A story of personal growth at the dawn of the new millennium. Oh—and dog treats. Dog treats were involved.
[This is an edited re-post from a prior Substack post on August 1, 2025.]
I’m honestly not sure what brought “Galaxy Quest” into my head this last Sunday, but the story of how I first saw it struck me as one you’d enjoy. It will always be rightfully known to me as “the first movie I ever watched on DVD.” It is hard to believe that was about twenty-four or -five years ago (not sure the exact year). And—this story goes back to our early history in building our lifelong “best friendship” with Chuck and Sandy, the pals who live in Maryland (from last week’s post.)
Their two daughters were at or just above the same age as ours. (Were? They’re all still alive. I guess it is still true. Get out of my head, little grammar Nazi…) The point is, while I was years past my stint in the Navy, Chuck was still an active duty submariner based here in Washington State. [Squirrel! How many of you read that ‘submariner’ vs. ‘submariner’? That’s right! As I was corrected more than once by old codger submarINErs in my shipyard career, “I didn’t go to sea on a subMARE-in! I went to sea on a submarEEN!” Got that? Squirrel out.] [PS, Chuck has never once given a shat which way it is pronounced.]
He was deployed on Boomers. Now, I get that saying it that way to non-military folks invokes images of him deploying to sea on the backs of angry bald men who love to argue in the online comments of Facebook posts, but don’t know how to connect their TV to their home WIFI. But by Boomer, what I mean is ballistic missile submarines—the ones that go hide in the ocean with enough nuclear firepower to turn humans back into dinosaurs, as opposed to the smaller and ironically-named “attack boats.” (Sorry… maybe they attack… maybe they don’t… national security dictates I can’t tell you for sure… I’m being mysterious about this because loose lips sink ships. 🇺🇸)
Those deployments usually last a hair over two-months. Sandy and the girls were smart, independent, and capable. (Were? Are? SCRAM, wannabe editor!) They certainly didn’t need the O’Dells as their support network. But we’d grown to be great friends in the preceding couple of years, so support they had. When Chuck was at sea, Dorothy and/or I would step up and help however we could. See… they lived directly across the street, which is a key part of the story to come.
Running to the music store for instruments at the start of a new school year?Check. Climbing on the leaking cedar shake roof in a rain storm? Also check. Protecting delivery drivers from a 130-pound Shepherd/Dane mix named Bootsie? Ditto. (Other than Chuck, I was (quite proudly) the only other adult male that could approach the dog. We bonded so well, in fact, that I once “mouth-to-mouth” tug-of-warred a Scooby snack out of her teeth—and won! Of course I had to eat it! This triggered a near vomit reaction from Dorothy and a nearly fatal asthma attack of laughter from Sandy.)
On one such deployment near the midway mark, Sandy rented a small house out on the coast for the weekend so that she and the girls could commemorate that Chuck’s absence was about half over. On one of my trips over to check on Bootsie and the house, I noticed she’d ripped the screen of a low wing-window off the frame. I went out to the porch, and the signs of an attempted break-in were clear in the form of scuff marks all over the window frame. I was pissed, but also a bit amused at what their faces must’ve looked like when that Goliath-like dog was on the other side of the glass going ape-shirt crazy.
I called and updated Sandy, and told her I would spend the night so she could come back tomorrow, as planned. We both knew it was local teens. I had an idea. I went over in the evening, holding my sleeping bag, pillow, and the very first pistol I’d ever bought as an adult. I think it was a Ruger P98. I just recall it had a trigger that felt a lot like stirring cold molasses with a straw. I was glad to sell it, but it is what I had at the time. That sucker was at arm’s length over my head, pointed up. I think I even did a small circle in the street before finishing my crossover to their house, like a rooster who was looking for more hens. I wanted the punks to know the gloves were off. They were dealing with “a real man.” 🤣 After all, I was Bootsie’s surrogate Alpha while Chuck was away! In the (probably fictional) words of William Wallace, “I’m goin’ to peck a fight!”
We settled in for the night, me on the couch, Bootsie on the floor just below. I crawled back up and over to the entertainment center. Remember those? They were made of pressed particle board, covered in the same wood-grain laminate our parents covered the walls with in the 70s, and held 5000-pound tube-TVs on them. They had shelves, some of which only had a 2.75” gap from the one above, and usually there was a set of doors over one cubby, which would sheer off at the hinge in the second month of ownership. IKEA! Eat your heart out!
I’d never owned or operated a DVD player, other that the CD tray in the home PC. I cruised through the selection and landed on Galaxy Quest. What a great first movie! I nearly died when Sigourney Weaver, upon discovering the cute, TeleTubby-esque aliens with rows of shark-like teeth were vicious killers, were going to “Eat Guy!” simply because Guy was the one-episode red-shirt.
That was but one of a hundred great lines.
And how they landed a stage-great like Alan Rickman I’ll never know. But he nailed the cynicism and depression of a man reduced to mall-based fan-cons as a career to a tee. And brought the same emotion to his humanizing moment with the dying alien that he would a few years later, when we learned Snape was Harry’s guardian all along. RIP, Alan. 😔
By the AM, Bootsie and I had slept soundly, fought over a few more dry treats,and discovered zero new attempts at a break-in. I felt like a man! A buddy and his family were in need, and I stepped up and guarded their guard dog! I had ushered in my virgin experience with the new way to watch movies at home, too! After all, we’d already started ditching our cassette tape collections for CDs. These DVD collections would be around for a hundred years… right?
