"Hold Me"...that first TV Guide
The older I get, the memories become all the more sweeter. Sentiment has always been an integral part of me, but as I age, the more sentimental I become. Here on LJ, it's a nice feeling to have a place to share with others who either share the same memories, or enjoy hearing about them. Even the little things like an old magazine.
In 1975, I was already buying the weekly TV Guide at the store to read what Bonanza episodes were going to be rerun on our local channel. I couldn't wait for Tuesday, which was the day the next week's TV Guide came out. By October '75, I was full-blown S&H crazy-in-love. Everybody knew it, I was not one to hold back my enthusiasm. Every Tuesday, I would stop at the drug store, before school, and buy the TV Guide and read it before school. I always had it in my math book on Tuesdays. My friend, Irene, who sat next to me, finally said, "Carol, we get the TV Guide in the mail on Mondays, I can call you after school on Mondays and read it to you." I accepted her generous offer! Every Monday, I would rush home and wait for Irene's phone call.
One Monday, she called, and said, very excitedly, "Oh, you are going to die! Starsky and Hutch are on the cover!" I squealed with joy, and asked her to describe the cover to me. She went into detail about the unusual pose, and my heart was racing. But then she was going to read me in inside article...I so vividly remember the old tan wall phone in the house. It was in the kitchen, and my bedroom was beside it. I would wrap the phone cord around the corner and shut my door, almost completely, to have privacy. Irene read the title, "Me and Thee Against the World." OMG, the title and the front cover that she had described made me crazy! Then she read the article, I could hardly breathe, I was SO excited. Then she stopped, apparently she had read ahead, and said, "Oh, Carol...you won't believe what it says..." And she continued on and read the part where Paul asks David to hold him, I can still remember hearing, "I'm down, I'm scared, I don't know what the answers are, hold me."
I stopped her, "Wait--what? Can you read that again, please?!" She read it again. I could not believe what I was hearing, I could not believe that very intimately private moment between those two guys--in real life, not in a script--was in PRINT for the entire world to read. WOW! You could have knocked me over with a feather. I was already in love with S&H, but wow, this was Paul and David! "Hold me?" My heart melted... The next day I ran to the store and it was mine, all mine, that cover that Irene had described, Oh!!!!! Then I read the article, walking to school. Then I hid the TV Guide in my math book (like I was going to do any math that day...no), I read it during math class and was in my own little Me and Thee world.
There would be other TV Guides, but nothing comes close to that first wonderful, beautiful, amazing little magazine cover and article.
But there would be more moments of melting away my heart...episodes that would captivate me, other Merv Griffin appearances, especially the Vegas appearance with Merv.
Okay, first "The Fix", then, "Hold me", and later, "I just want to tell you that you're beautiful."
And I am going to grow up and leave these feelings behind?
Never in a million years, baby, they are coming along with me for the ride...for the rest of my life.