80-year-old all the time hanging around with young boys and girls, teenagers, old women. It's just not normal. What about some neighbours of his own age. He probably gets along better with feeble or feminine types.
shareUh Oh OP! That reads like guilt there. Got something to confess? LOL
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What about some neighbours of his own age.OMG! The movie was all about not being able to pick your neighbours, but still making a good fist of things after that. Another OP with a short attention span! share
Adding to the positive posts above, maybe Walt was more than a little lonely as a brand new widower?
My wife and I bought our first house in the late 90's. We didn't become friends with the neighbors who were a few years older than us, we became friends with the neighbors who were forty+ years older than us.
We went out to dinner with them a few times, had them over for dinner a few times, visited them when they moved and they visited us when we bought a new house. And, my wife used to keep in touch on FaceBook until this past spring when our former neighbor (the wife) passed away. (The husband doesn't like computers.)
What is bitter-sweet about it too is that in some ways we had the Walt/Thoa relationship. My neighbor got home from WW2 and started a construction business which kept him busy for the next 40 years - so he missed out a lot on his children's childhood.
By the time I met him, he was retired and had more time. And, since I'm interested in history, I got him to open up and tell me about his experience in the war. I also got the wife to tell us about what it was like on the home-front.
She later told me that he'd never talked that much about the war with anyone but her before. He wasn't on the front lines in Europe or landing on beaches in the Pacific, but he did see action. And, it wasn't until about 10 years or so ago when they started running articles in our local paper about our aging vets and their stories that he ever really talked to his own children about his experiences.
I will say that his grand children are a lot better than Walt's were.
I will respond to this topic with a quotation from a master-peace, '12 Angry Man'. Juror number 9, Joseph Sweeney [who is also an old man]:
«I think I know this man better than anyone here. This is a quiet, frightened, significant old man who has been nothing all his life. Who has never had recognition for his name in the newspapers. Nobody knows him. Nobody quotes him. Nobody seeks his advice after 75 years. Gentlemen, that's a very sad thing - to mean nothing. A man like this needs to be quoted, to be listened to. To be quoted just once - very important to him.»
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The reason Walt "hangs out" with the teenagers is he is trying to HELP them. Walt at one point even says to himself "This kid doesn't stand a chance" when he sees the gangbangers driving by his house. They explain this in the movie. Walt saves Thao at the beginning of the movie when his cousin tries to kidnap him for the initiation ritual. Later, Walt sees Thao helping an old lady with her groceries. He sees redeeming qualities in Thao and wants to give him a future. He teaches him construction and even gets him a job. Walt's family are a bunch of spoiled rotten lazy idiots. Walt says in the movie, "I have more in common with these *beep* than my own spoiled rotten family." So, he sort of "adopts" the Hmong family as his own. Its not a "friendship." Walt is lonely and the Hmong family and Walt become like family to each other. There was nothing weird or not normal about the relationship.
shareIt wasn't all the time. The young kid just worked for him, the family just visited him when they needed something. Occasionally there was a BBQ, why wouldn't the invite the neighbour who has helped them out so much?
He didn't have a friendship with them, he had a grandfather-to-grandchild sorta relationship with them.
Our seven kids often had their friends over. More than a few friends had no one at home and came over even if our kids weren't home. It's been twenty years now, all the kids are adults and we continue to be friends. It evolves because we learn, grow up, and then just enjoy people for being people.
shareThe last couple of times I've been around my best friend and his parents, I spent more time talking with his parents than him. It was for the same reason as why I encourage him and his family (and all of my friends with parents still living) to do as much stuff with their parents as possible. You never know when they are going to be gone.
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