What do the Internal Revenue Service, Disneyland and “The Shawshank Redemption” have in common?
Each played an integral part in Oregon offensive lineman Jim Adams’ formative years. No, Jim wasn’t hunted by the government’s tax hounds and thrown in Maine’s notorious state prison. But he loves the 1994 film starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, and his parents, Richard and Connie, work for the IRS office in Laguna Niguel, Calif. — his dad as a fraud investigator and his mom as a problem resolution specialist.
He recalls that when he logged on to the family computer to play “Pong,” he had to enter four passwords just to reach the program. The IRS demanded Jim’s dad keep a tight lid on confidential financial files.
Disneyland? Jim was all over that place as a youngster. When he was 9 years old, his family moved to Fullerton, Calif., a sunny city of 124,000 only 30 minutes by freeway from America’s playground. On holidays, his relatives would line up visits with Jim’s family so the kids could romp across The Matterhorn and Space Mountain. Jim was a savvy navigator of the amusement park’s unending lines, and he loved to check out the glitz and cartoon glam of the Electrical Parade and its firework show.
Slowly, Mickey Mouse and company were supplanted in Jim’s imagination by a stream of silver screen classics from Hollywood.
“I love movies,” Adams says. “In high school, we went to the beach or to the Spectrum, an outdoor mall with movie theaters.”
“The Shawshank Redemption” ranks highest on Jim’s list of must-sees because of its undeniable assertion that attitude determines reality. He finds it comforting on overcast and spongy Eugene days when his mood tends to tank.
“Especially when that line hits,” Adams says. “When he’s driving along the coast and Morgan Freeman is narrating something like, ‘Andy Dufresne waddled through 500 yards of crap and still came out clean on the other side.’”
When he’s not watching movies, studying game film, practicing or hanging with friends, Jim is working toward a history major. He loves to study the implications, causes and strategies of war, and says, not lightheartedly, that America’s response to the terrorist attacks is warranted.
“It’s something we had to do” because if the terrorist’s actions had gone unchecked, they would have become emboldened to commit further atrocities, Adams says.
The circumstances leading to America’s actions and the resolution of its war on terrorism may be subjects touched on in Jim’s class some day. He would like to teach high school classes and coach football.
“Well, I like the idea of coaching football because when my time is up, I want to continue to be involved in it somehow,” Adams says. “And I like the idea of teaching because you get summers off.”