“Hume Cronyn,” she said, squinting her eyes in my direction.
I was standing in the grocery store aisle.
“Excuse me?” I responded, clueless about what she meant. “Hugh?”
“Hume, Hume,” she emphasized, “Hume Cronyn, the actor. You look like him.”
This was a bit unusual, at least for me. I not used to being stopped by a complete
stranger in the grocery store and learning that I look like someone I’ve never
heard of.
On occasion, I have had people who read this column tell me they thought I
looked taller in the newspaper’s photo than in real life. “But, it’s only a headshot,”
I want to say. And, one lady told me my nose isn’t as big as it looks in the
column’s picture. I walked away wondering if that was a compliment or a
criticism. Then, a number of times, I’ve been told I look younger in the picture
than when they met me.
The being younger comment brings me back to Hume Cronyn.
“Look him up,” the lady in the grocery store told me. “He was Jessica Tandy’s
husband. You look just like him.”
“Okay,” I mused, smiling at what I supposed was a compliment, “finally someone
relates me with a movie star.”
I was anxious to tell my wife.
Jessica Tandy was a beautiful lady, wasn’t she?” I said to myself as I searched
Aisle 12 for almond butter, which is high in Vitamin E and more likely to keep me
healthy as I age. “So, this Hume fellow had to be a handsome dude,” I reasoned on
the way to checking out.
“Hume Cronyn, Hume Cronyn, Hume Cronyn,” I repeated to myself as I carried
my groceries to the car, fearful that my memory, which doesn’t seem to me as
sharp as it was years ago, might fail me.
I googled his name, humming Buck Owens song, “They’re gonna put me in the
movies,” as I searched.
Much to my dismay, Hume looked, well, more seasoned than I had assumed.
Not one to give up, I viewed pictures of him in his younger years, which were
more flattering to him, and by association, to me as well.
But the movies I remember him being in, once I recognized his character,
pictured an actor beyond his prime.
I scratched my head.
“Did that lady think I looked like the young Cronyn, the old Cronyn, or the
somewhere in–between Cronyn? Surely not the aging and shriveling Cronyn who
starred in the movie, Cocoon.”
Ah, Cocoon, the thought of that movie took me back.
All the way to 1985, when that film about a randy group of aging seniors
regaining their youthful vigor by swimming in a pool containing alien cocoons
seemed not only too sci-fi for me but a bit quaint as well, what with those old folks
being overly excited about finding their fountain of youth and space traveling to
another planet.
After all, who needs a fountain of youth when you’ve already got it?
But, that was 1985, thirty-two years younger ago.
Hume Cronyn played Joe Finley in Cocoon. Joe tried to convince his wife, Alma,
(played by none other than Cronyn’s real life wife, Jessica Tandy) to relocate
with him to the alien’s home, where no one ever gets sick or grows old.
She wasn’t ready.
“They say if we go with them, we’ll live forever,” Joe reasons with her. “And that’s
good…I wanna go. But if it’s a choice of only six more months here with you or
living forever all my myself, I’ll take the six more months here with you. I don’t
want to live forever if you’re not going with me.”
Thank you, Hume, I mean, Joe, for reminding me of what really matters,
regardless of your age.
The old Hume? The young Hume? The somewhere in–between Hume?
Who cares?
I look in the mirror and know who I am.
And when my wife eyes me quizzically as I examine that new wrinkle I think I
found on my forehead, I know the person I want going with me.
And that makes all the difference.
For she’s all the youthfulness I need.