Role Model

I had became somewhat of a movie fanatic with all the flicks I was getting to watch on pay tv. I was mainly into horror and comedy as I loved to laugh and I loved a good scare. Before we got pay tv my family would go to movies on a somewhat regular basis. Sometimes the whole family would go, sometimes my mom, sister and I would go. Sometimes just me and my dad would go which i preferred as we always saw the coolest movies despite my dad complaining the seats and aisles were too small and cramped for his long legs and bad knees.

As my sister got older and responsible she would take me to see movies with her friends. I was fortunate enough to see an abundance of movies during my childhood including such classics as King Kong, Meat Balls, the Star Wars trilogy, Grease, and Gremlins just to name a few. It seemed like every week or two I saw a movie and nowadays whenever someone mentions an old movie, nine times out of ten I chime in with "oh I saw that in the theatre when I was a kid".

One day my dad told me we were going to see a movie, just the two of us and I was thrilled as hell! My pops said "remember Rocky 2 we watched on tv the other night? Well we're going to see Rocky 3!" I wasn't overly excited as I found Rocky kind of boring but none the less I was eager to go to the flicks with my old man. To my surprise the movie was amazing and I loved it. Rocky III was definitely better than the previous two films and it also introduced me to one of my future wrestling heroes "Hulk Hogan". There was also a fairly rocking song in the movie "Eye of the tiger" which I bought on 45 not long after.

It was the villain of the movie that intrigued me more than anything. He was a mean looking black man with a Mohawk and tons of gold jewelry... His name was Mr.T. "T" soon surfaced in the world of television on a new show called "The A-Team" and it was an instant success. My father and I watched the show religiously. Even though T looked mean he was a very nice man and a positive influence on young people. In fact Mr.T was my very first role model, I even drew a picture for him when I went to meet him at the grand opening of "Toys R Us" in Brampton.

I was a bit upset when T didn't actually get out of his limo, instead the long stretch drove through the crowd of kids with T hanging out the sunroof waving to everyone. I did manage to hand him my drawing and he smiled and winked at me. With all the darkness inside of me and the negativity associated with heavy metal music, it was nice to have something in my life that brought me happiness and positivity, even if it was a short lived moment...