Sunday, February 23, 2014

A Tweenager’s Love Story

It was the week before Christmas, 1970. The movie, Love Story, with Ali McGraw and heartthrob Ryan O’Neal started playing at the local theatre in small town West Virginia. I was a “tweenager” which meant I wasn’t quite a teenager but pretended to be, even though I still liked to play with dolls. Over the summer I expected to magically transform from a kid in grade school to a “grownup” junior high freshman.

I had planned to see the movie with my friends, but my mother put a stop to that. It was rated PG which meant I had to have an adult with me since I was younger than 13. Of course, in those days a PG rating was very different than today. It probably meant that a couple kissed on the screen. I pouted around the house for a few days and kept saying, “But Susan, Becky, Nancy and Mary Beth all get to go without an adult.” But Mom held firm.
My grandmother worked in the fabric department at the downtown Montgomery Ward store. After school I would walk through the store stopping briefly to see if any new record albums were in the rack. Then I would climb the creaky, wooden stairs and watch her show fabrics to customers. She would have someone cover for her department when we went into the break room. When she asked me how school was I whined about wanting to the see the movie with my friends. Nannie said, “I would like to see the movie. Would you like to go with me?” I was ecstatic.
During the movie I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. I’d seen Mommy kissing Santa Claus many times. I did notice that Nannie seemed to develop a runny nose and needed quite a few Kleenexes. We went out for a milkshake afterwards. It was very fun. The next time I was in the record department I bought the Love Story sound track album.
Yesterday while cleaning the garage, I saw our free-standing CD holder. It reminded me of when record albums were popular and how later I traded those for CD’s. Now, I listen to my IPod, Pandora and music television instead of playing CD’s.
Today’s gift was to offer my 42-inch high CD holder on Freecycle. The person who takes it may have sentimental CD’s that they want to keep handy so that they can easily recreate their own Love Story.
In Giving,

Robin

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