Sam Jones Wizard World Austin 2016

The short of it: I picked up Sam Jones’ autograph in Austin. Nice guy.  We talked about how many times he and I missed each other over the years. He told me to find him in Dallas for the Marvelous Nerd Year’s Eve convention.

So you are done. You can move along and you know I got his auto. You will notice I have more text on the page. Ignore it. It’s boring introspective narrative backstory stuff that doesn’t give any more details than the first paragraph. Really, move along…

The movie Flash Gordon with Sam Jones has pleasant memories for me. A local TV station in Philly actually showed the old Buster Crabbe Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon series when I was a kid. I enjoyed those serials. When this movie came out I wanted to see it.

It was a snow day; a cold snowy day in Jersey. I woke up and listened to the radio to find out if our ‘school closing number’ was called. If it was, we didn’t have school. Most often when we saw snow on the ground, we still had to get to school.  This day we ‘won’ the snow lottery. School was cancelled.

After I shoveled the porch, drive way, and sideway (for ourselves and our elderly neighbor), I was ready to explore. Just because it was considered too dangerous to drive to school, didn’t mean the rest of the world had closed. Like most good teenagers, I wanted to go to the mall and see a movie.

One of my buddies was up to seeing this movie.  I picked him up and we drove. By now the sun was out. It was very sunny. If you don’t know, snow reflects a lot of light. If you remember, it had snowed enough to cancel school. Up in Jersey, school is not cancelled based on the ‘threat’ of school.  It's not cancelled because of a ‘dusting’ of snow hit the ground. It’s cancelled because the snow plows can’t clear the roads quick enough. Where I grow up, that usually meant more than 6 inches.  Everything was buried in snow. It meant the bright shining sunlight was bouncing off of everything and creating a lot of glare.

The roads were good; no ice. The drive was uneventful.  We parked although we were slightly late for the movie. After we paid and got our soda and popcorn, we entered the theater. The theater was dark.  Pitch black. I could hear the movie but the screen was blank. I stopped. My friend ran into me. He asked what was wrong. I said I can’t find the seats because it was so dark.

Well, it wasn’t so dark for me to miss his confusion. He thought I was nuts. He said there were seats everywhere.  He said just pick a row. Blindly I moved to the right and bumped into a guy sitting and watching the movie. Then my friend whispered and asked if I could see anything. I told I was now seeing some of the screen but faintly.  My friend grabbed my hand and guided me to a seat where I did not need to climb over anyone. 

As I sat, my snow blind eyes slowly adjusted.  Concentrating on the road without sunglasses (who wore sunglasses in the winter?) the glare narrowed my pupils to pinpricks. Never had anything like that happen before or since.

I’m reminded of this memory every time I see Sam Jones name at a show.  
See nothing of value. You should have stopped reading when I told you.

AH