I hope you are enjoying my walk down memory lane when it comes to Harry Potter.
What I've realized is that reading the books and seeing the films have become a larger experience than just sitting in a room reading a book. I have never felt this about any other book or series I've read: this shared anticipation for each book or film to release, such widespread passion for specific characters and their stories. It goes beyond the page.
So, my last Potter memory:
During my final year of college I attended a Halloween party and dressed up as Harry. My friend Katie suggested we go trick-or-treating. It was a ridiculous idea. I had just turned twenty-one years old. I was a senior at a university, on my way to the workplace or to graduate school, to become an adult. I probably had not been trick or treating since I was fourteen.
But I was lucky. I looked very young. Katie did too. This has not always benefited me in my professional and private life. It is hard to be taken seriously when you look like a child. But in that particular situation looking young was an advantage. So we decided to test it. We went trick-or-treating as college seniors. We nodded when people asked us if we went to the local high school, I showed off my Harry costume to a bunch of impressed six year olds, and we got bags and bags of candy. It is one of my fondest memories of college: the day I got to act like a kid.
That's another thing I love about the Harry Potter experience. There's a kind of innocence about the whole craze. A bunch of people who are just excited. About a boy wizard. About a good book.
In anticipation of the release of The Deathly Hallows Part II, check out some other bloggers talking about Potter this week:
Lisa Galek
Jennifer Daiker
Abby Minard
Michael Di Gesu
Laurel Garver
Renae Mercado
Colene Murphy
One of my favorite Potter memories: We were on vacation, my husband and I. He bought the first book at a tiny indie bookstore. We started reading it aloud on the long drive back home. As day turned into night, we pulled out our flashlight. When the batteries died, we stopped at Wal-Mart to buy more just to finish the book.
ReplyDeleteThe Harry Potter series inspired a bunch of students who hated reading. Suddenly they were devouring the books, and any book that caught them. It was an amazing thing for a teacher to watch.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite HP memory: we were visiting my daughter and husband in Switzerland on the movie release of HP in 2007. There were Hermoines and Snapes all over the place!
Aw, that's awesome! One of my favorite memories is when my husband and I went to Walmart at midnight when one of the books was released (for the life of me I can' remember which one). There was a girl in a wedding dress and her groom there getting the book! It was priceless. I took a picture, and if facebook had been around then I totally would have posted it. So awesome.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read H.P. but I love the 'trick and treating' story!
ReplyDeleteAwesome! What a fun story! My husband still dresses up every Halloween to hand out candy. He's been a Hogwarts professor among other things. Maybe I'll pull out scarves and thirty necklaces to be Trelawney again this year. I went as her to a HP event at a local museum years ago. Such fun.
ReplyDeleteWhat a terrific memory.
ReplyDeleteI SO know how you fell about looking younger that your years. I PROMISE you will love it when you hit forty and you are still being carded. To this day I am still taken for at least fifteen years younger,
Life is SWEET.