Albert Finney's Scrooge transformed Christmas then and now | A Christmas Memory
Editor's note: Engagement Editor John A. Torres was discussing today's Christmas column during his weekly Thursday morning hour on the Bill Mick show. He spoke about how much his favorite Christmas movie of all-time, the 1970 film, Scrooge with Albert Finney affected him. (John went to see the movie twice this week at the Oaks Theater in Melbourne) Later that day John received this touching Christmas memory from Scott Easterling, who listened to the show.
Like you, I was in the theater this past Sunday afternoon here in Melbourne taking in Albert Finney in the musical Scrooge. I very much wanted to see this amazing story on the big screen once again. In 1970 when the movie was first released, I sat with my family in a very grand movie theater in the Maryland Suburbs of Washington D.C. experiencing Scrooge the musical. I was in second grade that year, and arguably too young for the complex storytelling and extensions of the original story including flying thru the inhabitants of Hell and Ebenezer’s eternal assignment as Lucifer’s clerk in the only cold room there. No matter, my father, who at the time was just getting started in life and probably had to sacrifice a bit to get us all there, wanted us to see this side of Christmas that year.
My dad had sacrificed a couple of years earlier obtaining a massive train set for me at GC Murphy’s — a regional discount department store. It was a place where he had scored a temporary position as floor help during the Christmas season of 1966, just enough to make Christmas happen for his fledgling family. I imagine his employee discount and low sales of discounted electric trains were the only reasons I could have received my "All Aboard American Flyer" train set that year.
By Christmas of 1970 we had moved out of a city apartment and into an old house my parents had purchased in the country only about 13 miles from Washington D.C., where my father had found more permanent work with the ABC Radio Network at their Washington Headquarters.
The house had a damp, cold dark root cellar type of basement with an unlit exterior entrance which was even scary at high noon in the middle of August. This root cellar’s back most room was where my electric trains were relegated when we moved into the house. This is where I spent most of my non-school waking hours in those days. It was there in that dark dimly lit cellar that I became fascinated with engineering, science, and electricity, eventually leading to college and an offer from Harris in a town I had never heard of in Florida — Melbourne.
The most memorable day of my 8th year on the planet (1970) was just before Christmas. Late on that cold dark afternoon I was busy playing with my trains in the cold dark recesses of the basement. I came upstairs to get an extension cord and some alcohol and cotton swabs to clean the track when daddy tells me that it is time to put away the trains because we are going to the movies. I protested, asking why and what for? He proceeded to explain the story of an old man at Christmas time with many regrets. I protested but before I knew it we were in our Plymouth Fury heading to the Langley Park movie theater. From that moment on, the images and memories are indelibly etched in my mind: The beautiful music the modern cinematography, Ebenezer’s redemption, everything. But there was one problem with all of this — I was too young for the terrifying scenes of Scrooge wrapped in chains in his eternally frozen counting chambers surrounded by rats, cold, dark, loneliness.
So, while thoroughly enjoying the experience, and looking forward to getting home to the pre-Christmas joy of my railroad empire, something had changed. That evening before dinner as I raced to the root cellar, my ears felt perpetually pinned back like a cat who hears something from behind. As I reached to open the haunted door that evening I found myself checking the backside of the door to see if Jacob Marley’s pigtail might be protruding. After that, as I began the long walk down the hallway towards the back room, I half expected to see a phantom horse-drawn hearse wishing me (the Governor) a Merry Christmas. By the time I made it to my trains, the room seemed (in my imagination) to be the frozen counting chambers of Hell and I was sure I could hear the rats and the clanking of dinner silverware being set upstairs sounded to me as if the devils were on their way with my chains. It was too much for my 8-year-old mind, I banished myself from the root cellar indefinitely.
The spell finally broke Christmas morning when my father once surprised me with more trains, and like when Scrooge promises to find a cure for Tiny Tim, my father proclaimed to me that day that the trains could be brought up stairs and set up more permanently in my bedroom.
What a grand Christmas that was in 1970!
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Reader shares his Christmas memory
