You opened the door

"I'm going to open doors for you," little Joey heard on the movie screen, "doors you never even dreamed existed!"

It was the weekly showing of Rosalind Russell's 1958 "Auntie Mame." The madcap aunt in the black negligee, red robe, cigarette holder, and martini enchanted little Joey -- just like she enchanted her 9-year old nephew Patrick, the jaunty Ito, gentlemanly Beau, and drama queen Vera. Joey and Mikey came every Saturday afternoon (showing until May, theater management told the boys) to see if, somehow, they could transport themselves from life in suburban Indianapolis, Indiana to art deco Manhattan. Joey and Mikey lived across the street from each other in typical 1970s nuclear family houses. Joey and MIkey, youngest in their families, each had 1.35 siblings. Dads worked downtown and Moms tended house.

Joey and MIkey fought over which family was the Flintstones and which family was the Rubbles. Joey's dad might not work in a gravel quarry or drive a car with his feet, but he did yell out "Bertha!" every time he came home, expected dinner on the table in less than five minutes. Okay, so Mikey's dad fixed people's plumbing for a living (hardly Barney Rubble-like) but his mom did giggle in a Betty Rubble-like way and she wore her black hair in a bun. The kids liked to find movies and television in their lives, but gosh, they had a hard time of it. There was nothing Auntie Mame about their Indianapolis lives.

Joey wanted to design movie sets when he grew up. He loved to rearrange the furniture in his room and pestered his parents enough, they painted his bedroom a different color every year. One Saturday afternoon last summer he'd moved himself into Brother Jeffy's room and moved Jeffy into his own. No one discovered it until Jeffy started crying right before dinner. They made him move everything back. Why wouldn't they understand? He wanted to try something new, not the same old, boring stuff! At least he had Mikey who wanted to become an Academy-award winning actress when he grew up. Mikey looked down the years to his big moment in the sun.

"Thank you, Warren. And the nominees for best actress are Miss Bette Davis for 'Bitch from Hell,' Miss Katharine Hepburn for 'The Goddess of Park Avenue,' Miss Vanessa Redgrave for 'A Leftist in Liverpool,' Miss Maggie Smith for 'Droll Baby,' and Mikey Winters for 'Queen for a Day.'" Applause, applause while Paul Newman opened the envelope: "and the winner is Mikey Winters!"

Joey and Mikey planned to run away from home and go to Hollywood just as soon as they saved up $75.00 from their allowances.