Movies take us special places. Last night one took me all the way back to my childhood, to when I was 5 years old and every weekday morning my father walked me to kindergarten at St. John's on his way to work at The San Juan Star. Dad wore one of those very hip hats you see in movies about the 50s, button down short sleeved pale cotton shirts, sometimes a jacket. I wore cinched waist cotton dresses with petticoats so the skirt flared out walking alongside my father in pointy toed ballerina flats. While we ambled, Dad taught me to whistle. It is one of the sweetest memories of my childhood. It all came rushing back amidst the rum soaked nostalgia of Johnny Depp's homage to Hunter S. Thomspon in The Rum Diary. Who knew that Hunter began his career with a brief stint as a journalist in 1959 at El Sportivo, an english language rag in San Juan? In the same year that my father arrived? Who knew that in his diary Hunter deftly captured the currents of rage, corruption and colonialism that ran through the Puerto Rico of my childhood, the Puerto Rico my father chose as a young man? All this flashed against the landscape of my childhood, Old San Juan, Condado, El Yunque, Luquillo, Vieques, the Caribe Hilton, poverty, beautiful beaches, hungry children, lush rainforest, crumbling colonial architecture juxtaposed with modernity, evening parties in the tropical breeze and lots and lots of drinking. Am racing to read this book first written by Thompson in the 60s and cast aside only to be published in 1998 when Johnny Depp and the author found it buried amongst Hunter's manuscripts and upon review agreed it was quite good and should be made into a movie. You never know what to expect from a night at the movies. Last night I was shocked into memory!
