Here's Johnny...

Cass Elliot was talking to Johnny Carson on TV last week. During a commercial break, as has become our habit, we Googled to read a little bit more about her.

The show aired on May 7, 1974. Cass died on July 29th of that same year.

We've been watching the old Tonight Show episodes, which have been airing nightly on one of those channels that shows nothing but reruns and sells stuff to old people. I feel a little like a voyeur, peering at these comedians and singers and actors and some regular folks, too, knowing what is going to happen to them in the years to come. If they will marry (or stay married), have children and, in too many cases, when and how they will end their days.

Watching Robin Williams in his prime. Could there be anyone funnier? And Richard Pryor, almost subdued, but hilarious. And now, Gary Shandling. These are the comics of my time, and I struggle not to cry, even as I laugh. They were amazing.

There are times of irony, too.

An actress called Kay Lenz was chatting with Johnny about how her career came first and she had no interest in marrying anyone, etc.  I did my Google magic. The show was filmed in 1976. The following year, she married David Cassidy. (And divorced in 1983.)

Then there are the icons of my parents' generation. Jack Lemon. Jackie Gleason. Betty Davis. Shelly Winters. And on and on. 

Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way. It's possible other people watch the reruns and turn off the television without a thought. But these folks stay in my head.

Sometimes I imagine my own life flickering away on a screen in my mind. How will it all turn out?

Stay tuned.

Being A-Mazed

Judd Nelson (as you saw him in The Breakfast Club) wanted me to meet him at Applebee's on Lorain Road. I was much younger, unmarried, and willing.

So began my very vivid dream the other night.


I thought meeting Judd would be a piece of cake. I know where Lorain Road is, surely I could find the Applebee's.

Nope.

First of all, for some reason, I was on foot. Then I found myself wandering through car dealerships, a street carnival (complete with merry-go-round) and a whole host of stores. I asked for directions but got no help. In the end, I awoke, frustrated that Judd and I would never get together, wondering if he was sitting in an Applebee's somewhere in his dreams, waiting for me.

The thing is, I get lost a lot in my nocturnal rambles through dreamland. I don't know if it's because I have such a lousy sense of direction, or if incidents from my childhood are coming back to haunt me. Although I wasn't in the habit of getting lost, there was that one time...

My parents and younger brother and I went to the art museum so my folks could culture us up. I was at the surly teen stage (much to my everlasting shame and embarrassment). I did not want to be seen with my family. I was so cool (not ever). Anyhow, I wandered away to admire the treasures all around me, and I was pulled into the labyrinth of paintings and sculpture and such. Then I realized I was well and truly lost. In a panic, I began searching for my folks, zipping from room to room, each time ending up in the same place I'd started. Eventually, one of the guards stopped me and helped me to find my clan. My father was furious. My mom was relieved. I don't recall my brother's reaction, but he was probably disappointed that I'd come back.

Karma is a you-know-what. We were shopping with my young son, when he decided to hide under a rack of clothes and "surprise" us. He was definitely surprised when he got a crack on the rear end for scaring the crap out of us -- along with the lecture every parent gives their child about strangers and such.

The more famous disappearing act our son pulled was during an autumn trip to a farm with his preschool class. There was a hay maze, and Mr. Ginley was waiting patiently at the end of it for the lad to come out. Then he was waiting not-so-patiently, and asked another child if he'd seen our kid. The boy replied that there was a child in the maze who was sitting and crying because he was lost. So Mr. went in and got him. (Can a sense -- or lack of sense -- of direction be hereditary?)

We all get lost sometimes. Finding our way out of the hay maze can be very trying.

 I just hope that whenever I'm lost, there's someone who wants to find me.

It doesn't have to be Judd Nelson.

Singing Right Along

In a fit of nostalgia, I grabbed a Mitch Miller CD on my way out the door the other morning.

As is the case with a lot of old songs, I was singing right along (which is what you are supposed to do with Mitch Miller, after all), when I began to pay attention to the words.

It may seem odd to you that a professed writer hadn't given much thought to the lyrics before. But for some reason, the songs of my childhood soaked into my brain, seemingly by osmosis, and stuck, without question. But on this particular day, I started to listen as I sang.

And then I laughed and marveled at how things change.

She's got a pair of hips just like two battleships. I give her everything to keep her in style. Well, well, well, she wears silk underwear, I wear my last year's pair. Say, boys, that's where my money goes.*

Huh?

Then there was a song, a master of innuendo, called Sweet Violets.

There once was a farmer who took a young miss
In back of the barn where he gave her a...
Lecture on horses and chickens and eggs.

I began to listen and pay attention to the rest of the tunes. The "next" stanzas.

For example, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, which always seemed like a nice tune about a woman pining for her man who'd gone off to war or something. Stanza three goes like this:

Behind the door, her father kept a shotgun. 
He kept in the springtime and in the month of May
Hey, Hey, and if you ask him why the heck he kept it
He kept it for her lover who is far, far away.

Hold on there, Tonto. I decided to go to my friend the Google and learn more. I found a crap-ton of versions. One involves a baby and calls the MIA in question a cowboy rather than a lover (although he was apparently both).

Well, now, this was an eye-opener.

Finally, I came to You Are My Sunshine. After my dad passed away, my mom told me he would sing this to her in bed every night.

Apparently, he only sang the first verse.

The tune is about a guy who is pining because the love of his life left him. At one point in the song he even issues a mild threat about how she'll be sorry.

Holy Cats!

When my son was a toddler, he listened to Raffi and Mary Poppins and such. Although, to be fair, Mr. Ginley did expose him to a fair amount of rock and roll. So I suppose it could be argued that our boy listened to his share of inappropriate tunes.

But, if they were appropriate, Mr. Ginley would often change the lyrics and render then unsuitable anyhow.

That's how we roll. And that's how we've given our son more material for his future based-on-real-life TV sitcom.



Notes:  *From a military variation of a folk song called My Gal's a Corker. Sweet Violets was penned by Joseph Emmet in 1882.   She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is derivative of a folk song/poem that goes back many generations. You Are My Sunshine is attributed to Paul Rice, who sold it to Jimmie Davis, who made it famous in 1939.

Bully, Bully

Mine was a very protected upbringing. I grew up in the suburbs, went to school with a ton of kids who had very similar backgrounds and attended church every Sunday.

I experienced schoolgirl crushes, listened with rapt attention to the weekly rock and roll countdown on the radio and watched all the prime time programs I could.

In the summer, I played outside until the street lights came on, rode my bike all over the place and made up games to relieve boredom.

Then came high school. And the bullying.

Every nail that sticks up gets knocked down, and I was no exception. First, it was the clothes my mom made me that incited ridicule. I soon learned to modify or eliminate certain items in my wardrobe, but I couldn't bring myself to tell my mom what was going on. My sister finally did. Mom, bless her, got a few new patterns and started to sew bell bottoms in material I picked out, and that helped.

Then I stuck my head up again.

In an expression of individuality (or weirdness), I latched onto the idea of making caps. Using leftover material (and some that I purchased from the fabric store), I made several and wore them to school. Some of the kids thought they were cool. Then came the note from one of my classmates.

"We don't want you to sit at our lunch table anymore. You're scaring away the boys with your clothes."

I was crushed. I didn't yet possess the emotional security to tell them to go screw themselves. I simply sat by myself for awhile until I found a new group of kids who welcomed me into their fold.

Even more distressing was that about this time my friend, Carolyn, abandoned me, too. She and I had been inseparable in junior high school. She told me I was immature.

I gave up. I spent the remainder of my high school years so desperately quiet that most of my classmates forgot I was there. I never went to a prom. I hated school so much that I never entertained the possibility of attending college. The only thing I loved about that time was working in the print shop in my senior year.

There has been a lot of attention paid to bullying, and that's a good thing. Although telling kids not to bully doesn't work. Giving the bullied kids the tools to deal with their tormentors is better. Exposing the bullies for what they are to take away their power is the best.

If only we could do that to a certain Republican presidential candidate.