INTRODUCTION: This article is the second one of a three-part series that is written as part of a very unusual write-off known as ELEVDADO (because it's being hosted by Elvisdo and levda ).  I'm going to give you a thumbnail sketch of what we're trying to achieve here:  Write three different Epinions on three consecutive Wednesdays (obviously, I'm running somewhat late) dealing with--one at a time and in any order--three different items:  a TV show, a movie, and a CD.  These three items must each have not only an eighties (as in the 1980s) tie to them, but they also must have some sort of tie to each other.  If we want to go the second mile, we are to figure out some sort of way that the three items can also be tied to actor Kevin Bacon.  Now, the Kevin Bacon tie-in isn't something we're required to include.  However, my three items would be proud to be associated with this studmuffin with the yummy-sounding last name, so I'll be doing this little exercise, too.  If you would like to learn more about this write-off as well as finding out who else is participating in it and reading their entries--something I would encourage--please take a little journey aboard the following URL:

   http://www.geocities.com/elevdado/


"Do you think you and Nick will be going to Malibu anytime while you're in California?" I ask Paula, our church organist/secretary/all around wonderful person.

"I'm not sure," she replies. "We might be."

"Well, if you're there, could you pick up something like a seashell or a rock and bring it back to me?" When I explain why this is important to me (because Malibu is in the 29th_District when it comes to elections, the elected, and the wanting-to-be-elected), she giggles a little.

Naturally, she would be glad to do something like that if they happen to get to Malibu during their two-month stay.

Of course--unlike excursions they've taken in the past to various places (often, by Amtrak, which is suitable for Nick, who is a major railroad buff, and Paula, who barely tolerates flying)--this trip isn't primarily a pleasure trip by ANY stretch of the imagination.

But more about that in a little bit.

How many of you have read the Epinion I posted right before this one called Twilight Soup For The Soul?

In case you haven't, here's the URL to make it handy:

http://www.epinions.com/content_1960681604

In this one, I included a few samples of Rod Serling's amazing storytelling ability--how his Twilight Zone series was not only great sci-fi-style entertainment but, also, something that encouraged you to think and feel.

I'd like to share the story of one such episode here. If I remember right, the title of it is The Gift.

Note: To those of you who are wondering what all this has to do with E.T., be patient! We're heading there! But we need the journey in order to better appreciate the destination!

The Gift takes place in this village in Mexico.

A "dangerous" alien has just arrived, and he's wanted dead or alive by authorities who are offering a generous reward for anyone who can fill this order.

One person in the village who's especially licking his chops at the thought of this reward is the local bartender. He's a cut-throat sort of person who doesn't much care what happens to others as long as whatever happens gets him what he wants.

With one exception, the other people in the village aren't much better than the bartender when it comes to really being concerned about any people other than their own kind. People who are "different" are looked upon with contempt and/or suspicion.

The exception is a little special needs boy who earns a few pesos by being a "gopher" for the bartender.

He's the one who takes the time to listen to the alien and believes him when he explains that the only reason he killed a couple of the authorities who were after him was in self-defense--that he was actually someone from a more advanced planet, and he had come to earth to give everybody on the planet a special gift.

When the authorities arrive (due to a tip from the bartender) and kill the alien--in spite of the little boy's pleas to stop and listen to what he was trying to tell them--the villagers grab the envelope containing the gift and throw it in a bonfire without looking at it, believing it to be something really evil.

But the local priest decides to listen to the little boy and grabs the envelope from the fire before it burns completely.

Tragically, most of the enclosed letter has been reduced to ashes with only the introduction to it left.

The alien had indeed come to earth to bring a gift--something his people had developed and they knew we needed. There were no strings attached to the gift. This alien and his crew (now all dead) were just committing what society would later refer to as "a random act of kindness."

Before it had burned, it had been instructions for producing a vaccine that would prevent all kinds of cancer!

I know that the "fi" in "sci-fi" stands for "fiction"--but that doesn't prevent me from crying from even thinking about this episode, let alone watching it.

Cancer has touched my life on several occasions, as I've experienced several people I know and love dealing with it--and, too many times, not surviving its damage.

As more and more strides are made in the field of medicine, cancer becomes more and more curable--but we're still a ways from that time when having cancer will hardly be more serious than catching pnumonia (Remember: there was a time when few people survived pnumonia, though that isn't the case now!).

Back to Paula and Nick. . .The reason they will be out in California for two months is so that Nick will be able to take special treatments for cancer, which has returned after being in remission.

Nick, like Paula, is a sweet, pleasant person who is nearly always there in the church lobby greeting people coming in for the Sunday morning service and asking how they're doing. I'm really going to miss seeing his smiling face while he's away, and hope and pray that he'll come back all fixed up.

It's uncanny that this Epinion was already in the planning stages when cancer hit close to so many of us here when we learned that one of our most popular writers had found out that he had a serious and advanced case of it.

If you haven't already read the two-part Epinion that Hard_To_Please wrote, I hope that you'll use the following URLs to find it:

http://www.epinions.com/content_35195031172

http://www.epinions.com/content_1965072516


Afterwards, please go read the words of a very special guy who has adopted the misleading username of fallenjesusboy:

http://www.epinions.com/content_1968939140


As far as I know, there has never been an alien from outer-space who came to this planet with a cure for cancer but got shot to death before he had time to share it--but let's play a game of "what if."

What if the person who would have invented the cure for cancer had died in the Holocaust?

Not about cancer, but adnetjm wrote a review of a book where the author told of what he saw as being very significant about the Holocaust. Her review can be found by going here:

http://www.epinions.com/content_11252043396

What if that person had been the son or daughter who would have been born to a young, Black man who was lynched by an angry mob for a crime he didn't even commit?

What if such a vaccine would have eventually been invented by a brilliant-but-lonely high school student who committed suicide after being taunted by his/her peers for being such a nerd?


I watched the movie E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial back in 1982 and was 100% impressed with it.

When it comes to the technical things, it had great music that went perfectly with the drama unfolding; and the scenery (e.g. that big, full moon that eventually would show the silhouette of that unforgettable bicycle ride near the end of the movie; the toy closet; the dewey-looking backyard where Elliot first discovered E.T.; the cold, sterile appearance of the lab where ambitious scientists wanted to disect E.T.) radiated the emotion of it all.

Casting was wonderful--especially in choosing sensitive-looking young child actor Henry Thomas to play the part of Elliot, a little boy who had a hard time finding friends because he was different than what is thought of as your average little boy. He was more gentle, sensitive, and thoughtful.

And E.T.--with his bloblike body; big, expressive eyes, wistful expression; and plaintive voice--had just the right look/sound about him to represent a creature who was pure love and goodness.

E.T. and others from his planet were part of a peaceful mission to study the earth--likely, to gather information to bring about positive change to the universe, much like our own astronauts have gathered rocks, etc. from the moon.

When they were about to be mobbed by nosy people, they took off in their spaceship before they realized that E.T. was missing.

The special bond that E.T. and Elliot develop after Elliot discovers E.T. and hides him from certain people who were more nosy than caring is so strong that--when E.T. gets curious about what's in the beer cans, drinks them all, and gets drunk--Elliot (who happens to be at school and hasn't touched a drop of liquor) also gets drunk.

This has happened to me on numerous occasions in my life where I just happen to call someone just at the right time. One of my friends says that she knows just by the way that her phone rings that I'm the one calling. And she's not talking about having different rings for different people. She's talking about a feeling.

I remember last fall when I was studying Jim's campaign website and looking at the different pictures on it. All at once, I was in tears without knowing why. It was just some sort of gut-emotion that I had. At that time, I didn't know that much about Jim's history, so my emotions weren't influenced by anything other than just something within me. It was like I was feeling his pain or something--yet, I was unaware of any pain that he was going through. At the time, I chalked up those feelings to PMS or just otherwise having a blue day.

Sometime later, I would find out that Jim had been writing about losing someone very near and dear to him right around the same time that I was feeling so unexplainably sad for him.

Many of you reading this know the person I'm talking about and his story, but some of you might not. But, as he prefers to tell his own story, I'm going to simply provide the URL to it and let you read it for yourselves. If you aren't familiar with this person's writings, I hope you'll linger there awhile and get to know him, because he's a very special person.

Here's the URL:

http://www.epinions.com/kifm-review-2B43-3568E95-39AE3C04-prod1


Anyway, back to the story. . .

E.T. was a peaceful and giving little fellow. In a way, he was like the alien in The Gift who died trying to share a vaccine for cancer.

When Elliot cut his finger, E.T. had the means to fix it through the power of touch..

Elliot introduced E.T. to Reece's Pieces and helped him to make some sort of communication system so that E.T. could get in touch with the people from his planet to let them know where he was.

In these, and many other ways, they were good for each other.

However, E.T. could only survive in our atmosphere for so long. After that, he would become weak and, eventually, die. This is why it was so important for him to get back to the spaceship that would transport him to his planet.

But there were those in the government who, unlike Elliot, didn't see E.T. as a vital creature who mattered. He was just a specimen to be picked over and disected.

These people used their power to invade the home shared by Elliot, his mother, his siblings, and E.T.--and what had been a safe spot no longer was.

The sad news is that this selfish, insensitive behavior actually proves to be fatal for E.T. and shatters Elliot's tender heart--but that isn't the end of the movie by a long shot. In case there are those out there who haven't watched it, I'm not going to provide a spoiler!


This movie could be used to spur discussion on how we treat people who are different than we are.

Do we only see their differences and either shy away from them or else act aggressively towards them, taunting them and/or exploiting them?

Or do we reach out in friendship and end up sharing with each other, learning from each other, and both becoming better because of it?

I hope that we would feel more at home in doing the latter.

I'm going to close this by sharing the URL to something I wrote at WrittenByMe that goes along with what I've written here. The title of it is Why Grant Walker's Classmates All Laughed At Him and can be reached by going here:

http://www.writtenbyme.com/content/30796


This is the story of a high school boy who was different and, often, misunderstood. One day, he said something that was so outlandish that all of his classmates thought that he'd completely lost it this time! Give this a read and discuss it with others.

If you have the time sometime, you might want to get with family and friends to watch E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and The Gift, as well as reading my story of Grant Walker.--after which you would discuss how to treat others.









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