Newsletter – August 8, 2025
PHOTO: Pinterest
Jaws. The beginning of the summer blockbuster, they say. 1975. Fifty years ago!
Jaws. The most intense abs workout of my life.
My stomach ached more after seeing that movie than it did after 100 sit-ups in junior high gym class for the Presidential Physical Fitness Awards.
I blame the shock value. Hundreds of teenagers screaming at full volume every time the shark showed up…or when, say, a severed human head floated into view. [Spoiler alert.] My stomach muscles clamped together like a rusty bear trap with every screech.
And then there was the shark story delivered at night in the bowels of the little boat headed out to defeat The Great White. Robert Shaw, delivered that monologue with a deft mix of Ahab, Odysseus, and Falstaff. You can find it easily online and it’s worth the watch. Spielberg is quoted as having said that speech was probably his favorite scene from all his movies.
About a decade after seeing Jaws I was talking to a WWII vet and suddenly recalled that another vet had told me about his Navy experience in the Pacific where his ship was torpedoed and hundreds of men floated in the middle of the night while sharks picked them off one at a time. He even remembered having grabbed another sailor who had fallen asleep only to discover that the lower half of the man was missing.
I’d been so drawn into that story from the film that I actually recalled it as a personal conversation. Imagine my embarrassment on realizing I’d heard it along with several hundred other people in the movie theater.
Wow, what a story. Who knew words could be so haunting?
AND it actually happened. It was the story of the U.S.S. Indianapolis after they had delivered the first atom bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima.
That’s what makes a summer blockbuster. Real human emotions that you remember like it was your own experience.
To lighten things up, I’ll close with a meme I ran across that made me laugh:
PHOTO: Pinterest
TTFN
P.S. For those of you keeping track, I just made up another word to add to the English Language, a portmanteau: Jawsiversary.
You’re welcome.
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Eric Margerum 