Be Like Indy
On fighting evil and having childhood dreams come true.
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a nun. And then an archeologist.
Not that I really knew what an archeologist was, but for my money, it involved travelling to remote destinations, a bit of detective work, and then a lot of very careful digging. Possibly, there were also libraries full of enormous leather-bound books with improbably tiny or decorative scripts. I imagined squinting over dusty tomes, deciphering ancient mysteries, and perhaps traipsing through jungles and deserts on a trail of relics that would help piece together the history of the rise and fall of a forgotten culture. It will thus come as no surprise to you, dear reader, that the favorite movies of my childhood featured Harrison Ford with a whip and a hat, shooting Nazis and dodging giant balls of doom in pursuit of ancient artifacts.
The Last Crusade, when Indy goes to Petra in search of the Holy Grail, was my favorite by far. That scene when we first get a glimpse of the Treasury is still so clear in my mind — probably because I watched it so many times, green with envy and humming the theme song. (Full disclosure: I still do that.) For the kid that I was, stuck in a then-communist country, getting to Petra became a life goal, a symbol of all I could hope to do with my life.
