The 60th Minute

Gary went to his grandfather with a question in hand. He needed to understand military ranks, and there seemed to be nobody better to ask than his veteran elder, who had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of American war films. His grandfather had a neat row of VHS copies of all the greats, from ‘The Longest Day’ to ‘Tora Tora,’ but his all-time favorite was ‘Midway’ -- the turning point in the Pacific Front, don’t you know.

The cassettes were lined up like a prized collection of Britannica, firmly squeezed between two heavy bookends atop an enormous big screen television set. It was a gaudy display, yes, but the TV was so ancient that it actually had wooden parts -- so it carried an unexpected classiness. And then there was the fact that grandpa may have been able to recite a million random facts about WWII movies and the battles therein depicted, but he probably wouldn’t have been able to answer a single question about the endings of any of the films, seeing as how he fell asleep less than an hour into everything.

This was no prejudice against the Good War or even against movies in general. The sixtieth minute of any activity simply flipped a switch in the old man and it was instant snoozing. Gary always admired him for that -- not that the boy suffered from insomnia. He merely found something charming about an old feller sitting perfectly upright in non-reclining chair, totally and completely asleep and snoring. Gary’s grandfather in the end was a man oddly at peace with the world, despite his insatiable appetite for dramatized conquest.

Never actually in combat, he went through basic training like every man from his generation. His was an age of nationalism and mechanization, and, when people started really getting around, life opened up all kinds of new opportunities for marching and shooting and saluting. Never having faced down death on the battlefield, he learned what he could by studying the films of John Wayne and company.

So, when his grandson came to him and asked him to draw up a list of military ranks, in order to assign titles to his various friends in a mock army they were establishing, Gary’s grandfather had an answer already prepared:

“Just let me watch an hour of my film, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”