ONCE. EVERY. YEAR. Right? Just once, which is only part of why it’s so special to you. And if you think The Wizard of Oz is important to you now, just wait. To a great extent, the rest of your life will be defined by that movie and the memory of watching it in the living room with your family. Once. Every. Year.

By the time you’re a grown-up you will have pretty much committed the movie to memory and will cite it often because—as you may have already guessed—its characters, songs, jokes, wise cracks, and especially its lessons can be effortlessly applied to virtually any situation.

In the future, you won’t have to wait for it to come around on TV, and you won’t have to put up with all the commercials either. In the future people will have machines that play movies just like record players can now play music. The movies themselves will come in the form of little plastic records that slide into the machine and project the movie onto your television screen. Pretty neato, huh? Well, yes and no. It will be nice for you to have a library of all your favorite movies, and very convenient to watch them whenever you want. But the thrill of waiting for that one day each year will be gone, and when you are all grown up you will realize that the yearly viewing of The Wizard of OZ was actually something like a holiday. Because, like Christmas, Easter, and your birthday it came around only ONCE. EVERY. YEAR.

Then, sadly, because you can watch it anytime, you find that you rarely watch it at all. And when you do—though it will always bring a smile to your face—it won’t have the magnitude of something you had to wait for. That will make you a little sad for a while, until one day you find you can share it with your own kids…and even with their kids who will be seeing it for the very first time. And watching it through their eyes will be something like a miracle. But I’m getting way ahead of myself here.

Right now you know only that the movie is funny and exciting and a little scary. And when it’s on you get to have popcorn. But there are other reasons why this particular movie captivates you and I suspect, as young as you are, you still know what I’m talking about.

One reason is that you’ve now reached an age where your life has become pretty routine, and so you fantasize about escape. And what better way to escape than to be swept up in a tornado and whisked away to a magical land where the impossible is routine. Falling down a rabbit hole to Wonderland, and flying off with Peter to Never-Never Land, would also suffice, but that tornado…yeah that’s the biggie. And besides, tornadoes are real. That kind of adventure would really be something, wouldn’t it? Well, I’m not gonna tell you too much right now, but let’s just say that this fantasy is really not as far-fetched as you may think. In the faraway future you’ll be able to look back and realize that you and Dorothy Gale had more in common than you could ever imagine now.

Another reason (and perhaps you aren’t really aware of this one) is that so far you’ve only gotten to see it in Black and White. You know that once Dorothy arrives in Oz the movie shifts from black and white to glorious Technicolor, but you’ve always had to take Mom’s word for it. She saw the movie for the first time in a theater when she was about your age, and she clued you in. But here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter, does it? And, in fact, when you do finally get to see the restored color version you may find that it doesn’t quite live up to your expectations. Why? Because now you have to use your imagination to provide the color. And your imagination will always be one of your greatest strengths. So watch The Wizard of OZ on your Black and White TV and color it yourself. It’s always better that way anyhow.

The final reason is “Home.” “There’s no place like home.” Dorothy had this great adventure, in a “real truly live place,” where some things weren’t very nice, but “most of it…was beautiful.” Still, all she kept telling everyone was that she wanted to go home. Well, pal, you are home right now, and with all the limitations and the sometimes grueling routine, home is still a wonderful place to be. In the future you will miss it so much it will hurt. Try not to be in such a hurry. And know that your adventures are coming.