“For me, the best memory of watching the Wizard of Oz was a bit over a year and a half ago, when I was hospitalized. I hadn’t been long at Navy boot camp when I got sick – even now I don’t really know what it was I came down with, some sort of stomach virus, severe enough to warrant my being taken to the hospital. By random luck, I ended up taken not to the on-base VA hospital, but instead a regular civilian one. So here I was, in terrible shape, alone, with everyone I cared about hundreds of miles away. After several hours of waiting in the ER to be seen, they finally take me up to my room. After even a short amount of time in boot camp, the last thing I expected was to end up in a room with a television set. Up to that point, from when I’d left, I’d been almost entirely cut off from the outside world. You don’t realize how much you miss things like that until you experience it first hand. As I was flipping through the channels, the Wizard of Oz happened to be starting on one. It was like being hit with a slice of home, and despite the illness, I felt a great deal of comfort come over me as I watched. Here, at least, was something familiar. Like the feeling of an old friend you haven’t seen in years. That was the point at which I realized that things would be alright; there would always be the wonderful small things to take pleasure in, no matter how bad things could seem.”
– Sarah S.
“I may not have a specific memory linked to The Wizard of Oz, but it is how the movie as a whole has shaped my childhood that has left a lasting impact on who I am. According to stories that my mother has told me, I have loved this movie since before I could talk, which is apparent in the fact that “wee woz” was one of my first phrases as a toddler (The Wizard of Oz is a little too difficult for a 2-year-old to master). I would walk up to our VHS tapes and pull out this movie saying “wee woz! wee woz!” over and over until my mother would put in the tape for me to watch, sometimes up to 4 times a day. Since then I have lost count of how many times I have dressed up as a Munchkin/Dorothy/Wicked Witch for Halloween and have owned about 8 different copies of the movie because I still can’t get enough of it. Now at 24 I still watch The Wizard of Oz whenever I’m feeling down or homesick because sometimes it’s nice to feel like a little girl again.”
– Elizabeth M.
“I had never seen the movie as an adult until I met my best friend, who by anyone’s standard is a Wizard of OZ expert. Needless to say, we watched it many times and I quickly fell in love with the movie.
My favorite memory was a few years back when the movie was re-released. It was probably the last night it was going to be in our local theater, so I took my friend.
We were the only two people in a 300 seat theater and spent the entire movie singing at the top of our lungs (he has a good voice, me not so much) and dancing in the aisles. (even the theater tech was enjoying the scene!)
It was a few hours of pure enjoyment of a classic and a time I will never forget.”
– Suzanne S.