Omaha Boy Done Good

Alexander Payne seems to be doing rather well with the myriad movie awards that are being announced.

{Insert random story of trying to weasel in next to accomplished people here}

Now, I don't know if this is accurate or not, but my sister Susie claims Alexander grew up two blocks away from us in Omaha and that she and my brother Mike know him.

Whenever Susie goes to Omaha, she has this habit of doing drive-by's. I've been in the car with her a few times when the urge to drive-by places familiar to her hits her. It's always interesting. This past January, when everyone was in town for the parentals 50th Wedding Anniversary party, I hitched a ride back to my other sister's house with her and her family. Fortunately, Susie has a son who, at that time, had just received his license, so we were taken care of in the designated driver department.

Poor Austin. He was trying to be the only adult in the car, because the rest of us were intoxicated, and she kept thwarting his ambitions by saying, "oh, slow down!" This happened on 52nd Street, where we passed by the house she said Alexander grew up in. She also said she called our brother Mike a couple of weeks previous to ask him---at one in the morning---why he hadn't told her that the Alexander Payne who co-wote and directed About Schmidt was the same Alexander Payne they'd grown up with? Mike, being the taciturn individual that he can be, blew her off. The fact that she'd called him at one in the morning had much to do with said blowing off, I believe.

Payne has filmed most of his movies in Omaha. This is no big secret. Yet, despite the fact that part of Citizen Ruth was filmed in our old neighborhood---Dundee--- and it's been said that he grew up there as well, I didn't think anyone in my family actually, like, knew him. I can't imagine there were a lot of Alexander Payne's running around in our old neighborhood.

Hmmph. So it could be true. I'm not sure. And I don't suppose we'll ever find out because I have a hard time imagining Alexander and Susie running into one another nowadays. Yet, it's always good to point out that stranger things have happened.

Posted by Kathy at December 13, 2004 02:34 PM