Tomorrow

I have a kind of list of people I look up to—mostly writers—who, when I think about them, make me have hope for mankind—a belief in our essential goodness. Oliver Sacks, Quentin Crisp and E. M. Forster are a few, and I especially admire Horton Foote. He wrote plays and screenplays that got made into movies—including a rather obscure flick about killing a Mockingbird or something—but the main reason I like him so much is because of his memoirs. He wrote two of them. The first one, “Beginnings,” is about his career. The second one, “Farewell,” is about growing up in rural Texas in the twenties. They are both full of affection and humor and reading them you come to feel love for the writer—especially the writer as a child—and maybe every so often you remember he’s actually a great writer known for his writing but mostly you forget and are just interested in him and in the story.

Here’s an excerpt from Beginnings. Scene: Young podunk takes a bus to tinsel town and makes good. Horton as a teenager in 1931. He had just arrived in California to start his career as an actor.

“I called out to a man walking by. I asked if this was the Pasadena Playhouse and he said yes. I looked at my watch and saw it was almost noon and I thought about what I was going to do until the next morning when the school opened. I thought then of my mother and father and realized when it was noon here it was two o’clock in Texas. I knew they had probably done this Sunday what they did every Sunday. Mother had cooked a Sunday breakfast, grits certainly, ham or bacon and eggs, and biscuits, fig preserves, or maybe sausage instead of bacon or ham, and after breakfast my father would sit in the living room and read the Sunday paper, and Mother would go to the Methodist church with my brothers. I couldn’t remember whether it was her Sunday to play the organ or whether it was my cousin Daisy Armstrong’s. Then I suddenly thought of Miss Mina Barclay, who had also shared the organ playing until she committed suicide, hanging herself in her bedroom. I thought of my father’s store and I wondered how much business he had done the day before. Saturday was always the day he made money if he was to make any money. I knew the cotton crop had looked promising if it didn’t suddenly start raining and they could get it picked and to the gin. I looked up at the California sky to see that the sun was shining and I wondered if it was shining at home. I hoped so, because the last thing the cotton needed this time of the year was rain. I thought of my father locking up the store at night and wondered, since it was Saturday, how late he had stayed open and whether he had gone to Ray’s or the Manhattan Restaurant for fried oysters, like he did when I worked with him. I thought of walking home with him down the dirt road after our meal at the restaurant and being greeted by my mother as we came into the house, and my father telling her how his business had been. I thought of my bedroom then and my bed, and I realized my brother was sleeping in my bed now and that gave me a funny feeling. I looked up at the street sign and it said Colorado Boulevard, and I thought of the river at home, the Colorado. I looked up and down Colorado Boulevard, and I knew I was where I wanted to be, or thought I wanted to be, in Pasadena, California.”

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One of my favorite movies is “Tomorrow” which was based on a short story by Faulkner and adapted for the stage and then the screen by Horton Foote. It’s beautiful. It’s about love and generosity and moral goodness. Not the stifling kind but the real deep-down kind. I can’t recommend it enough but will never stop trying.

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Another big-hearted movie by Horton Foote. Tender Mercies, watch it and weep:

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Horton Foote was great. His movies are great. I like his books even better. He should be as famous, or famouser, than the queen of England. I’m glad I have access to him and people like him as role models.

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