I object!

"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. Joey and Mikey came every Saturday afternoon (showing until May, theater management told the boys) to see if, somehow, they could transport themselves from their ordinary, suburban life just outside Indianapolis, Indiana. Joey and Mikey lived across the street from each other, typical 1970s nuclear family. Joey and MIkey, youngest in their families, each had 1.35 siblings -- both families, pretty typical.

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 silly way like Betty Rubble. And she had black hair she wore 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 his brother Jeffy's room and moved Jeffy into his own. No one discovered it until Jeffy started screaming right before dinner. They made him move everything back. Why couldn't they understand? He wanted to try something new, not the old, boring stuff! Oh, well, at least he had Mikey -- who wanted to become an Academy-award winning actress when he grew up. Mikey could picture himself:

"Thank you, Warren. And the nominees for best actress are Miss Bette Davis for I Object!,' 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, go to Hollywood. Just as soon as they saved up $75.00 from their allowances.