Breaking Away – a CFF Musing for All

[Muffit]

There is no victory as precious as a personal one. For it is not our conquests over others that matter in the annals of mortal time, but victories over our own inner struggles. When the final curtain call beckons us lay down this crumbling shell, we judge not others but ourselves, where within our withering Alzheimer universe, dwell heroes and cowards, standing and fallen, legions that marched to the drum of a dream. It is not Death’s pale flag we fear, but that Hope’s ensign waves still.



1979 was a year of victory for me. My one and only lifelong dream had come to pass, and with that dream came a film that gave substance to its intangible essence. Breaking Away was a film about faith, not in a deity or worldly power, but faith in ourselves, faith in our friends. Like struggles we each have faced, you and I, four young boys and a regretful father carry us with them toward a personal victory more meaningful than any human conflict. For these are the have-nots, living in a town where the have-everythings leer condescendingly upon them, a university village where strangers are welcome and hometown folk are despised. The irony is no better served than when the father shows his son the university buildings – stones which he himself cut, in sweat and misery all his life leaving him no future at all – stones of structures that now neither he nor his own son were welcome inside.



But unlike so many of our own lives, this story finds in its ending a heart warmed more dearly than a family hearth. For when the hopeless cycle challengers face Aryan alumni in a climactic race, it is not lucre but faith that wins the day. A moment on celluloid that swells your heart like a hot air balloon, and takes you in fashion above the scratched walls of your own personal trials.



We are all Stollers, you and I. Against the university “haves” of studio townships we wage a struggle to see /our/ dream live again. A Battlestar of memories /we/ subscribe to, the cast we love and music we adore, a dream so dear we will patch our ankles and pedal frantic till the tape of victory breaches across our chests, and laud not languor welcomes us.



To all who have given so generously to the Colonial Fan Force, and brought us thus halfway so soon to Montezuma’s Hall, more thanks than I can fit in these poor pages applauds your valor. All I ask is that the race you’ve fought so well thus far, you finish just as fervently. Tell one, tell all, give more if you can, the winner’s string is stretched for breaking’s heart.



Victory is not looking back at what you’ve done; victory is looking forward at the path you’ve cleared.



Affectionately and respectfully,

Muffit



http://www.colonialfanforce.org

[jewels]

You are a treasury of words, Muffit.

[Muffit]

Originally Posted by jewels

You are a treasury of words, Muffit.

Thank you so very much Jewels