You'll Never Walk Alone

The senior chorale with which I sing has started rehearsing for our spring concert. This program is a collection of “inspirational” songs. I like them all. We are learning”Eye of the Tiger,” “The Man In the Mirror,” “You Lift Me Up,” and many more. The one song that is my favorite for this program is, “You'll Never Walk Alone.”

In 1956 I was fifteen years old. I dreamed about one day falling in love and was full of visions of romance. That was the year Rogers and Hammerstein's musical “Carousel” was made into a movie. I loved that movie. I believe I saw it at least ten times. In an age before DVDs and videotapes that meant I went to the movie theater. I would walk a block to the bus stop and pay my 25 cent fare and ride into town. Then I would walk to the theater and pay my 25 cent admission to see it yet again. Sometimes I went alone. Sometimes friends would come along with me. Sometimes we would sit through the film twice on the same afternoon. I thought Billy Bigalow was so handsome. I wished I was the beautiful Julie who won his heart. It was just so romantic. I would cry every time when Billy died. The song “You'll Never walk Alone” was so inspiring and I would cry every time I heard it. I did buy the record of the sound track and played the music over and over again on my phonograph. I knew every word to every song.

Last week when we started to sing this song in rehearsal for just a moment I felt like I was once again a starry-eyed fifteen year old girl.

What was a movie that captured your heart when you were a teenager?