It was 1968 and I was 13 years old. We were visiting my Uncle in Shreveport Louisiana and the only desire I had was to see this movie. I knew it was a long movie and promised to tell a story unlike any other at that time. I remember talking mom and dad into dropping me off and into the theater I went.
There was a large cutout poster board of the ape with bone just being flung into the air. Models and dioramas of the spaceships in the movie. Funny looking red eye ball things strangely spread through out the lobby and a large black rectangle placed just as you entered the inner doors into the auditorium. No fooling, movies where grand big events is those days.
I got a coke and a popcorn and into my seat. I began a life long journey into imagination and speculation that Saturday morning. It was to become my favorite movie until the release of Blade Runner. But on that glorious Saturday morning, the world of 2001 seems so far away and so full of excitement. It was so full of hope. I wanted so much to be apart of THAT world; that world of 2001, so long ago now. Funny, it was a horrible year for me in reality; but in that dark theater in 1968; it sure looked amazing to a young boy who wanted to believe.
I purchased and built a model of the PanAm space clipper from the movie. I wish I still had it. It sat on the shelf in the front of our trailer and I looked at it daily for a long, long time from our dinner table. It took me to a lot of places in the universe; only to be startled awake by my mother asking me to pass the salt. Funny how that works!
