NEWTON'S LAW: GHOSTS ON MY WALL: NOSTALGIA AND LOST ART IN HOME MOVIES

Old pictures have big ears,

Don't stop to count the years.

Sweet songs never last too long

on broken radios.

From the song "Sam Stone"

by John Prine

One of the delights of ABC's "The Wonder Years" is that it gets everything right. Its music, its mood, its wistful comedy ... all are on the mark.

Rarely does a television show work at several different levels; this one does. My children enjoy it from their own youthful perspective. It appeals to me, however, because Kevin Arnold's boyhood years roughly parallel my own; the sole advantage of coming of age in Richard Nixon's America is the added enjoyment you take from this show.

One of the things that works best on "The Wonder Years" is the use of carefully filmed home movies to build layers on the nostalgia. It is masterful photography, expertly amateurish; enormous skill is required to be so consciously inept and these home movies are flawless in their imperfections.

Experience again provides me with some extra meaning here. My family was fluent in the language of Brownie 8-millimeter film making. When my parents' estate was apportioned several years ago, my siblings appointed me curator of these screen gems.

I was glad to do it. Every few years I would fish them from a drawer and project them onto a white wall to the howls of my kids, who would then spend the rewind time creating hand shadows.

If you saw these films, it would just be "The Wonder Years," people you don't really know with hyperactive movements and various appendages cut off by jittery camera work. Indoor scenes were highlighted by squinted eyes; the light kit was no hotter than Hell.

You would recognize a lot: the burr-headed boys in scout uniforms, the Easter dresses, the Halloween costumes and the snow suits. There are hump-backed cars long as barges and marching bands parading down small town streets.

My family spent a lot more time on fishing piers than I remember. We must have been at a perpetual picnic, a never-ending birthday party.

These people I know, and there is no shortage of poignancy in the scenes. Here is the place you can freeze innocence: the skinny boy in the letter jacket flashes from the projector without knowing he will soon fly in Vietnam. The girl with the frilly dress and overbite has no idea she will one day defend a doctoral dissertation.

My mother gets a hug from me, 30 years removed. She is young and chic in a black dress, looking more like a backup singer for Don Henley than the woman who would shape my thinking. My father is there, top button buttoned but without a tie. This used to drive me crazy; now Tom Cruise does it.

My dad leans over to whisper something in my mom's ear, and she smiles. What could it have been?

Ghosts on a wall, my wall. I love them.

The Brownie 8 projector operates with the volume of a motorcycle now and replacement parts have long been voided from inventories. I allowed technology to take its course and had the films preserved on videotape.

The images aren't as sharp as when light is shown through them, but the sentiment is in place.

Our memories are kind. That is a pleasant aspect of our existence, one not touched by cynicism. Adolescent uncertainty is best viewed as nostalgia. The fun of childhood, however, is allowed to linger.