The Soundtrack to My Youth

"I think George Michael may have died..."

I was sitting at the dining room table at Mom's, having just finished Christmas supper, when I received the text.  The year two thousand and sixteen, already cursed with so much darkness and death, had claimed yet another.

I suppose you never know how news like that will hit you until it does.  But amidst all the usual Christmas gaiety - the excitement of the nephews and niece, the adults talking, some Christmas movie on the television -- it took everything within me to keep from weeping openly.

I walked down the hall for a moment to gather myself.  When I returned, I told my sister the news.  She looked shocked for a second, then sang a couple of lines of "Faith" and moved on.  She didn't get it.  She was a bit too young then.

"Then" being somewhere in the vicinity of 1988.

Faith.  Father Figure.  Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.  One More Try.  Careless Whisper.  That music was the soundtrack to my youth.

For me, it represents those sweet spot days of thirteen to nineteen.  First cars and awkward first kisses.  Bonfires and pep rallies and hanging out at the mall.  Falling in love and first broken hearts.  When the real world had mostly yet to begin to erode the innocence.

I remember being on a field trip.  We were going to Helen Keller's birthplace, I think.  On the bus, I had strategically positioned myself on the seat in front of Annalisa Gray, on whom I had a little crush.  She was listening to the "Faith" album on her Walkman, which made her even more appealing.  

Though I had both the "Make It Big" and "Music From the Edge of Heaven" cassettes from the Wham! days, I had not yet procured my own copy of George Michael's first solo album.  I daydreamed that we might share headphones while listening to it, but as reality would have it, I think she loaned me her Walkman long enough to listen to one song.

The next year, she and I would perfect the art of the tongueless kiss.  (Is art the right word?)  I got my own copy of "Faith" and flat wore it out.  As it almost always does, the music outlived the crush.

I guess eventually the music outlives us all...

"I'm looking out for angels, just trying to find some peace..."

Rusty

It was nineteen eighty-six or -seven.  I had gone with Fave Aunt to watch my cousin's rec league basketball game.  He was 8 or 9.  I didn't know any of the other kids on the court, but one stood out. I gathered from the parents cheering around me that his name was Rusty.

Rusty's head was cocked to the side a bit, his shoulder slightly raised.  Sort of like if you were trying to hold a phone between your ear and shoulder to free up both hands, then backed it off about halfway.  It was obviously some sort of physical abnormality, one I had never seen.  But that was only part of what made him stand out.

While his condition made it almost impossible for him to shoot accurately, Rusty was a rebounding whiz!  It was pretty clear, at least to me, that he was trying twice as hard as anyone else. 

The game ended.  I don't recall who won or lost.  Yes, we had winners and losers in those days.  We kept score.  And miracle of miracles, it didn't kill me.  (Just do me a favor and don't yell "Loser!" in my vicinity, I still get a little sensitive.)  But there are three distinct memories I have of that day:  My late uncle coaching my cousin's team; thinking to myself that my cousin was definitely never going to attend Duke on a basketball scholarship; and Rusty.

Years scattered.  I didn't think about those things for a long while.  Rusty went to that place where certain memories are kept.  Ones you can't necessarily recall on command, but they're solidly there.  It simply takes some trigger -- a dream, a particular song, some conversation -- to bring them to mind, clear as the day you lived them.

Then some years ago, my sister was telling me a story.  She mentioned a Rusty.  The name was just uncommon enough that I thought it might be the same guy.  It was.

Rusty was the same age as my sister's husband.  They were friends.  He was a groomsman in their wedding.  But somehow he wound up talking more often to my sister.

You see, Rusty was one of those poor, misfortunate souls that we here in the state of Alabama refer to as "Auburn fans."  (We have other, more colorful names, but I'll save those for another day.)

My sister, of course, was raised as was I -- to love Bear Bryant and the Crimson Tide.  She strayed away from the fold once, in her rebellious high school days.  Made Mom buy her a Michigan sweatshirt for Christmas the year Charles Woodson won the Heisman.  But she returned.  There was much rejoicing.  (See: "The Bible," Luke 15, Parable of the Ninety and Nine.)

Despite their opposite allegiances, Rusty would call my sister from time to time to talk football.  Because that is what we do in the South.  Before the games, at halftime of the games,  after the games, after the season, we talk about college football year-round. 

Rusty still lived with his parents.  My sister once told me his condition made him not want to go out much.  He didn't like crowds and preferred to only be around his closest few friends.  I liked to imagine that these conversations with my sister brought bits of brightness to his days.  Pure speculation on my part, the brain eager to fill in what it does not know.

As is so often the case, the news came out of the blue.  My sister calling to let me know Rusty had died.  He was thirty-six.

First, shock.  Then questions.  Eventually more speculation.

My sister said Rusty suffered from Crohn's disease.  He had been sick but had put off going to the doctor.  By the time they got him to the hospital it had been too late.  Was he afraid to go?  Maybe he was just sick of always going?  Did he not have insurance?  Maybe he had it but the deductible was so outrageous that he couldn't afford to go?  All valid questions in modern-day America, sadly.

The next day, someone shared a post from Rusty's sister on Facebook.  Heart-ripping.

There were only the two of them, him and her.  I know how that is, to have that one person who grew up exactly like you did.  In the same house, with the same parents.  The same blessings and disadvantages.  The same unspoken secrets.

I clicked over to Rusty's Facebook page.  Scrolling through the RIP's and "I'm gonna miss you's" I saw a message from my sister.  Tears began.

Further down, the posts became scarce.  Then, a handful of birthday wishes from earlier in the year.  I noticed the date.  Rusty and I shared the same birthday.  It seemed more than a coincidence somehow.  I knew I had to write something.

Sometimes, when you don't see someone often or haven't seen them for a long while, the image you have of them sort of becomes frozen in time.  I do it with famous people a lot.  When I hear a song from the 80's I still picture the singer or band looking as they did then.  I cringed a couple of weeks ago when I saw the promo for the new Matt LeBlanc show and all his gray hair.  In my mind, he's still sitting in Central Perk and it's twenty years ago.

I did the same thing with Rusty.  I thought of one long ago Saturday in nineteen eighty-something.  Of the rebounding whiz with his head cocked to the side, trying twice as hard as everyone else.  I reckon some have to try twice as hard their whole lives...

My sister said not many people showed up at the funeral.

And I remembered how Rusty never liked crowds.


"Remember him when he was still a proud man.  A vandal's smile, a baseball in his right hand.  Nothing but the blue sky in his eyes..."

When second base was but a distant dream

This is what I like to consider a motivational post.  Not really for you, but rather to hopefully motivate me to post something else soon so that this one doesn't remain at the top of the page.

Travel back with me if you will, to a simpler time: 1989.  Tone-Loc was in his prime.  I may or may not have still been tight-rolling my 550 Levis.  And I didn't know nearly as much about girls as I do now -- which, granted, still isn't... well, anyway.

I was teacher aide for Coach A's 8th grade social studies class.  I mean, come on -- a coach's class, 8th grade girls swooning (in my mind) over me, a junior -- I had it all.  Plus, I loved grading papers.  In fact, if I could go back and do it all over again, I'd have been a teacher.  Or a writer.  Or maybe a professional Scrabble player.

Anyway, for some reason, I had a rep as a good student, so Coach A would let me leave the classroom pretty much whenever I wanted.  It just so happens a girl I kinda liked was an office aide for the assistant principal at the same time.  (In fact, now that I think about it, it's possible the impetus for our entire "relationship" was that we were both aides during the same period.  Sigh.  Love was so simple then.)

So at some point during that year, we started sneaking out into the hall to make out.  To that point, it was the wildest thing I'd ever done.

There is but one caveat to this story:  we never used our tongues.

The first time was awkward, as you might imagine.  Subsequent make out sessions were downright uncomfortable.

Now some of you might be wondering, how is that even possible -- tongue-less making out?  Let me see if I can describe it.... You both have your mouths open.  Your lips are touching.  But nothing's crossing the border.

Now imagine doing that for what felt like... fifteen seconds.  Maybe thirty.  Each time.

It's kinda like non-invasive surgery.  Laparoscopic kissing!  That's what it was.

At this point it strikes me to ask the question, can it even be considered making out if you don't use your tongue?  I should create an urban dictionary term for a tongue-less make out session.  We could just called it a "bone."  Hmph, turns out that term is already in use.  Oh well.

Back to our story of young love, or... something.  As one might expect, with the absence of a papillae-and-taste bud-covered apparatus as part of our steamy 6th-period trysts, our romance fizzled within a few weeks.

I wonder if she ever told anyone about us.  What am I saying?  Of course she did.  Girls tell everything!  She probably told all the girls in our class, which might help explain why I only dated girls from other schools for the remainder of my high school career.  And suddenly I wonder if any of this had anything to do with my dating drought of '93!

It's good to reminisce, isn't it?

Today, anytime someone asks me to describe what it was like to be living in those days, to be, quote, "heading for the nineties, living in the wild, wild West," needless to say, this is not the story I tell.

(Editor's note: When I write the Revisionist History Of Me: Volume 4, I will have been thirteen years old when all this occurred, and she will have been sixteen.  And my babysitter.)

"Dancin' meant everything.  We were young and we were improvin'.  Laughin', laughin', with our friends.  Holdin' hands meant somethin', baby..."

Christmas Eve, 1985

Christmas has come too fast again. Not that I'm not ready for it to get here. I'm just not ready for it to be gone. I still remember when it didn't come very fast at all...

In 1985, I was twelve and time was slow. Thirty seemed light years away and forty had never crossed my mind. It was impossible to imagine myself as an adult. Though some might tell you it still is.

In 1985, both of my grandmothers were still alive. But oh, how I took that for granted back then. Dad would go and get his mother and bring her to the house on Christmas Eve day. She would have gifts for us -- and they would be really bad gifts like tube socks with big red stripes around them. But it shouldn't have mattered because she had picked them out for us when Dad took her shopping solely for that purpose. I hope I thanked her for whatever bad gifts she got me that year, and I hope I acted like I liked them, because that was the last Christmas we ever got to spend with her.

In 1985, Mom and Dad were still young, and still together. And if I could have picked one of those to never change, I'm not sure which I'd choose.

In 1985, my sister was five. She hadn't yet become the major annoyance she soon would be. Little did I know we would someday become actual friends. And the thought of her being a mother, well that was as far from my mind as a thing could be.

In 1985, fave cousin was seven. War was a game we played with toy guns or plastic soldiers. And Afghanistan was a place I had never even heard of, much less ever thought he would someday go.

In 1985, I was pretty sure no matter how good or bad I may have been that I was getting toys. But there was that tiny one-percent part of me that was still afraid I might wake up to a bag of switches beneath the tree.

In 1985, however fast or slow the rest of the year passed, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas seemed like a year unto itself.

In 1985, tonight -- Christmas Eve -- would be the longest night of the year. I would toss and turn and do my best to keep my ears open for any sound of Santa and his reindeer. But of course, it's the first great catch-22 of life -- you want to stay awake until he comes but he won't come until he knows you're sleeping. And he always knew.

In 1985, I must have closed my eyes, and though I could swear it was only for an instant, twenty-five years came and went.

"If heaven was a town it would be my town, on a summer day in nineteen-eighty-five. And everything I wanted was out there waiting. And everyone I loved was still alive..."

iTunes aNonymous

Last Wednesday evening, a blogger you know ventured into the iTunes store, for the first time ever.

It started off innocently enough, a single, heterosexual, 34-year-old male in search of the song "I'm Your Man" by Wham. I mean, what's more normal than that? A user name and password were selected. An account was created. A search was conducted. The song was located and downloaded.

And then...

Oh my darling, Clementine! Everywhere I looked, songs I loved were calling out to me. Down every corridor were private eyes, naked eyes, or an eye in the sky. It was like Behind The Music and Surreal Life had opened up a Sam Goody!

Yes, I realize I am late coming to this party, but I've only had my iPod since last Christmas. Besides, I never claimed to be on the cutting edge, just the opposite, actually.

By the end of that first night, I had downloaded fifteen songs, including but not limited to Erasure, P.M. Dawn, Steve Winwood, Tabitha's Secret, and yes, even Hanson. (At this point, I will completely understand if you never read my blog again.)

Still, I felt pretty good. I'd told myself I would not surpass twenty songs, and I had stayed within that limit. Then came Thursday. By the time head hit pillow Thursday night, I had downloaded thirty-four songs and may or may not have promised my firstborn to Steve Jobs.

Sure that sounds drastic at first, until you learn there are twenty-six available downloads for Wham on iTunes. Suddenly, I'm like a song-starved Esau in search of musical pottage.

I need help. I'm addicted. How can I not be? Apple just makes it so easy. I don't have to get dressed or leave home. Plus, 99 cents seems like such a nominal fee for cheesy musical goodness. Who amongst us can resist? I'm only flesh and blood, for crying out loud.

People I've talked to say it will get better. That eventually, I'll exceed my credit card limit, be unable to pay my bills, and my internet will be disconnected. Problem solved.

I hope so. Because right now, iTunes, you are an obsession. I can't fight this feeling much longer, and I'm quickly forgetting what I started fighting for.

In closing, I would like to wish a happy 44th birthday to my favorite male figure skater, Olympic gold medalist Brian Boitano. Ooo, I wonder if they have that song on iTunes!

"What would Brian Boitano do if he was here right now? He'd make a plan and he'd follow thru. That's what Brian Boitano'd do..."

The voice of a not-so-new generation

According to Wikipedia, my personal source for all things relevant and otherwise, Generation X refers to persons born between the years 1961 and 1981.

I've never cared for the term myself. For years, I didn't even know what it was supposed to mean. When I finally looked it up, I did not feel it described me well at all. Much like my high school code of conduct, I do not think it applies to me. So I set out to redefine, and rename, my generation.

It is a generation who purchased cassette singles and understood the emotional value of a mix tape; who generally have a great appreciation and longing for 80's music, television, and movies; who went to arcades to play video games; who know that Alf is from Melmac and Mork is from Ork; and who can scarcely remember a time when Vanna White was not on TV.

It saddens me to think the next generation will never know the utter joy of purchasing a cassette single. They'll never know the experience of listening to the B-side and hearing either a totally crap song, or a song you wind up liking better than the A-side. Heck, they may not even know what an A-side is.

Sure, spending $3.49 for one or two songs rather than $8.99 for the entire album might seem impractical. But with artists like Deon Estus, Sheriff, and Right Said Fred, you typically didn't want the whole album.

Also, when you were only making $3.85 an hour stocking shelves and collecting buggies at the grocery store, you knew that extra five bucks meant a meal at Taco Bell and two dollars gas to get you home.

It saddens me that the next generation may never know the thrill of having a numeric-only pager. There were no ringtones. Your only two options were tone or vibrate. And unlimited paging was $9.95 per month, also known as, the price of cool.

How will they survive never knowing what 143 means? Not to mention the life skills learned when you got a page followed by "911" and had to drive around and find a payphone to call the person back. I would venture a guess that a significant percentage of the population today have never even used a payphone. What a frightening thought.

It saddens me to think the next generation never got to enjoy Must See TV, the pinnacle of prime time television. To them, Cliff Huxtable, Alex P. Keaton, and Sam Malone are just characters dressed in out-of-style clothes that they might occasionally flip past on TVLand or Nick At Nite. They probably think Reality TV is good TV. Danny Tanner getting caught kissing DJ's teacher at school. That's good TV.

The Cosby Show, Newhart, Cheers, Growing Pains, Family Ties, The Hogan Family, Silver Spoons, Perfect Strangers, Who's The Boss, Head Of The Class, Charles In Charge, Night Court, and on and on--the 80's was the sitcom decade.

Wait a second... I think that's it!

Yes. That's it.

I, Bone, in front of God, bloggers everywhere, and bitter ex-girlfriends who lurk on my blog, do hereby coin the phrase, The Sitcom Generation.

We may be forced to watch reality TV, but that doesn't mean we have to like it. You can kill the sitcom, but you cannot kill us. Why? Because we learned how to obtain infinite lives on Super Mario Brothers.

Now if you'll excuse me, I believe VH-1 is about to replay the most recent episode of Scott Baio Is 45 & Single.

143 all.

"When did reality become TV? Whatever happened to sitcoms, game shows? And on the radio Springsteen, Madonna. Way before Nirvana, there was U2, and Blondie,
and music still on MTV..."

When you can't fight it, you can't fight it

Bachelor Tip of the Day: You do not make chocolate milk by mixing milk and Hershey's cocoa powder. Despite however logical it may sound, it does not work.

Addendum: When it says "unsweetened" on the Hershey's can, they mean it.

I hung out at Little Joe's last Sunday night with him and Wolfgang. We shot pool for a bit and may or may not have been making small non-monetary wagers on the games.

Little Joe is the last person I personally know who still connected to the internet at 28800 bits per second. He has only been off dial-up for a couple of weeks now, and therefore is just discovering that empire of time-wasting delights known as YouTube. (MySpace would also fit there, but he has not yet discovered that. Although I should tell him about it so I can be #1 on his top eight!)

LJ informed us that his YouTube adventures included downloading music videos from the 80's along with General Hospital clips from the 90's. Well, I saw nothing wrong with either of those. Both seem completely normal to me.

As Wolfgang and I began our first game of 8-ball, LJ said he was going to put on some music and disappeared into the next room. A few seconds later, I heard the familiar opening bars of an 80's power ballad blaring from the computer speakers. I couldn't quite place the song until I heard the opening lyrics...

Girl you're looking fine tonight...

LJ reentered the room.

"The Jeff Healey Band?" I might have snickered as I said it.

"Yeah," LJ had a what's-wrong-with-that tone. "You don't like that song?" He spoke with an innocence rarely found in a 35-year-old man.

"No, it's fine. I just... wasn't expecting it, I guess."

"Well, what's your favorite 80's song?"

I was thinking maybe something like Sweet Child O' Mine or Tainted Love, but instead replied nonchalantly, "I don't know."

"I was trying to think of mine today," LJ revealed. "I think mine would be Can't Fight This Feeling."

(pause for effect)

OK. There's nothing wrong with that song. I have it on my iPod. But if you're a guy, even if that is your favorite song, there's no need to share that with anyone else. Especially not with other guys when there are no easily accessible exits.

Meanwhile, Wolfgang seemed oblivious to the whole conversation. Either he wasn't familiar with the song or he was just trying to block out these disturbing pool room confessions.

After the Jeff Healey Band was done, Kokomo came on. So I'm thinking, alright, the Beach Boys, much better. Their music fits most any situation. They sing about surfing and girls and woodies. Nothing can be manlier than that. Then comes song number three...

Oceans apart, day after day, and I slowly go insane...

Can you name that tune? That's right, Richard Marx and Right Here Waiting.

Now again, nothing wrong with the song. I have the cassette single. It was even kinda hard not to sing along. And this would have been a perfect playlist if you had a girl over or something, and... Ronald Reagan was still President. It's just not the kind of music you blast while hanging with the boys.

Nevertheless, there we were, three 29 to 35 year old single males, shooting pool while listening to the flowing melodies of Richard Marx. Is it just me, or is there something fundamentally wrong with that scene?

By this time, I'm thinking, if Wind Beneath My Wings comes on, I'm out! I mean, if you're gonna play 80's ballads all night, at least give me some Tommy Page or Nicole Richie's dad or something.

I should insert here that the music was really loud. You could hear it all over the house. LJ must have had the computer speakers turned up as loud as they would go. Finally, after about the fifth or sixth consecutive slow song, Centerfold came on. Never in my life had I been so relieved to hear the J. Geils Band.

So went another evening hanging with Wolfgang and Little Joe. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to burn this Roxette CD onto my iTunes.

"Lift you up when you're feeling down, make your whole world turn around. I'll give my heart and soul to you, to let you know this love is true..."

How I Roll

There are few absolute truths in an uncertain world. But perhaps this is one: You never forget your first.

How it felt to touch her. The nervousness and the uncertainty. Learning as you went. Realizing you could take her to places neither of you had been before.

I'm speaking, of course, of my first car.

It was February 1989. When I turned sixteen, my parents decided that I would get Mom's car and she would get something newer. So there it was, a black 1980 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. And it was all mine.

Sure, she had a few miles on her. How many, I'm not really sure, because the odomoter had broken long ago. But I knew it had power. A 3.8L V-6 under the hood. Vinyl seats. Wire wheel covers. (Stop drooling.)

I'll admit there were a couple of quirks, as there are bound to be with any old classic car. There was a slight hesitation problem with the accelerator. It did not exactly have the lightning fast response one would hope for. It took a little sputtering and three or four seconds before those 229 cubic inches of raw Motor City power would kick in.

The Carlo also featured an AM/FM radio with the always-popular-but-never-practical cassette player with fast forward only, no rewind. So if I wanted to listen to a song again, I would have to flip the tape over and try to guess at how long to fast forward it. What einstein came up with this brilliant bit of cost-cutting ingenuity? How much extra does it cost to put a simple rewind button on there?

Then there was the speedometer. Or lack thereof. I drove by RPM's, much like NASCAR drivers do. Somehow I estimated that in high gear, 2000 RPM's equalled to 55 MPH, which was still the speed limit on most roads here in 1989. I have no idea how close I was, but I never got a ticket in that car.

Last but not least, for some reason the car would not stop running for a few seconds after you turned off the ignition. And by a few, I mean anywhere from five to twenty. Many days I remember pulling up to the Piggly Wiggly (my first job), turning off the car, taking out the keys, and getting nearly to the door before it would completely stop. Ironically, when I would crack it back up and start to back out, it would go dead if I didn't jam it from reverse into drive and give it gas all in less than 0.35 seconds.

There were good things about her, though. The cloth interior had come loose from the ceiling and hung fairly low. So, if I rolled the windows down, which I often did since the air didn't work, the wind would give it this super-cool rippling effect. Kinda like horizontal drapes flowing in front of an open window on a windy March afternoon. (Much like those in George Michael's "One More Try" video.) You might be surprised at how much attention this drew around town. Oh yeah! Everyone wanted to get a look at Bone in his sweet ride.

Oddly, I never had a date in that car. Talk about weird! Working at Piggly Wiggly, where my uniform consisted of a brown smock over a button-down shirt and one of those 80's solid colored nylon ties, and driving that marvel of modern machinery, one would think the ladies would have been all over me.

I drove the Carlo for five or six months, until I got a new job at another grocery store and a raise to $3.85 an hour. Then I could afford to get my own car. But I will always remember the black 1980 Monte Carlo. After all, you never forget your first.

(I thought it would be fun to do a series of posts, writing about each of the cars I've had. This was, obviously, part one.)

"I drive fastly, call me Jeff Gordon. In the black SS with the navigation..."

Three Word Wednesday #9

Each week, I will post three (or more) random words. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write something using all of those words. It can be a few lines, a story, a poem, anything. Don't spend too much time on it. It doesn't have to be perfect. The idea is to let your mind wander and write what it will. I'll also write something using the same three words.

Be sure to leave a comment if you participate.

This week's words are:
sky
slit
echoed

Continuing with 80's week here on IYROOBTY...

I was in ninth grade, taking my first year of Spanish. At my school, each year the Spanish Club went on an optional field trip to the Spanish Club Convention in Tuscaloosa.

For some reason, they were never able to procure buses for this annual pilgrimage. Maybe it was because of the small number of kids who went. Maybe it was because we stayed overnight and needed to be able to get around town easily. Whatever it was, we traveled by car. And that meant chaperones.

As the bell echoed from the halls that Friday morning, signaling the start to another school day for everyone else, we were gathered in the parking lot. Preparing to leave, getting last minute instructions from the Spanish teacher, Ms. Quinn. And most importantly, deciding who would ride with whom.

That year, we had one student chaperone, Jenny Goss. She was a junior, or senior, and I don't even think she was taking Spanish. I'm not even sure why she was chaperoning.

But as the other chaperones were teachers or parents, everyone wanted to ride with Jenny. Well, the guys did anyway. So it wound up being four guys, myself included, piling into Jenny's sky blue Cutlass, for the two-hour drive. And I somehow ended up in the front seat.

As she was two or three years ahead of me, I'd never really talked to Jenny. But I knew who she was. It was common knowledge that she dated Ronnie Byars, and had been seemingly forever.

Ronnie could best be described as a biker without a bike. A smoking in the boys room type. Although I never saw him smoke, it just seemed like he probably did. He was tall, with long hair. And I remember him wearing a black leather jacket a lot.

Still, boyfriend or no, you got the idea Jenny might be up for anything. Although I doubted I was her type. The street toughness of my acid-washed, tight-rolled Levis and untied high-top British Knights was betrayed by the cute little alligator on my rather conservative Izod. Still, there was something mysterious about her. Or maybe just naughty.

She looked like she belonged in a Whitesnake video. And I could totally rock some air guitar. I imagined she had camped out for Motley Crue or Cinderella tickets at least three times in her life. And that hair. So permed. So sprayed. So perfectly pouffy.

I sat back and tried to relax as I caught a glance of her legs so sveltely working the gas and brake pedals. I wasn't sure what to expect on this trip. And I definitely wasn't sure a student chaperone was supposed to be wearing a skirt that short or slit that high.

But I'll never forget that weekend. After all, that was the weekend I bought my Milli Vanilli cassette.

"Where's the mini-skirt made of snakeskin? And who's the other guy that's singing in Van Halen..."