First times, ramp dinners and strawberry wine....

Today was a nice day of rest between long trips. I spent this past week traveling across states to Atlanta and across mountains to Matewan. Tomorrow, I head to Nashville. Music City is kind of special to me because it's where I had surgery for my brain tumor, but that's another blog entirely.

I woke up this morning and my horroscope said take it easy. I couldn't argue with that. So, after a nice buffet lunch with my mother, we came back to the house to rest. She asked to watch 'Matewan' and find out what I had gotten myself into. She had been asking for a while now, but I didn't pay no mind. What I didn't realize was she had never seen the film.

There can be arguement about the retelling of anyone's history. Did that happen, did it not? Who was the righteous, who were the scourge? Regardless, when it's your history I feel like there's real temptation to discover how others see it. Nearly twenty years after the film 'Matewan' came out, my mother had heard about it but really didn't know what it was.

Other than the occasional Home & Garden show and maybe Katie Couric, my mom doesn't watch a lot of television. Why she wanted a 48-inch plasma TV for Christmas I still don't know? However, that big crystal screen was about the best picture I've seen of 'Matewan' in quite some time. Depth, contrast, color in the mountains. The greatest strength of the film is its ability to recreate my homestate - and that TV brought it to life.

Afterward, we sat on the backporch and talked about her hometown, my grandfather that worked in the minds, the changing color of the hills in autumn, those old miner lights with the massive battery packs, the house my grandma Brown lived in on South Side, and whether that really was Shirley Love on that train at the beginning of the movie. By the way, it was.

We talked, which meant I listened. And she turned and said, "But I still don't understand how you got involved in all this?"

For every story about her family, I felt like it was a part of my life. Those stories echoed much of what's in 'Matewan.' For every dream I had of being a filmmaker, I can look up on screen and see Danny, and Michael and Lisa and Colin, so many other friends making those dreams come true. At the end of the day, I've been lucky to have the life I do. At the end of tomorrow, I want to have someway to share a little bit of my life through this wonderful picture that already reflects who I think I am and want to be.

j.brown