Fishface
Every Friday, at some point in my young life (1976-ish?), we would drag the TV upstairs from the family room (which had "pizza-vomit" carpet and a PLAID couch - that's a story for another time), put it in the corner of the kitchen, and watch the Donny and Marie Show. This was utter bliss and rapture. I had the HUGEST crush on Donny Osmond. His purple socks, his perfect teeth, his "je ne sais quois" - he made my young heart throb. One of his myriad nephews, Aaron Osmond, was in my kindergarten class. All the Osmond nieces and nephews got to be on the Donnie and Marie Christmas special; Aaron had been on TELEVISION. He was FAMOUS. I was a painfully shy child, so I can't imagine that I ever said that much to Aaron. Even so, he called me "Fishface." Don't ask me why; my family firmly maintains that I looked like Ramona Quimby as I was growing up.* But I didn't look the least bit fishlike, so I was ambivalent about "Fishface." Aaron Osmond (one of THE Osmonds) had chosen a nickname especially for me. Then again, it wasn't so flattering.
Because of these formative experiences, I am now a largely dithering, conflicted person.
If only I'd won a lock of Donny's hair.
*They even cut a picture of Ramona Quimby from one of those book club flyers and tormented me with it. I've seen more recent versions of the books and she's much cuter now, believe me (they've especially improved her coiffure - I certainly could have used such hair improvement).
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Oh Kate! I just found this blog. I am SO happy you're blogging. I love you! Blog on, turophile! Blog on!
(I just used four exclamation points in that paragraph. As an editor I'm opposed to exclamation points in general, so this must mean that I'm REALLY excited about your blog. You are the winner of blogged-ness.)
Ah, Kate. I hate to tell you this, but I remember receiving a big ol' box of hand-me-downs from Donny & Debbie sometime post-"Goin' Coconuts" that contained, among other things:
-a big bottle of "Wicked Wahine" perfume
-several puka-shell necklaces
-a pair of white cotton harem-pants knickers that I wanted desperately to wear to school
-several pairs of purple socks
Of course, we gave away all of the purple socks, thinking, "Who in their right mind would want to wear bright purple socks?"
Alas: Today, those socks + eBay = instant fortune...
If that's not a missed opportunity, I don't know what is. I hope you spend too much time now weeping over your lost auction fortune.
I'm not sure I ever had purple socks. I have monkey socks now. It's not the same.
I'm in the middle of rereading all of the Beverly Cleary books I can get my grubby DI paws on. I have conflicting feelings about the mid-century vs. modern Ramona. She does look a little less "pinched" these days, it's true. But you can't beat those old Tinker toy-like hands--more like circles with spokes coming out of them. And the old picture of Ramona wearing her robot mask at the end of "Henry Huggins" is priceless.
Jenny forgot to mention the T-shirt that also came from the hand-me-down box. It was a red T-shirt with a silk-screened picture of Donny on the front. Chris wore that thing with his favorite Dingo boots for days on end.
Kate,
All I can say is that I am so sorry. I honestly don't remember that and I wish I could go back 25 years and take it back.
I hope the healing process can begin. :)
Aaron