Paul Newman was one of THE actors during my very impressionable years. He was our Brad Pitt with his blue eyed good looks or maybe our George Clooney with his laid back charm. HE was Cool Hand Luke who our husbands still quote. He was the bad boy/ hero we absolutely fell in love with in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.... I wanted to ride that bike and have rain dropping on my head ....The Sting was the original Oceans except much better. And later, Absence of Malice with Salley Fields made me want to be rescued by Paul Newman or maybe to rescue him from her.
They are still great films. See them all if you have not.
Paul Newman and his wonderful wife Joanne Woodward also started in the movie Mr. and Mrs. Bridges. While I don't remember that much about the movie I remember the story from reading the books. Man..... do I remember the books from which the movie was adapted.
Karen, my sister, and I have always loved to read and looked for any opportunity to sit back and read when we took our kids to the beach. While Karen read library books, I read paper backs because I would never risk the wrath of the librarian by taking one of HER books near the water.Yes, there is a deep seated fear of Librarians from my past that I have yet to uncover. (Nurses too!)
Anyway, one year I decided to take library books to the beach since Karen had never had an accident with a library book. I checked out several books including two brand new never before checked out books, Mr. Bridges and the companion book Mrs. Bridges. Each spouse tells the story of their marriage from their own ( of course very different) point of view.
I found the story very interesting, but the books themselves gave me a story of my own.
The first day at the beach I left the book Mrs. Bridges, that I had just begun to read, in my beach chair. The chair was AT LEAST 40 FEET from the edge of the water. We were just beginning to jump waves and have fun in the water when a really strong wave almost knocked us over, and may have taken a kid or two under, but the destruction that that wave caused up the beach is all that I can remember. All I could see was that wave racing all the way up the beach to jump into my beach chair. No other wave had come near that chair nor did any other wave venture up that far for some time. I just stood and stared in shock as that evil wave soaked that library book and returned to the sea. The book was drenched - soaked through from the first page to the last. Well, I read that wet book page by wet page as it dissolved in my hand. In the end there was only a cover and it too was WET! All week I worried about returning Mr. Bridges without his companion.
After searching every bookstore in the area I told myself that I was a grown woman and I would simply say that I would not be able to return that book and needed to pay for it. Of course, it was not that easy. After several questions which I did not answer to the first librarian's satisfaction a new librarians was called in to help. I could tell the librarian really wanted to know what happened to HER book. She said books always turn up and this one surely would also. But I stuck to my plan, check book in hand, and only replied," I will not be able to return that book. I need to pay for it."
Thank you Paul Newman for the entertainment. We'll miss you. You were a great actor, American. Sorry I destroyed your wife's book!
( Old story to all of you but a new twist!.... maybe)
