I am not a beach person. Don’t like the sand, hot sun, crowds, noises, and those damn shark week TV specials. My guilty summer pleasure is watching and re-watching the original Jaws movie.

I am not interested in the shark. My favorite scenes are those verbal battles fought between actor Roy Scheider’s character, Sheriff Martin Brody and Murray Hamilton’s character, Mayor Larry Vaughn.

Murray Hamilton played the role of Mayor perfectly in his polyester suits. He delivered his “profit vs shark attack” arguments with such ease and not an ounce of guilt. He sounded like a real politician.

I admit, I over-identified with Sheriff Brody. I become emotionally worn out every time I watched Brody try to reason with Mayor Vaughn and his political/business machine.

Most recently, I have fantasized about creating a new Jaws movie poster. In my updated version, the shark (aka the perfect eating machine) would be replaced by another more diabolical eating machine: The Big Dig!

And even now, I cannot look at signs for the Boston Olympics 2024 without hearing Mayor Vaughn voice and the Jaws soundtrack. The shark is coming!

 

Janet Cormier is a painter, writes prose and poetry, and performs comedy. JC prefers different and original over pretty. She loves collecting stuff, but cleaning not so much. Janet also talks to strangers…a lot. Her column appears regularly in Oddball Magazine.