you,\u201d every chance I get, \u201cthank you,\u201d for the whole glorious mess of it all.<\/p>\n

Happy Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Butterballs are on sale along with spiral cut hams, golden yams, Brussels sprouts and pumpkin pies. Harbingers of the \u201cthank you\u201d holiday ahead. But I know it\u2019s Thanksgiving, for sure, for sure, when I see the commercials for The Twilight Zone Marathon on KTLA. Ah, turkey and terror. A long time ago, when my parents and I landed in another galaxy far far away\u2014also known as Los Angeles\u2014my father snagged a downstairs \u201ctwo bedrooms and a den\u201d in an … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentry"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2,"label":"blog entry"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Cali Rose","author_link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/author\/crbauthor\/"},"comment_info":2,"category_info":[{"term_id":2,"name":"blog entry","slug":"blogentry","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":138,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":2,"category_count":138,"category_description":"","cat_name":"blog entry","category_nicename":"blogentry","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}