American Bandstand

My Sister is 7 years my Senior, and I am quick to remind her of that as often as I can, however one of the benefits of having an older sibling used to be "pretending to be 7 years older".

We grew up in a household, in which Mom and Dad both worked, which meant Saturdays were not cartoon, or play days. Saturdays were "cleaning days". (Mom German, and obsessively tidy) Ick, I almost to this day cannot stand a Saturday, if I know it will spent cleaning.

The one person we could count on was Dick Clark at 11:00am. He would save of us from our life of drudgery. At 11:00, we could turn off the vacuums, and lay down the dust rags, only to pretend we were as cool as the coolest of the dancers.

Who helped me escape cleaning day? Performances I recall...

Prince
madness
Public Image Limited
Madonna
Elton John
Billy Joel
Janet Jackson
ABBA
The Beat
Berlin
The Gap Band
Blondie
Haircut 100
INXS
Rick James
Grace Jones
Psycholdelic Furs
Lou Rawls
Rick Springfield
Sugarhill Gang
Talking Heads...

There are others I am sure.

We also felt if we practiced our dance moves, enough we would surely be discovered by Dick Clark himself. We would be able to leave this sleepy Midwestern town that smelled of alfalfa and cowshit, and be feature dancers. Of course being feature dancers would lead to a career as famous performers.

So I spend this Saturday raising my coffee cup to my Sister who remains in the sleepy cowtown. Here is to a happy day vacuuming, and you are seriously one of the best dancers out there.

I need to dust off the TV.