There’s No Place Like Home

“There’s no place like home,” laments Dorothy Gale in the 75-year-old film, “The Wizard of Oz.”

Don’t we all wish that some days we could just click our heels together and be transported to a place, “where troubles melt like lemon drops…”

Generation after generation have rooted for the downtrodden and identified with the Cowardly Lion who only wants to roar, the Scarecrow who only wants a brain, the Tin Man who only wants a heart, and the star, Dorothy, who finds that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence even in Emerald City. Art imitating life.

The world needed “Oz” in 1938 after years of the Great Depression to send the ever optimistic message that we should never give up, that “the dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true.” That message resonates today.

Those who study these things writes that “Oz” is full of symbolism.

The Wizard behind the curtain represented the impending world war.

The ruby red slippers were red to show power. That “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was a not too subtle message that the dreary life that orphan Dorothy lived in Kansas was going to improve as the film went from black and white to the then new Technicolor.

“If little bluebirds’ teach us anything it is that even on our worst day, we are lucky. As actor, Kevin Spacey, is quoted as saying, “If you are lucky enough to get to the top, remember to send the elevator back down.”

During this season, open your hand and close your eyes and give someone a helping hand and help make someone’s dreams come true.