Jive Turkey

Back in the 70's when my parents were still young, in love and considerably thinner, I was just a little figment floating along in the air.

I love looking back on those funny funny pictures of both my parents in bellbottomed pants and tight shirts. Mom was quite the looker in other pictures when she's wearing those one piece shirts (as I call it in my mind) although they're supposed to be dresses but if she ever bent over... Yeah, those were the days I've never lived.

They met at a party, one that my wilder aunt, my mom's older sister, was invited to. My aunt and dad became good friends and the night mom and dad met happened to be the night my mom was told to tag along and "chaperone" her older sister.

I like to romanticise it and think that it was across a crowded room, their eyes met and it was instant love. My dad made for a dashing figure because he was in the navy and although starting to lose his hair already, there was plenty of other hair to comb over. Mom was demure and sat alone watching her sister, Fe, hop on tables and gyrate to music. Mom looked very innocent and sweet among those rowdy drugged induced hippies.

They dated, had a long-distance relationship because he was a sailor at different parts of the Pacific ocean. She had her handful of men and he had a girl at every port but always they thought of one another. This was the 70's and they were into all that peace and disco and just being happy.

So that's how I imagined it.

My mom, when she tells the story she makes years fly in two paragraphs. I don't know of any anxiety over war, I don't know of any kind of music, except when they and their friends get up and dance to "Rock the Boat" or when they sing along to tunes on the radio. I don't know how happy their romance was, or was it in defeat that they settled for one another. All I know is when the music faded and they came to their senses I was there, ready to burst forth and usher in a new era. Goodbye yellow brick road.

Me.