I know that most kids enjoy repetition -- Jackson has been known to ask us to rewind certain movie scenes four or five times in a row, especially if they involve oompa loompas -- but I've realized that many grownups, though we claim to tire of the daily grind, have a deep, primordial impulse -- nay, aching chasm of need -- to watch Caddyshack over and over and over and over again until someone shoots us like the pestilential rodents that we are.
Caddyshack is one of those movies, like Citizen Kane and Boogie Nights, in which each new viewing reveals uncharted depths. And oh! how it resonates, its little balls of wisdom pinging off of leafy oaks and into the rough of everyday life. Just yesterday I was standing in line at Cantwell's waiting for another brilliant chicken salad sandwich with avocado and sprouts on wheat to take back to my windowless office, and again I started chuckling darkly -- who is that woman standing in public snickering to herself again? It must be Mrs. Kennedy -- because lately I've been wondering: when will come that portion of life wherein you get to do the thing you love for a living? And who but the ghost of Ted Knight strode up to my mind's eye, as he did in that scene where the kid who has eleven brothers and sisters and can't afford college is asking about the caddy scholarship, and grumpy, put-upon, ghostly, lama-like Ted says to all of us, "The world needs ditch-diggers, too."
I guess, Ted.