Now that I think of it, movie theaters were abundant where I grew up in Dayton, Ohio. Just in our little neck of the woods, we had five, as I recall. They were Fox North Cinema, Loew’s Theatre, Page Manor, the Salem Mall, and the Kon-Tiki. All of them seemed nice, at least by the measures of some snot-nosed eight-year-old kid who loved popcorn.
It was a treat to go and see a movie on the big screen. I don’t ever remember being disappointed by a movie either, save for one. “Bed Knobs and Broomsticks” was a complete disaster to my little mind. Too many things floated in the air, cheapening the plot, according to younger me.
Regardless, I think I saw it at the Kon-Tiki Theater, my first visit there. I wondered about the place. They definitely had the Polynesian theme going, and at the entrance were two, eight-foot tall wood tikis, with menacing faces, standing on either side of the door. It gave me the quivers.
As I grew older, I thought it was odd that such a foreign-looking theater would be dropped down in the middle of Dayton, Ohio, of all places. If the internet was readily available back then, I could have searched for answers.
All of this came to me this morning as I read through the day’s historical events. I noticed a photo of Thor Heyerdahl, and his look made me want to know more.
Heyerdahl was born in Norway on October 6, 1918. Today’s date. Happy Birthday, Thor. Who names their kid Thor, by the way? Except for Odin, the father of Thor, God of War. But I digress. Back to Mr. and Mrs. Heyerdahl and their Thor.
Thor Heyerdahl was an Ethnographer, Archaeologist, and Explorer. I wasn’t sure about ethnography until I looked it up. It is the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures. Ethnography, ethnic, I get it now.
Anyway, he spent his life exploring just those things. Traveling the world, finding out about people and their cultures and the information about their pasts. Like where they came from and how they lived their lives.
He wondered how people got to the places where they did. And on many occasions, he decided to prove it. Heyerdahl caught the public’s attention with his daring expeditions. His endeavors increased public interest in archaeology and ancient history.
So, in 1947, he took a journey on a little boat, a watercraft he and his buddies made themselves. It was called, of all things, the Kon-Tiki. By doing this, Heyerdahl and five fellow adventurers demonstrated that long-distance ocean voyages, in little ancient boats, were quite possible.
In the Kon-Tiki, Heyerdahl sailed 5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean on that hand-built raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands in French Polynesia.
The success of their trip showed how ancient people could have sailed long, long distances in ‘simple’ boats and rafts, allowing them to colonize the remote Pacific islands.
For the record, Kon-Tiki is another name for the Inca sun god, Viracocha. “Kon-Tiki” was said to be an old name. Kind of how Prince changed his name to that little symbol for a while. Maybe Virachocha thought his name was an upgrade from Kon Tiki.
Regardless, just as those rafts moved the early people from South America to the Polynesian Islands, Heyerdahl’s boat moved from foreign waters to an old movie theater on Salem Avenue. Again, we see the connection between unrelated points, joining somehow, with angled lines through space and time.
Another example of our Universe, moving it all around, bumping into one another, dancing together, ducking and dodging, diving in, holding back. It puts me in awe of the simultaneous expansiveness of it all alongside the absolute closeness. The infinitely large connected to the incessantly small.
And here I am. Stuck in the middle with you.
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“We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.”
― Ray Bradbury
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“There’s as many atoms in a single molecule of your DNA as there are stars in the typical galaxy. We are, each of us, a little universe.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos
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“The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson
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The big Tiki and me. Together again.
