At this point, I have to assume my favourite movie will never be other than the original Wizard of Oz. When I was in elementary school, it used to play every Christmas on our black and white television. There was no Netflix or other way to see it on demand, you had to wait a whole year. I never saw the black and white yellow brick road to be anything but yellow. I did not think of the yellow brick road in symbolic terms, that it apparently represented the gold standard – pursuing the road to wealth, realizing that would never make you happy as “there is no place like home”. It did not matter that the silver shoes in the original book had been turned into ruby slippers for the movie which was filmed in “technicolour” once Dorothy landed in Oz (ruby and silver look the same in black and white).
Little did I know, until I played my favourite movie for my first daughter, when she was maybe two or three, that the scene with the flying monkeys made that movie a horror movie for her. We never got to the end until she was older. For some reason, I don’t think we share the same favourite movie, first impressions count.
Rather than read bedtime stories to my daughters, as an exhausted working mother I would often recount stories from memory, lying down with the lights off (and hope they would doze off before me). One of those stories was Goldilocks and the Three Bears. That was safe territory, no Cocaine Bear, and Goldilocks makes it safely home. I did not know that the original version apparently had that curious little girl, not following the rules, set on fire by the bears. Revisionist history abounded long before Disney made the upcoming Peter Pan & Wendy (so far we know Wendy has star billing and the “lost boys” are not all boys).
Back to our little innocent trespasser who is the source of the concept of the Goldilocks Zone – most popularly referencing that area where scientists look to locate Earth-size planets where there could be water, and then life. It is also known as the habitable zone – not too hot and not too cold.
People have a Goldilocks Zone in relation to the size of community in which they like to live as well. I read a recent article stating that part of the doctor shortage in Red Deer has to do with medical schools directing their students to big cities or rural communities and Red Deer falls between the cracks. There is another way to see it – for some Red Deer would be not too big and not too small – right in the Goldilocks Zone.
Speaking of child heroes on golden roads or with golden locks, all children deserve to live in the Goldilocks Zone, but many do not. Here in our Goldilocks Zone community, we have the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Center (CACAC). This International Women’s Day (March 8), they are holding their first: She Is… Leadership Event – an inclusive event with an opportunity to be inspired, share experiences and explore strategies to build better future leaders. Please support their work and this event, hope to see you there!
Donna Purcell, K.C., (aka Lady Justice) is a Central Alberta lawyer and Chief Innovation Officer with Donna Purcell QC Law. If you have legal questions, contact dpurcell@dpqclaw.com.