Over forty years later...and I can STILL recall the words to this song!
Mornings before leaving for first grade at Grandview school, I'd eat cinnamon toast and watch The Lone Ranger, with my brother, Brad.
My mom still laughs when she recalls my pleas, as a little girl, to listen to 'Harry Weasner' on tv....
Rarely did I miss a Saturday morning with Captain Kangaroo!
I didn't even mind the commercials that came along...particularly, Marvel the Mustang!
But...I got a REAL mustang ...and 1966....and drove it all through high school and college.
I had the Beatles...all of them, back then....In particular, John Lennon.... Just Imagine...if he were still with us today....
On my Christmas list...Chatty Cathy!
and Barbie!
...and a 'Slinky'!
or what about a Mr. Potato Head family????
What about commercials? Like...Mr. Whipple and squeezable Charmin.... and Ewell Gibbons' Grape Nuts 'Back to Nature'....
Saturday mornings were spent in our Lone Ranger pajamas, with bowls of cereal, in front of the television watching cartoons from Merry Melodies....And they were'nt very politically correct, let me tell you! You'll see what I mean...
My mother...a talented interior decorator.... decorated my bedroom walls with these two framed posters...I love them!
In high school, I'd come home from a night out with my friends and stop in the den to say goodnight to my parents...who, invariably were watching Johnny Carson. My dad always loved this particular rerun of Ed Ames and the 'tomahawk' scene!
We all loved 'Carnac, the Magnificent'....and 'El Moldo' and reporting a theft to Sgt. Friday...
But....oh, how I loved Mary Tyler Moore! Watching Mary, the career girl making it in the big city of Minneapolis, sent me dreaming of just that life and took me through my 'coming-of-age-years in the '70s
....and could she sing and dance on the Dick Van Dyke Show!
And Dick? Well....as a little girl, I just knew that I'd be able to jump off the porch with an umbrella and softly float down to earth....just like Mary Poppins.
Nonetheless, I believe the first time I went to a movie, was with my mom to see Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra...I think that I was about five years old....
I loved watching the opening to my favorite show, Bewitched....and, later, watching, Bewitched: the magic unveiled.....The Brady Bunch....Goldie Hawn and more Goldie on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In....
...and what about our British model idol....Twiggy?
And flying up, up, and away with the Fifth Dimension and daydream believin' . Yes, when it came to the '60s....I was a Believer....in magic....And, to see a great view of those fantastic nehru jackets and didn't we all wish, back then, that our parents had named us Valerie? or Sweet Caroline or a girl named Renee? What about the beautiful Dionne Warwick? We all wanted to be a pretty baby...or did we? Some dreamed of being the Duke of Earl.... I believe that I must have been born a feminist ...Helen Reddy's I am Woman and Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire truly spoke to me...
I thought my mother was the most beautiful in the world when she would sing and play 'Stardust' for us on her baby grande piano....
A favorite movie for my sweetheart and me....A Kiss to Build a Dream On....
a great song to dance by...Dancing by the Moonlight, by King Harvest....
The Four Tops sang so many fantastic songs, but Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch actually became one of my favorites many years later when I thought of my love and lifemate - Clint!
My mother adored Herb Alpert...and just why did I always dream of whipped cream when she popped this album on the turntable?
Celebrating Christmas to Darlene Love (okay....I really LOVE Bono's version, as well). Dreams of traveling to...living and loving in France.... and Strawberry Fields.
Crying...96 Tears....when Smoke Gets in Your Eyes....
Feeling a free with Unchained Melody... a bit Crazy.... People got to be free...
Yet, once again...Bono does it so well....
Ah, those endless days of childhood...every day seemed to begin with a beautiful morning...
On Saturday nights, I spent cozy times at my grandparents in Peabody, Kansas...and watching Wild, Wild West.... Here Come the Brides (the beginning of hearthrob, Bobby Sherman's music career and David Soule's Starsky and Hutch....Lawrence Welk and saying goodnight....
My seventeenth summer....and an awesome Swedish rock group, ABBA, came out with the perfect song for a girl like me...The Dancing Queen! I also remember many summer nights riding around listening to Mama Mia.
