Meanwhile… I'm Still Thinking

Because Malone was a rural town just south of the Canadian border and was without cable for much of my childhood, there weren’t many television stations to choose from. The three American stations we got (from Burlington, Plattsburg and Poland Springs) were always fuzzy at best, and sometimes didn’t come in at all, and many of the Canadian stations we got were French-speaking. That left english-speaking stations out of Montreal and Ottawa, each broadcasting a sometimes strange mix of Canadian, Australian, British and American shows.

One show we did get was old reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club, which was in syndication at the time. Probably the first crush I ever had on a non-puppet or cartoon celebrity was Annette Funicello, and I watched Mickey Mouse every day just to see her. I had already figured out that it was much safer to be madly in love with someone you saw on TV than it was to take your chances in the real world. I had no idea why I liked her more than any of the other girls on the show, but my Aunt Frances seemed to think it had something to do with the way her sweatshirt fit her. My aunt also told me something else about Annette that I didn’t know: she was really old. Old like in her 20s. The shows were so old that Annette was probably married, even. That should’ve been crushing news to me, but secretly it made it even easier to think about her because now there was nothing to worry about at all. She’d never actually crawl through my bedroom window and ask to be my friend (the possibility still existed when she was my age), so I could imagine it happening in all sorts of new and exciting ways.

Every once in a while I still get that kind of schoolboy tingle.

“I Still Love You” by the Vejtables is one of my all-time favorite songs, and one day I decided to try to find a clip of it on YouTube. Little did I know that I’d get the celebrity crush-rush from watching it – Jan Errico/Ashton might very well be the most gorgeous drummer-girl creature that ever existed. The way she sings, the way she tilts her head back and forth to the beat, her hair, her somewhat scared-looking eyes, the way she looks at the drums when she does a roll… she’s painfully beautiful, and she’s my kind of girl. I don’t need my aunt to tell me that the clip is old and that Jan is too (I understand time all too well at this point) but in my mind I can not only imagine a day when the Jan from the clip comes through my bedroom window to be my friend, I can also imagine Jan in real life actually BEING my friend. Growing up is really not so bad after all, I guess.