The Power of the Classics...

We had a nice night tonight.  Mondays are traditionally a family night around our house. I cook something nice and we either have a movie night or wind up playing board games.  Might be kinda hokey, but it works for us. 

We're a little bit late to the Netflix game, but we've picked it up pretty quickly and one look at the suggested films it offers us indicates that we're a pretty horsey family (or at least, the person with the controls is.)  Although many would assume the person with the controls would be me, anyone who's really in the know can yell you it's my daughter.  Sophie's got every horse game, horse movie, horse TV show ever made on her suggestion list.

Tonight's winner was Misty, the movie based on the book Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry.  It won mostly because I opened up my yap and said how I must've read that book about 20 times when I was Sophie's age, but heck if I could remember every little detail of it now.  Then I had to blather on (you know how old people go on and on and ONNNNNN about their ancient history?) about how during college my friend and I would take his father's boat over to Assateague and camp out over night, lighting campfires on the beach and cooking corn adn potatoes, and crabbing and oystering ( a dirty business, oystering.)  We'd wake up in the morning to see the ponies or island foxes, and just relax on the beach or explore the island.

So we watched Misty, and argued about how unfair it was that girls couldn't ride on Pony Penning Day, and how silly it was for Maureen to give up the ride in the race against the Black Comet to Paul even thought it was her turn to ride and she was llighter and had a better chance of winning. (The menfolk in our lives knew not to engage with us on this point as there were homemade brownie sundaes at stake, and crabby wimminfolk have been known to withold any manner of treats when provoked.

It was a great night watching a good old fashioned movie that caused us to examine some differences in how lives are led, animals are treated, people treat each other.  Guess that's the point of the classics -- to continue that kind of conversation, generation after generation.  I'm kinda hoping one of my kids asks me where my copy of Misty of Chincoteague is.  Sophie's already got her Misty Breyer model in her bed with her.