The Notebook: Young People learn new skills?
I joined my wife in watching The Notebook, which she had rented. Jim Garner and Gena Rowlands as an elderly couple, struggling to recall their young romance.
OK, I get cynical about chick flicks.
Young Allie (Rachel McAdams) and young Noah (Ryan Gosling) re-discover each other after some years apart. They are still only about 25. She is engaged, so she faces a big dilemma: rich fiance or good old exciting Ryan?
She goes to the huge plantation house he has superbly re-furbished. They spend a couple of nights together. One morning she sleeps in, and finds out he has left her a completely outfitted painting studio as a surprise. Still dressed only in a sheet, she paints up a lovely picture--before lunch. Let's see: the sun was high in the sky when she got up: 9:00? 10:00? That's fast work. I missed the beginning; maybe she took a lot of art classes, but it would be a lot funnier if this was the first time she ever put brush to canvas.
Which gets me thinking: what about all those skills he needed to re-furbish the house? When we first meet him he does basically unskilled labour at a sawmill. Now he is able to do every kind of carpentry and finishing work? OK, I see that there is a connection: wood. His dad lives with him for a while before he dies--presumably his dad had a lot of skills. Otherwise he seems to do everything totally on his own. Maybe he was able to keep repeating the same day, like in Groundhog Day, expect that work he did on the house would stay?
Let's ring some more changes. She spots some rust on his old truck. Goes to the library and reads up on auto body repair. The next day, she rents the tools she needs: cuts, welds, sands, primes, paints. Still has time to make him a nice sandwich for lunch.
Gourmet cooking: they laugh a lot, and mean well, so how hard can it be?
French poetry, again like Groundhog Day: this hick from the South, if he applied himself, could come up with this: "La fille que j'épouserai..."
This is kind of an immense boomer fantasy. The skills that make life rich and full--vaguely like the old aristocrats, combined with self-reliant homesteaders--can't be all that difficult to acquire. Martha Steward plus all those home repair shows.
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