Laughing At Myself

Nearly two weeks ago, I stayed home on a Saturday night (shocker!) alone and remembered a good friend's birthday was coming along in a matter of hours.  I always recall her love of a certain male singer from the 70s and how one year for her birthday, he happened to be in the newspaper decked out in silver lame' and platform shoes, fashion staples of the 70s.  I rounded up as many of those newspapers as I could find and carefully trimmed his silhouette from the page, pasting them up everywhere I could think she would find them the next day when she arrived to work at 6am.  That is a memory the two of us will share forever and be able to always laugh, recalling all the places not noticeable at a first glance she found "her Barrys."  This time, I had to be a little less creative, but I still managed to find a nice video on Youtube of a perfectly coifed and fashionably supreme, sparkly Barry Manilow singing what I'm pretty sure she once told me was her favorite song, "Mandy."  In my quest for 70s Barry, I began to think of my own life in the 70s.  I may have been a bit young to idolize Mr. Manilow, but I had my own crushes and memories of celebrities of that time.  A high school acquaintance has brought quite a bit of 70s music back to life for me.  I even find myself tuning in to satellite radio stations that play mostly, if not all music from that time.  I find myself recognizing quite a bit of it and having flashbacks of summer vacations and bus rides to and from school.  It's amazing how a certain line or melody makes you remember the road trip to visit your aunt in South Carolina when you were about 6 or 7 and how you and your sister took turns sleeping on the floor of the green Ford Torino, your dad waited until the last minute to check the fluids and change the oil before you left around 1am.  You woke up to the sound of Peaches and Herb singing "Reunited" and sat up to ask your dad one more time "Are we there yet?"  To which he'd answer, "no, go back to sleep!"  I can still hear him sigh and know he's hoping he scared me enough to actually go back to sleep and it makes me chuckle.

I remember how much I loved Captain and Tenille's "Love Will Keep Us Together."  I think I knew all the words and danced around without a care in the world.  When I found out they were going to have a TV show of their own, look out!  I was there, to watch the Captain in his funny hat and watch them play their keyboards frantically.  I think it may have sparked an interest in me to play piano.  I vaguely remember a picture of my 2 or 3-year-old sister and me, at about 5, where you can plainly see, the fingers on my visible hand seem to be playing a cord!  As I kept exploring on Youtube that night, I found a few videos of my old faves and laughed as I recounted how excited I was whenever I knew they were on, be it radio or TV.

What I found next on Youtube, was practically the holy grail of my youth (from the 70s anyway.)  Donny & Marie!!!!!  Oh my gosh, I began to view clip after clip of the openings from their 70s hit variety show.  I felt about 4 years old again!  I had a major crush on Donny at that tender age.  I even "shared" a link from one of the openings on Facebook and recounted a tale of a young Jenn, who HAD to watch the show every week and HAD to have her bath finished well in advance of the show's opening.  This one night, it appeared my mom was too wrapped up in something else, possibly my sister, so I proceeded to draw my own bath water, as a four-year-old (imagine the temperature of that!)  And I couldn't find the shampoo, so I instead used the Safeguard bar soap to wash my hair in that ice-cube riddled water!  But I was finished JUST in the nick of time to see the opening.  The determination and independence in that little kid still exists today!

When I told my mom last week how I'd posted that story of my mad-dash-bath before Donny & Marie, she asked me "Why do you put stuff like that on there?"  My first instinct was to say "It's a funny story about me as a kid, don't you think it's funny?"  She just stared at me, puzzled and never replied.  I guess parents will always want us to just "go back to sleep."  But me, I think I prefer the ability to just keep laughing at myself.  What harm is there in it anyhow?