Cheering for the underdog

     This past weekend, my daughter and two of my grandsons headed out to the movies to see the film, The Grey. Great movie unless you're afraid of flying, and I've already informed my sister she is not allowed to see this until we come back from our trip to California. The main star is Liam Neeson, and his job is to protect the oil riggers who work in the Alaskan Wilderness from any stray or hungry preditors, such as polar bears or wolves.

     Now the people following my blogs are already aware of my working at the Academy of Natural Sciences, and even though I'm retired from this wonderful museum, I still try to instill the love of nature into my grandchildren. I may have done too good a job. Let me explain.

     I won't give away too many details because it is a good movie and you should try to see it, but the film starts with an overview of the oil rigs and the pipeline and Nathan right away says out loud, "This isn't good. Isn't grandmom protesting drilling in Alaska?"

     "Shush," my daughter says. "Don't get her started."

     "I'm okay. You can all relax," I chime in. Joshua keeps silent. He has seen me in action before.

     Anyway, the movie then pans to Liam, who has spotted something in the distance. He takes his rifle, aims and shoots. A wolf goes down. Liam's character is protecting the oil riggers from these beautiful animals.

     Intent with watching the movie, I hear Nathan whispering to his mom, "Why did he shoot the wolf? It was minding its own business."

     "Her reply. "Watch the movie and don't talk."

     Without giving away more of the movie, we watch as a group of men try to find their way to shelter, but they are being followed. It's beast against man. Now I'll stop with the movie details and go straight to the conversation going on among the grandkids.

     "They're getting even with us," says Joshua.

     "We're destroying their habitat and their hungry," says Nathan.

     "I'm betting on the wolves," adds Joshua.

     "Oh God, we have tree huggers in front of us," says the poor soul who happened to sit behind us.

     "Look what you started," says my daughter to me. She then tells the boys to zip their lips.

     "I haven't said a word? Why are you mad at me?" I plead my case.

     When the movie ended, and as we were leaving the theatre, my daughter began to chuckle. "I was afraid we were going to get thrown out."

     "I didn't do anything wrong," I said in my defense.

     "I don't know about that. I'm still trying to forget all the times, you would bring home the Madagascar Roaches to visit the boy's school. I still get the chills."

     "But mom, she taught us to love nature," Nathan chimed in.

     "All fine and good as long as she keeps nature outside, where it belongs."

    "Mom's so not going to survive the zombie apocalypse," Joshua teased as we climbed into the van.

   "I don't care how hungry I become, I will never, ever, eat a bug," my daughter replies and then starts the motor.

   Everyone is quiet until, Nathan says, "I want to see that movie, again."

  After we all had a good laugh, I said, "We better wait awhile. We might be barred from that theatre."