Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Groovin' all week with you, or Another piece of the puzzle falls into place

I have very few memories from my time as a wee lad in Walloon Lake, MI. We moved to Petoskey when I was 4 years old, & what I do remember is often filtered through what I've been told by my parents. I do remember watching Land of the Lost w/ Robbie Zinkle. I definitely remember my Batman beach towel that fit over my head like a cape. There were certainly a lot of bikers who hung out @ the far end of the beach leaving the pop-tops to their beers all over the place. I remember morel hunting & berry picking & the book about pirates I got from the library which was actually just a table set up in the fire station w/ a few books on it. I remember playing w/ my Weeble Wobble Cowboy Ranch set while Mable watched The Price is Right in the other room... & the moment when I saw that Weeble Wobble set under the X-mas tree a few months earlier. I also remember Ray Burdett sitting Ray Burdett style (backwards) on a chair in the kitchen drinking his 6 of Löwenbräu. (He is also the name-sake of "Uncle Ray's Dressing," a salad dressing my mom makes for spinach salad.) Of course there were also his niece & nephew from whose parents we rented our little house & w/ whom (18 years later) Stephanie, Elizabeth & I almost saw our very last Grateful Dead show). Pontoon boats & the path through the woods, behind the old high school are pretty foggy, but there was the party @ Jane & Russ's where I didn't know anyone but ate a shit-ton of orange push-ups, a party that has always remained pretty clear in my mind. And of course, the time my arm went out of socket @ the general store & I screamed bloody murder. The 2 television memories I have involve M.A.S.H. & Happy Days. M.A.S.H. my parents watched... Happy days I loved, which is why the dream I had last night about Ritchie & Potsie stood out & needed a post. In fact, I woke up in the middle of the night & said to myself, "That's bloggable."

The dream went like this:
As the 1st 6 or so seasons of the show revolved around Ritchie & Potsie trying to get laid, the fact that this made it into the dream isn't so strange, but the rest is. I was watching the show (but occasionally, I floated into the show & filled the role of a slimmer, more handsome Tom Bosley). On the episode, Ritchie & Potsie announced they would only date African American women & then started to talk all "gangsta," as Ritchie said things like, "What's for dinna, by-atch?" to Mrs. C. & Potsie came correct w/, "I'mma smoke dem punks @ Jefferson High, Nigga!" There were even times in the episode where Little Ronny Howard nearly broke character because he was well aware of the ridiculousness of the lines he was expected to recite. Furthermore, while watching the episode in my dream, I marveled @ the fact that Ralph Malph wasn't involved in this plot-line because his character was more often the type to do these sorts of things. It wouldn't have contradicted his character as much. It seems like Fonzie should have stepped in & told them they were being uncool, but that didn't happen either. I just don't know what to make of it, or how it relates to my childhood in Walloon.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is Tom Bosley still alive?

Andre said...

Yep. Alive and kicking.

We saw him in Showboat about 10 years ago. That was a strange family outing.

Anonymous said...

Is the fact that you saw him 10 years ago supposed to be proof he's still alive? Didn't he have some late night infomercial a few years ago where he was hawking some sort of pyramid scheme where people sell random stuff? I'm thinking he'd be a good pick for the CDP.

Andre said...

No, I checked Wikipedia. I knew it would sound like that though. He would be a good pick. Maroin Ross might too, but I would bet on her outliving him.