Long Hollow

Reinvention

"Reinvention" is the theme for Generation Fabulous's blog hop this month.

Considering I just started a new career as a realtor, seemingly out of the blue, "reinvention" is right up my alley.

Or is it? Can it be considered "reinvention" if it's something you once loved, and spent hours doing, long ago?

You see, when I was little, my favorite section of the Sunday newspaper wasn't the comics - it was the Homes section.

I loved looking at the homes featured on the front page. I would study the floorplans of the huge houses on the back page, imagining myself wandering through them.

I was ten the first time Daddy and I toured the Bishop's Palace in Galveston, triggering my love for snooping through houses which carried on into my teen years, when my boyfriend and I knocked on the door of a house I loved and asked for a tour..

...and then into my twenties when Tom and I and two friends knocked on the door of a renovated old house in LaMarque and asked for a tour, and Tom and I and two friends explored a condemned Victorian house in Galveston, and Tom and I pushed babies in strollers through old homes' tours in LaPorte, and explored new construction in every town we've lived in...

I began designing floorplans when I was ten. My mother would bring home special paper from her job as a secretary at a construction company. I came up with some pretty good plans!

Television houses have always triggered my imagination. Back then I tried figuring out the floor plans of the houses on "Bewitched" and "The Brady Bunch" and "Dark Shadows", and even taped pages of typing paper together into large sheets so I could sketch out the floor plan of the Munsters' and Addams Family's mansions. 

I thought I wanted to be an architect...but the idea of having to include the plumbing and wiring and placement of supporting beams in a structure bored me to tears.

I just liked the parts of houses you could see. And secret passageways.

But I'm not sure I'd ever heard of real estate agents back then. However, considering my obsession with houses and the list I made when I was ten of every single person I had ever met (my first "contacts" list!), it's obvious that (besides being a strange child) I would eventually grow up to be a Realtor, touring properties and reminding everyone I know that I can help them buy, sell, lease, or invest in it. 

 

(There are also conventions!)

Why that didn't become obvious to me until I was 54 is a mystery, but I'm sure the journey to this place wasn't wasted, but was, instead, an invaluable trek to self-awareness.

Perhaps the midlife "reinvention" we talk about so often now is more about getting back in touch with who, or what,  you really are and what you enjoy than becoming something altogether new.

What do you think?

Have you experienced "reinvention"...or are you longing to? Share your story in the comments, and read the other GenFabbers' posts to hear more. If you're a blogger, join the blog hop!

(By the way, who do you know that needs to buy, sell, lease, or invest property...anywhere in the world? Contact me!)

The Power of a Summer Song

...Love, love is the answer, whoo-hoo
And that's all right
So don't you give up now, whoo-hoo
It's so easy to find
Just look to your soul (Look to your soul)
And open your mind

Crystal blue persuasion...

It was 1969. I was ten and having the time of my life, because my sister was a lifeguard and she often let me tag along with her to work. Those days were spent swimming (of course) and then resting in the basket area (because I had privileges) watching old Shirley Temple movies. 

Crystal Blue Persuasion was the song of the summer. We sang along to it on the way to the pool and on the way home, and any time I hear it now, I'm ten, once again, riding shotgun in Brenda's VW bug.

I can smell the chlorine, feel the cool of the breeze in the shade of the basket room, hear the splashes and the chatter coming from the pool.

It's 1969, I'm ten, ignorant and innocent, and all is right with my world.

 

***********************************************

 

It drifted out to me from the winery bistro kitchen's radio...Black Land Farmer, sung by Frankie Miller. Although it had been years since I heard it, with the first whistle I was swept out of that restaurant to Garner State Park, two-stepping around a rock pavilion with a gangly teenage boy under a star-studded night sky. 

It's just a twangy country song, with a steady slow beat, but from the first time I heard it blasting out of that old juke box full of 45s, it became my Garner theme song.

Every summer from sixth grade to my senior year of high school - except one when the Frio River flooded and we had to pack up and leave in the middle of the night - I spent at least a week in that pavilion under the stars, caught up in innocent summer romances.

I tried to go back with my kids years ago, but it wasn't the same. It never is, is it?

The Frio River and the towering Cypress trees were still beautiful, and the kids got to climb the same trails to the same little caves I loved to explore, but the quiet dirt roads had been asphalted and the dances were so crowded that you could barely breathe, much less spin around the dance floor.

 

I took a photo of the pavilion before we left the park, just so I'd have an image of that great CCC stonework.

But my kids had fun, anyway. They didn't know what they were missing, of course. I'm just grateful that, with the first whistle of Black Land Farmer, I can go back to my Garner.

 

**********************************************************

 

The Beach Boys were my favorite band when I was five. I already had a crush on Dennis Wilson. (Maybe that's why I always wanted to play the drums!)

I would sit in a chair near our console stereo and listen to this whole album, over and over and over. 

 

Once I got my driver's license, I spent every free minute in Galveston, soaking up the sun. The Beach Boys were still my favorite soundtrack in those sandy summer days. And talk about dreams come true...in May of 1975 I finally heard them in person. 

Their songs, any and all of them, still make me want to jump in my car and head for the beach...

So tell me, what songs take you back to summer?

This is a Generation Fabulous Blog Hop. Click on the links below to see what songs say summer to others.

 

 

 

 

 

Transformation a la Plane, Train, and Hovercraft

My blogging group, Generation Fabulous, hosts a monthly Blog Hop. July's theme is “Transformative Travel.” I knew exactly what to write about... 

 

On this date thirty-seven years ago I stood beneath the glorious ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I also toured St. Peter's Basilica that day, thinking - paraphrasing my travel diary - "It's really pretty, but I'm too tired to appreciate it." 

 

 

 

Reading those words now, I wish I could reach through the barrier of years and shake me by my tanned teenage shoulders.  

How I would love a second chance to tour Rome, the Vatican, and everything else I saw on that trip, especially now that I'm Catholic, instead of somewhere between Baptist and agnostic!

But I guess I'll cut myself some slack. I mean, I was just seventeen, on the 20th day of a whirlwind month-long very-shoestring tour of Europe sponsored by the Foreign Study League, a Reader's Digest subsidiary. 

 

 

I found out about it through my high school sociology teacher, Ms. Cook, who had been on a FSL tour before and was going to go again as a chaperone that summer of '76, between my junior and senior years of high school. 

A history nerd and anglophile, just the idea of traveling to Europe and seeing all of those castles, walking those cobbled streets...oh, it made my knees weak.

My parents were already stretched thin financially, but they both longed to travel, too, and the next best thing to traveling yourself is sending your kid off to experience the world, right?

They got a loan. I was in.

 

 

 

We had meetings for months before our departure date, learning what to pack and how to pack it, what to expect, what they expected of us, etc. In each country we had at least one college-credit-worthy class teaching about its culture and history before being turned loose for three or four days. 

Not totally turned loose - there were some group tours - but we were given tons of free time to wander the cities on our own before meeting up again for dinner.  

 

 

 

So here I was, a girl raised in the suburbs...who had never been in a city bigger than Houston (where you get everywhere by car, anyway)...who had only been on an airplane once before in her life...

...yes, here I was zipping around on London's Tube like I'd grown up there, climbing the Eiffel Tower to gaze out over Paris, sleeping on night trains, exploring castles, getting lost in Venice, hailing cabs, and swimming in the Adriatic Sea. 

Amazing. Exhausting, but amazing.

 

 

We flew from Houston on a plane not much wider than a bus, landing in London's Gatwick airport on June 28.

"A heat wave has been in London. It was about 92 degrees today and no where has air-conditioning. I love London; winding streets & old houses. It's kind of dirty, but it looks right."

I can sense my excitement in the first pages of my travel diary, full of anticipation of adventures to come, dotted with details about the temperature, names of people we met, and even the types of beer I bought in the pub across from our dorms.

"I got a "Blacklable" beer and a"Breaker" malt liquor...Everyone is so friendly. We all stood outside & we met some local guys. Paul, Paul, and Vince. They were real sweet & we talked a long time. Found out a lot about London."

Purely educational conversation, I'm sure. <snicker>

 

 

 

Farther down that same page in my journal I mention a law student from the West Indies named Kameel who helped us with the phones, explained money to us, and loaned me two books to help us with London.

I can still picture us standing in that dorm hallway, talking to him. Kindness is long-remembered.

(I hope I gave the books back.)

 

 

Before I made this trip, I had barely stepped foot out of Texas. There had been a day in Matamoros, Mexico on a church choir trip, several trips to Colorado, one to St. Louis where I was immediately put on a plane and flown home because of my asthma, and a jag through New Mexico. 

But I had read voraciously, and now I walked in the worlds described in so many of my favorite books. 

 

 

I carried a little 110 camera and a dozen rolls of film. Back home, I doled them out two at a time to the photo lab.

It felt like Christmas morning each time I opened a new envelope of developed photos. 

We were tired of smiling for the camera by the third day, but we persevered for posterity. Even so, I have very few images from Madrid and Toledo, which, of course, I regret now, because my memory of this once-in-a-lifetime adventure depends on the snapshots tucked away in my photo album and travel diary, captured with camera and pen.

When my daughter traveled to Madrid with her Spanish teacher a few years ago, I barely recognized the city in her photos.

 

 

 

(I'm happy to report that this man hasn't aged a bit since 1976, based on the photographs my daughter-in-law took of him in April. I'd recognize him anywhere!) 

 

 

I was often homesick and heartsick, missing my family and my boyfriend, living for the next town where I hoped a batch of letters would await me.

I even made a few calls back home from telephone kiosks that we searched out as soon as we hit a new city, but with the time difference, no one was very excited to hear from me in the middle of the night. 

 

 

We were limited to one suitcase, a purse, and our FSL backpacks...so I found the largest softsided suitcase I could find and carried a huge purse. We had to pack for the heat wave, for special occasions, and for the Austrian Alps, which even in the summertime can get pretty cool at night, and somehow leave room for souvenirs. I was on a tight budget, but loved picking out gifts for everyone. 

 I still have no idea how I fit all of those steins, flasks, jewelry boxes, scarves, and one Lladro duck figurine into my suitcase. These days I use three suitcases for an overnight trip!

 

 

 

Reading through my travel diary, I realize there are things I didn't write about that I somehow still remember, despite my flaky, fading memory...like how in Italy a can of (hot) coke cost the equivalent of a dollar, but a large bottle of wine was only fifty cents, and how three or four girls (not me!) went off on a big no-no joy ride through London with some local boys. 

Probably those ones we met at the pub.

There's also an incident I didn't write about, but remember vividly. We were at Tiffany's Disco in Piccadilly Circus, drinking screwdrivers with our chaperone-sociology teacher, Ms. Cook.

A whole group of Japanese men came in, probably from a convention or something, and one of them asked me to dance. Of course I said yes - I've always loved to dance!

In my mind, I'm back on that dancefloor. I see the man in front of me, see him smile, then see him reach out and place his hand on my right breast.

My presence of mind still impresses me. "No," I told him. I calmly removed his hand, turned and left the dance floor, a million questions running through my mind. Did I look like a prostitute? Did Japanese men think all American girls are sluts? Is that normal dancing protocol in Japan?

I know now that he was probably just a jerk, something I'm sure you can find in all countries and cultures.

Unfortunately, I didn't go dancing again on that trip. In every city a large group went out to a disco, but I stayed in with my friends, usually playing spades.

I hate that. I hate that I let that creep keep me from dancing across Europe when I was seventeen.

I could have been the Dancing Queen. 

 

 

 

I drew stars all over the entry for July 24, 1976. That's the day we flew from Madrid to Houston.

Mama, Daddy, Mam-ma, and my boyfriend were waiting for me. I write that I ran off that plane back into Texas and my regular life - I had ached to see all of them -  but the truth is, I was changed, and I'm glad of it.

Thanks to Mama and Daddy, I knew there was more. I knew the world was big...and I knew I could handle it. 

 

I met a lot of people in Europe.  I even encountered myself. 

~James Baldwin

A Rich Inheritance (Happy Father's Day!)

Friday my mother thought Daddy was having a stroke. She's seen enough of them to recognize the symptoms in him.

He wouldn't let her call an ambulance, so she called my sister, who in turn called me en route to their house. 

The kids and I already had plans to leave early yesterday morning to celebrate Father's Day with Daddy. I hoped we wouldn't be visiting him in the hospital, instead.

With my sister's next call, the relief in her voice soothed my worries. Daddy's blood pressure had already dropped and he seemed okay. She would stick around a little while, but didn't see a need to call an ambulance. Thank you, Lord!

So yesterday we were able to celebrate Daddy with lunch at Applebee's, just as he requested, and then hang out with him and Mama in my childhood home, talking around the kitchen table, dozing in front of the television...

...and giving thanks every single second.

We'll head home early today so the kids can spend time with their dad, too.

I'm wishing Tom's Pop a happy Father's Day in my heart. I can still hear his voice echoing in my mind. I hope it never fades away.

My heart goes out to his sons who are missing him so much today, this first Father's Day without him, wishing they could give him a call and tell him "I love you".

So I'll give mine an extra hug and "I love you" for them, and for all of you who are missing your fathers today.

In honor of Father's Day, I gave Daddy a print-out of "Why I'm My Father's Daughter". I'm re-posting it here. I'm so honored that it was chosen for "Best Lessons from Dad" - a slideshow on Huffpost 50 of posts about fathers. Hop over there and see what other daughters had to say about their fathers.

 

If Daddy answers the phone when I call my parents, our conversation is a quick one.

"I can't talk," he'll complain. 

"You sound fine to me," I'll tell him. 

"What? I can't hear you. Here's your mother."

And that's that.

Strokes have taken their toll on his vocal chords. The effort to speak is too much for him and his voice gives out after just a few words. Perhaps his hearing loss can be blamed on strokes, too. (Although hearing aids could help with that. Sigh.)

But he was never one to talk much, anyway, and especially not on the phone. If I wanted or needed to talk, I went to my mother. I could talk to her about anything, and I'm very grateful for that.

 

Daddy and I communicated in other ways, though. We teased each other and toured old houses. We fought over who was going to mow the yard.

He chauffeured me and my friends to the movies and high school basketball games before I got my license. He taught me how to drive, and tried to teach me how to play golf and be a better bowler...without much luck.

Instead, I tagged along with him on the golf course, satisfied to watch him and admire the beauty of the courses. We took road trips to visit his mother, traveling along the back highways with the windows down, stopping often to visit historical sites or other interesting places that caught my eye or his.

We square-danced.

 

 

But words still formed our greatest connection. I was seven, maybe eight, when I uttered that inevitable childhood chant: "I'm bored." 

 "Bored? Here, read this," he said, handing me an old, mildewed copy ofBlack Beauty, "You'll never be bored again."

Well, I'm not sure if those were his exact words, but they should have been. I was hooked, and as long as I've had something handy to read (and I try to make sure I do), I've never been bored again. 

Besides Anna Sewell's Black Beauty - and hence, every horse book I could get my hands on - Daddy got me hooked on historical fiction via James Michener and Leon Uris. It's still my first love.

He also introduced me to Leon Hale and his Texas-flavored, rambling, memoirish columns in the Houston Post (and then the Chronicle)...the inspiration for my own personal essays and blog posts, I'm sure. I still read his columns online.

Because of Daddy, I surround myself with books, and I'm partial to old ones.

I read our ancient copies of Black Beauty, Call of the Wild, Daddy-Long-Legs, and A Girl of the Limberlost over and over and over, and to this day the smell of a musty book takes me miles away in my mind to those stories.

When I enter an antique store, I head straight for the book section. Not to buy, necessarily, but just to breathe, feel, and say Hello, you're not forgotten.

Our house overflowed in paperbacks, too, though. Daddy always had one in his metal lunchbox, usually a Louis L'Amour, and when I followed in his steel-toed-shoe footsteps years later, I always carried a paperback with me to work.

Today neither of us consumes books like we used to. Daddy reads the morning newspaper, but then turns his attention to the television when he's not doing laundry or other household chores.

I'm always somewhere in a just-for-fun book, but it takes me forever to finish them, only cracking them open to read while I eat lunch. When I'm at home. And don't have something else I have to read.

But all of those books and words and voices still bind us, and despite the miles between us, and the words we cannot say, I feel him with me every time I open a book. 

Thank you, Daddy.

 

 

Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance. 

~Ruth E. Renkel

Tom and I don't have a lot of money, yet we are blessed with riches, thanks to our fathers.

Happy Father's Day to all of you who fills the role of father to someone!

 

Why I'm My Father's Daughter

 

If Daddy answers the phone when I call my parents, our conversation is a quick one.

"I can't talk," he'll complain. 

"You sound fine to me," I'll tell him. 

"What? I can't hear you. Here's your mother."

And that's that.

Strokes have taken their toll on his vocal chords. The effort to speak is too much for him and his voice gives out after just a few words. Perhaps his hearing loss can be blamed on strokes, too. (Although hearing aids could help with that. Sigh.)

But he was never one to talk much, anyway, and especially not on the phone. If I wanted or needed to talk, I went to my mother. I could talk to her about anything, and I'm very grateful for that.

 

Daddy and I communicated in other ways, though. We teased each other and toured old houses. We fought over who was going to mow the yard.

He chauffeured me and my friends to the movies and high school basketball games before I got my license. He taught me how to drive, and tried to teach me how to play golf and be a better bowler...without much luck.

Instead, I tagged along with him on the golf course, satisfied to watch him and admire the beauty of the courses. We took road trips to visit his mother, traveling along the back highways with the windows down, stopping often to visit historical sites or other interesting places that caught my eye or his.

We square-danced.

 

 

But words still formed our greatest connection. I was seven, maybe eight, when I uttered that inevitable childhood chant: "I'm bored." 

 "Bored? Here, read this," he said, handing me an old, mildewed copy of Black Beauty, "You'll never be bored again."

Well, I'm not sure if those were his exact words, but they should have been. I was hooked, and as long as I've had something handy to read (and I try to make sure I do), I've never been bored again. 

Besides Anna Sewell's Black Beauty - and hence, every horse book I could get my hands on - Daddy got me hooked on historical fiction via James Michener and Leon Uris. It's still my first love.

He also introduced me to Leon Hale and his Texas-flavored, rambling, memoirish columns in the Houston Post (and then the Chronicle)...the inspiration for my own personal essays and blog posts, I'm sure. I still read his columns online.

Because of Daddy, I surround myself with books, and I'm partial to old ones.

I read our ancient copies of Black Beauty, Call of the Wild, Daddy-Long-Legs, and A Girl of the Limberlost over and over and over, and to this day the smell of a musty book takes me miles away in my mind to those stories.

When I enter an antique store, I head straight for the book section. Not to buy, necessarily, but just to breathe, feel, and say Hello, you're not forgotten.

Our house overflowed in paperbacks, too, though. Daddy always had one in his metal lunchbox, usually a Louis L'Amour, and when I followed in his steel-toed-shoe footsteps years later, I always carried a paperback with me to work.

Today neither of us consumes books like we used to. Daddy reads the morning newspaper, but then turns his attention to the television when he's not doing laundry or other household chores.

I'm always somewhere in a just-for-fun book, but it takes me forever to finish them, only cracking them open to read while I eat lunch. When I'm at home. And don't have something else I have to read.

But all of those books and words and voices still bind us, and despite the miles between us, and the words we cannot say, I feel him with me every time I open a book. 

Thank you, Daddy.

 

Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance. 

~Ruth E. Renkel

(This is my contribution to the Generation Fabulous Father's Day BlogHop. Click HERE to see the other wonderful posts about women and their fathers.)

God, Grant Me The Serenity...

Through the window, I see my brother-in-law's SUV pull up in front of the house. Several younger men gather to help maneuver my mother down from her seat and into the waiting wheelchair.

For a moment exhaustion pinches her face from the three-hour road trip and constant struggle to breathe, but then I see that familiar smile bloom wide, right to the edge of joyful laughter, so contagious that everyone around her smiles, too.

She said she wouldn't miss her grandson's wedding, and by golly, she made it.

I sigh in relief. Maybe she didn't have doubts about her attendance, but I sure did. Eight months ago, for reasons that still haven't been clearly diagnosed, her muscle strength and balance disappeared. Walking was already a challenge because of her asthma, but now she couldn't even stand without support.

At first she fought it, believing she just needed to push herself to build up her strength. She accepted the wheelchair as a temporary accessory, but if you turned your back for a second, she would jump up and try to walk. Upon waking in the morning, she would automatically head down the long hallway, alone and unassisted, to the bathroom.

Consequently, she fell. A lot. I witnessed a few of the falls myself, including one in the middle of the night when she took my dad down on top of her in the bathroom (he tried to stop her fall) and we subsequently spent the night in the emergency room.

I'm not sure how many other falls there were. She and Daddy tried to keep them secret.

"Mama, stop trying to walk without help. You don't want to miss the wedding, do you?" 

She didn't. But it still took a few reminders before she started behaving and playing it safe, using the wheelchair to go down the hall and letting Daddy hover nearby when she needed to stand.

It's been a tough transition for all of us. Mama has always been the caregiver, so strong she makes the Steel Magnolias look like a bunch of wilting lilies. She's the Serenity Prayer and "where there's a will, there's a way" all rolled up in one, put into action. When something needed to be done, she just did it, without any whining or woe-is-me-ing. 

She spent sleepless nights nursing us through the usual and not-so-usual childhood illnesses and injuries...encephalitis, whooping cough, dislocated hips. Later, in her forties, Mama maneuvered my quadriplegic brother's six-foot-frame in and out of his wheelchair, despite her petite size. And just a few years ago, in her late 70's, she took care of my older sister following her hip surgery. 

 

Mama was with me to welcome my firstborn into the world, watched him while I worked and his dad went to school, and attended every special event of his life. There was no way in hell she'd miss his wedding, even if it meant relying on others for a change and accepting life in a wheelchair...at least for a little while. 

God, grant me the serenity...

 

In honor of Mother's Day, Generation Fabulous asked us to talk about that other fabulous generation - our mothers. Whether we like it or not, and whether we knew them or not, our mothers helped shape us into the women we are today. I realize I'm blessed with an amazing mother and the chance to know her through the eyes of an adult, and I'm happy I got to share a little bit about her with you. To read more mom stories, go HERE.

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Aging with grace. What does that mean, anyway?

I stepped into the classroom of second graders and made my way to the teacher's desk. "Are you someone's grandmother?" one little munchkin asked. 

"No, I'm the substitute teacher," I said with forced smile, trying to recover from such a fierce Reality Check that early in the morning, and making myself promise not to hold a grudge against that little...um, cutie pie.

I turn 54 in less than two weeks...indeed, quite old enough to be someone's grandmother. If you're 55 or older, you're probably calling me a baby. But if you're 40 or younger, I'm sure 54 sounds as old to you as it looked to that second-grader. I remember when it sounded old to me, too.

But I don't feel old. In so many ways I feel the same as I did at 5 and 10 and 18, and in those moments when I said "I do" and held each of my babies for the very first time.

When I was facing 50, time took on new meaning. The hour glass was more empty than full, and not only had I wasted a lot of it, but I could see what was left slipping away, seemingly faster and faster.

It made me think about aging. What it meant to me. How I wanted it to look on me.

I decided I wanted to be able to enjoy whatever time I had left. I knew the road ahead was full of physical potholes, so I focused on getting healthy, from the inside out. I felt guilty for taking my body for granted for so many years and vowed to treat it right from then on. 

I became my own best friend, accepting the good and bad, my weaknesses and strengths, likes and dislikes. I developed high expectations for myself, but also cut myself some slack. I focused on finding balance, although it's still a struggle. Work. Play. Time alone. Time with friends and family. Giving. Taking.

I refused to give into the stereotypes, the standard expectations of what it means to be an older woman, of what's considered "proper". I decided to shake things up in my life, to stretch and appreciate all aspects of myself, to discover and expand the talents God gave me.

In the process I discovered a sense of freedom and excitement and joy that I'd never known. 

So as I head into another year, I'll just continue being me, who wears jeans, loves to dance, and wants to keep learning till the day she dies. 

Because aging with grace just means living with grace, whether you're celebrating your first birthday or your 100th.

I wish I'd started sooner.

This is my contribution to GenerationFabulous's latest blog hop on what aging gracefully means to us. Go HERE to see the other contributions.

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It Started with Peter...

 

 

It was Peter Noone's voice I first fell in love with. My six-year-old heart broke for him when he sang to Mrs. Brown about her lovely daughter. 

"Wait for me, Peter," I told the radio, "I'll never break your heart like that."

I still can't resist a British accent.

Imagine my excitement the next year when my aunt invited my sister and me to see his adorably-boyish face and tousled sandy-blonde hair in person! Herman's Hermits were coming to the Houston Coliseum!  It would be my very first concert. 

My memory about the actual concert is pretty sketchy. I know I wore pink, all the way down to my Keds. My mother had taken me shopping for a special outfit. And it seems we sat pretty close to the stage, close enough to see Peter's precious face, but that might just be wishful thinking playing with my memory.

The Animals were the back up group. They became one of my favorite bands, too. Now that I think about it, I bet my attraction to bad boys can be traced to watching Eric Burdon sing "Little Red Riding Hood" up on that stage.

Young love is fickle, though.  Bobby Sherman, David Cassidy, Davy Jones, Peter Tork, Paul McCartney, Dennis Wilson, that kid on H.R. Pufnstuf (Jack Wild - British accent again!)...they all made my heart go pitter-patter.

 

But it was another adorably-boyish face topped with tousled sandy-blonde hair that finally caught my heart for good. He wasn't a celebrity and he didn't have a British accent, but he was born in England.

Close enough.

 

 

Did/do you have your own Celebrity Crush?

 

This post is part of a Generation Fabulous bloghop. In honor of Valentine's Day, the February theme is My Celebrity Crush.