Cool Parents and The Wall

I was 16 years old when The Wall hit theater screens. I really looked up to my brothers and my brother-in-law who were fans of Pink Floyd. I didn’t really understand the album’s message but I acted the part and mimicked much of what my family said about the music in an attempt to sound smarter than I was.  My next oldest brother had recently turned 18 and when he said that he was going to the movie I begged him to let me tag along. He agreed, and the only question was how I was going to get into this show that required that viewers be older than 17 or be accompanied by a parent or a guardian.

We decided that we were going to go to the movie at the giant screen at the Villa theater. We arrived early and as we stood in the Villa parking lot there was a lot of excitement about the show and everyone wanted it to live up to the hype. Pink Floyd music was playing on boom boxes and car stereos. Some people carried Walkman cassette players and immersed themselves in the tunes they were about to hear and more than a few people seemed to be indulging in some marijuana.

It was quite the scene, but we had no good ideas about how I was going to get into the show. I looked like I was 16 going on 12 and was not going to fool anyone into believing I was old enough to get into the film on my own. Our best hope was that the ticket taker would be either too busy or way cool and just let me in. The backup plan was for me to wait in the car while my brother watched the late-night showing. I was a little more than nervous at either prospect.

Then my brother guided us in the direction of a couple who were probably in their 30s or early 40s. I let him do the talking and was an impressed younger brother when he asked these people to claim that I was their child. I thought that it was one of the coolest things ever when they agreed to do it. They said something about these shenanigans were the kind of thing kids were supposed to be doing. We gave them our ticket money so they could buy all the tickets at once; we still didn’t want to raise any suspicions. The plan worked like a charm.

The movie blew my mind but the music was great and I felt like quite the rebel. Today as I drove near the theater with my daughter I recounted this tale and realized I am not anywhere near as cool as that couple. If some teenager asked me to vouch for him and get him tickets to an R-rated movie, I’d tell him to go ask his parents. I declared, “I’ve turned into the lame adult.” I hope that on balance, that’s OK.