Thirty years. It is unbelievable that I have been obsessed and emotionally connected to a film for so long that "the future" has become the present.
There is literally nothing in existence that has helped my (often scattered) attention more than Back to the Future. It is without a doubt my biggest staple in life and my favorite childhood memory.
I was five when I found the VHS tape with Back To The Future scribbled across the sticker label in my mom’s scattered handwriting. There was no way to know at the time that sliding that bootlegged version of Marty’s epic tale into our VCR would change everything about the way I viewed…well, everything.
That first month I probably watched it 50 times (twice on Saturday and Sunday and once a day, every other day).
I can vividly remember reenacting Marty's opening scene on a loop in the living room of our modest, Midwestern living room. I'd stand near the sofa, holding a tennis racket and wearing my mom's oversized sunglasses, then jumping backwards into the couch as Doc Brown's oversized amp shot Marty across the room. An often bored and hyperactive child, I repeated this scene until our illegal copy of the film no longer worked.
My mom, who also passionately loved the film, would run lines with me on road trips to pass the time. I'd be Marty. She'd be everyone else.
My infinite obsession with the film wasn't limited to spastic renditions in my pajamas. I found myself obsessed with skateboarding, thanks to the action-packed chase scenes through the streets of Hill Valley. So, for my 6th birthday, my mom bought me my first board. If a spontaneous fight were to ever break out in my neighborhood, I was prepared for an epic getaway (regardless of the fact that I was forbidden to leave my block).
The series would do me no favors when the release of Part 2 hit theaters. A collection of futuristic sunglasses would be released in partnership with Pizza Hut. I would own all four pairs. I wore them everywhere, and felt unstoppable.
In hindsight, it was an extremely unwise fashion move. I couldn't be bothered to care. There was a world of hover boards, flying cars, and self-tying shoes out there to be discovered, popularity be damned.
I would go on to watch Back to the Future Part 2 in theaters 9 times. Although I had no way of realizing it at the time, looking back at the sacrifice that my poor, single mother made to make sure that her nerdy and fashionably embarrassing son could see a film that made him passionately happy, is touching. We didn't have a lot, but having that still warms my heart.
She and I would go on to watch Back to the Future together at a time where we weren't seeing eye to eye about anything. Puberty had made me into an emotional monster and I couldn't be bothered to be civil with anyone. However, for one night we would shelve our differences, check our grudges, and cheer Doc and Marty together, as we had done together thousands of times before.
We shared the trilogy one last time before she died. She was forced out of her job due to unbearable pain, and found herself with unreasonable gaps of unoccupied time. Knowing she must be stir crazy, I ventured the two hours from my place to hers for a movie marathon. Like nothing had changed, we cheered, laughed and supported the characters that had infiltrated our lives in an unexplainable way.
It would turn out to be the last time we would see each other. Our final moment couldn't have been more fitting. We shared it doing the thing that ultimately made us the happiest.
So today, I'm not only celebrating the future that we were promised by those Hollywood film-makers I'm celebrating the past that their gift gave me.
I'm eternally grateful for the love Marty McFly offered my mom and me.
This piece was written by Joshua Hammond on a 4 train beneath New York. He loves music, tweets about baseball obsessively, and hangs out with his cats just enough to keep them from destroying his vinyl.