Things I Learned From Charlie's Angels

Once upon a time, there were three little girls who went to the Police Academy... As a female product of a 70s childhood, I wanted to be one of Charlie's Angels when I grew up (yes, I know I've told you that I wanted to be the Bain de Soleil lady, but that was later. For the record I also wanted to be Barbie and Iris Love). I had the Farrah 'do (I think that was mandated by law in suburban Tulsa, OK circa 1977-79) and I had the green bikini that looked just like Jaclyn's white one. Oh, yes...I had it all. I recently watched an old episode of Charlie's Angels and it was fantastic in it's ghastly campiness. It made me quite nostalgic for my childhood, especially since the Angels went undercover on a cruise on this episode, which kind of made it a cross between Charlie's Angels AND the Love Boat and if you could have thrown in some little guy yelling 'Da Plane, Da Plane!', too, well let's just say I would've been in heaven. And I realized as I watched that there were an abundance of lessons I learned from Charlies Angels. Maybe because this show hails from an era of after-school-specials or maybe because I'd had a glass of wine, I'm not sure. Let me recap. 1) A swift Karate chop to a bad guy works every time. I don't know how and I've never done it, but I'm pretty sure that I could or at least that I'd like to, given the chance. 2) If you're the smart one (Sabrina), you don't get to wear the low cut, super sexy outfits. And you are stuck forever with that 'smart' label and it doesn't matter if Farrah leaves the show and they bring in that scrawny little Cheryl Ladd, you STILL don't get bumped up to sexy stuff. Sad. Turtleneck? Why can't she wear the cool off the shoulder number like Jaclyn? And look at the pic at the top. A bikini....short shorts....and covered head to toe in wth...riding johdpurs?! Left to right: Covered up like a nun, hot, sexy. And finally...the same fabric, but Kate's dress is cut up to her chin. 3) There are basically four kinds of guys. a) the bad ones who want to kidnap you. b) the polite ones who refer to you as 'Miss' and are usually a step beneath you socially like a waiter or a cabin boy. c) The ones who call, but never show up and d) Bosley. 4) We all have to be whores sometimes. Of course, the Angels had to go undercover as whores, well not really whores because this was prime time tv in the 70s, so more like sexy magician's assistants or a cocktail waitress, anything in a skimpy costume. I had to dress up once in a Lieutenant Uhura Star Trek dress for a convention (it was a space themed convention!! Seriously, I'm NO trekkie. Give me a little credit) and every day I dress up in pretty clothes and go do things that I don't necessarily enjoy and I get paid for it. Anyway...the lesson is just roll your eyes and roll with it. 5) When you're really in serious trouble, just hang tight and your girlfriends will come to the rescue. If you can kind of halfway collapse in a seductive, helpless posture all the better. 6) Above all, stay glossed and perfectly feathered at all times. Especially when halfway collapsed. I have noticed that jumpsuits are back in style and I saw some luscious 70s wooden platform heels at Target last week. I bet I could pull out my curling iron and do a feathered do and then KARATE CHOP!!! Didn't see that coming, did you? See? It works.

Gone, Baby, Gone

For some reason, I was looking at an arial view of Stillwater, Oklahoma today. I zoomed in to look at the little area where I lived for about a year during college and to my horror, it was gone. Just gone. We called it ‘The Cove’ because the area where we parked our cars was surrounded by a couple of little old houses, two small apartment buildings and trees in a circular pattern. It was located just South of the OSU campus, between Hester and Ramsey streets behind a house and it had a secluded, homey feel to it. The residents of The Cove would often sit outside together on warm nights and drink beer. Everyone was friendly and helped each other out. I lived in a dilapidated house in The Cove during the summer of 1986, or more precisely, I lived in the attic, which had been turned into a tiny apartment accessible by rickety stairs that led up the side of the house. The rent was $99 a month and it had a window unit air conditioner that often made it too cold. I had a little striped kitten named Spike. A guy named Rob lived in the main part of the house and there was a small basement that was dark and scary. It had old mason jars of food in it and my friend Janet and I used to dare each other to go inside. I lived in the attic There were two apartment buildings with four cute little apartments each in The Cove. My friend, Janet lived in one and I could see her front door from my tiny kitchen window. I delivered pizza for a living that summer, working the night shift mostly, from about 5:00 PM until 2:00 AM. I drove a bright orange Jeep that matched my bright orange dyed hair. I was an art student and dated a musician, who kept the same strange, vampire-like hours as I did. My Jeep This is the only pic I can find right now of the big orange hair. Of course, that's me in the middle As I looked around on the map, I saw that several places I remembered were gone. The Scholar’s Inn, an apartment complex right across from the basketball stadium is now a parking lot. My friend, Gary lived there and had great parties in the courtyard. He and I also used to play pool at Eskimo Joe’s, back when Joe’s was a real bar and not the Chili’s-like establishment of today. I was happy to see that The Stonewall Tavern still looks intact and if you walk South from there, there was this great used bookstore and a barber shop called 'Whisperin' Richard's'. Whisperin' Richard could only speak in a whisper, due to some sort of vocal chord injury. I wonder if he's still there. The OSU Sculpture Lab building is gone. A sculpture of mine graced the floor in the lab for probably a very long time. My ill fated mold broke while pouring a cement sculpture and it turned into a big blob and hardened on the floor. Other favorite places were Bill's Italian Restaurant, Leo's Peking Palace and Hideaway Pizza. I know that Hideaway is still there. My musician boyfriend worked at Bill's Italian Restaurant and we used to climb up on top of the building at night to catch a breeze. Looks like I need to go back to Stillwater soon and look around. I know that things have changed a lot since I lived there. I expect them to. I guess that the places I knew only live now in my mind and in my photos. All that's left today of 'The Cove'. It may not have been paradise, but they paved it and put up a parking lot.

Beloved Places - Oh to be on the Ile Saint-Louis

Oh, the places you'll go! I absolutely love to travel. New places, different cultures, unfamiliar food, I love it all. And although I know that there are people who have traveled a great deal more than I, you may be hard pressed to find one who can say they've enjoyed it more. I wish I had more photos from my earlier travels, prior to digital cameras, when sometimes the trip itself was a financial stretch, let alone spending $20 a roll for film and developing. So, I am now going to recount many of my favorite places...please make sure your seatbelts are securely fastened and your seatbacks are in a full upright position. This is stop #1 Ile Saint-Louis is one of two little islands in the Seine River smack dab in the middle of Paris. It's a quaint neighborhood that looks like a movie set, almost like you've traveled back in time and it boasts a fantastic view of the rear of Notre Dame. The Ile Saint-Louis is full of sidewalk cafes, shops and such but it just seemed to have a different flavor than the rest of Paris. Cleaner? Smaller? Cuter? I guess all of those things. I think if I return to Paris, which I hope I will, I'd stay on Ile Saint-Louis instead of near the Sorbonne, which truthfully wasn't bad at all. I truly loved all of Paris (and all Parisians I met were very kind). I was especially enamoured of the Louvre -being the art geek that I am, I actually teared up looking at Michelangelo's slaves. Norte Dame was like a giant cave, a good place to explore, and it was great fun just walking around the city. I also loved the cemetary and yes, was photographed at Jim Morrison's grave. I was so poor when I was in Paris that I really didn't eat much of the fabulous French cuisine. I did, however, partake in a morning ritual of French pastry. Mon Dieu! The patisserie near my hotel was enormous and I would stop by there first thing in the morning and thoughtfully choose a pastry from the colorful case along with a bottle of Evian water and walk a few blocks to dine in front of Notre Dame. Heaven! Lunch was usually a crepe du frommage from a street vendor. It didn't matter...I was in Paris! I recall one afternoon a gypsy woman was panhandling rather agressively near the Eiffel Tower and after I politely declined to donate, she poked me and held out her hand in a surprisingly demanding gesture. "I can't afford to eat here, either!", I exclaimed (In English, so I'm sure she had no idea what I was saying). "I ate a Snickers bar for lunch! A cup of coffee is $4! Move elsewhere!" She moved on quickly. I hope to return to Paris one day, it's history and beauty are intoxicating and there is so much more to explore than I was able to do in one trip.

A Fair to Remember

When I was growing up in Oklahoma, nothing heralded the coming of Fall like the Tulsa State Fair. The Fair usually blew into town with the first cool temperatures and crunchy leaves and brought with it an air of excitement and tradition. One of the things that made the Tulsa State Fair so wonderful was Bell’s Amusement Park, a charming park that was open most of the year. The Fair was connected to Bell’s, so in addition to the Fair rides, the Midway and the exhibits, you also had the perk of your favorite rides at Bell’s. The big white wooden roller coaster, known as ‘Zingo’ was Bell’s crown jewel. Built in 1968,‘Zingo’ was a series of giant hills and breathtaking drops, up to 82 feet. You entered the park by walking under one of the hills of the roller coaster, excitement growing as you heard the ‘clack clack clack’ of the coaster and the happy screams of its victims. Being old enough to ride ‘Zingo’ was a definite rite of passage in my day. There was also the ‘Phantasmagoria’ spook/fun house that you rode through in a cart (a notorious make out ride), the ‘Himalaya’, which went round and round to the sound of sirens and loud music du jour, and a big ominous Ferris Wheel. One of my all time favorites was the giant Super Slide, that we flew down on old burlap sacks. I think the Super Slide was removed sometime in the late 1970s or early 80s, as I’m sure it was pretty dangerous. Other favorites included the Log Ride, the Octopus, the Scrambler and the Super Round Up. A day at Bell’s was always a dream come true for me and I often got to go there for my birthday. The Fair was like Bell’s on steroids. Although I don’t really care for Fair food, I like the smells, I love to walk around and people watch, check out all of the rides and revel in the cool night air. When I was in Middle School, my friend, Karen and I were allowed to go to the Fair by ourselves (during the day only). Wow, did we think we were grown up! We spent a dizzying day riding rides and looking for cute boys all on about $20. When I was in high school, the Fair was the ultimate date. I mean, it had all of the perfect romantic elements – the opportunity for your date to win you a stuffed animal (thus proving his manliness), the prospect of holding hands as you walked around the Midway, the pleasure of getting to wear one of your brand new sweaters in the cool weather, and the chance that you might kiss on the Skyride as you glided way up over everyone and swung gently from the cables. Oh, yes! A kiss was quite possible, being that he was the most manly-stuffed-animal-winning thing this side of the Arkansas River. Alas, I am now grown and Bell’s amusement park is no longer. It was closed a couple of years ago and ‘Zingo’ now sits somewhere in a warehouse, quiet and dismantled. I drove by where it used to be one time and was devastated to see a huge expanse of concrete and grass where my Mecca used to be. It actually hit me harder than I thought it would and I swear a couple of tears slid down my cheeks. Maybe I can find a cute guy to take me to the Fair to cheer me up. Maybe I’ll even kiss him on the Skyride.

Mimosas

No, not the kind you drink at baby showers. I'm talking about the trees. I parked my car under one the other day and it reminded me that my Grandparents had two huge Mimosa trees in their front yard when I was a kid and I spent many happy hours perched up in them. I loved their soft, fern like leaves and the feathery hot pink blooms that smell so good and attract butterflies and hummingbirds, too. There is something about the way their branches spread out so wide that makes them perfect for climbing. My Grandparents also had a gigantic Weeping Willow in the backyard, that made a perfect playhouse under the fall of branches in the cool shade. My friends and I would set up little homesteads in there and play all day. There was also another tree of some sort in the backyard that had very slippery bark. My Granddad could take out his ubiquitous pocket knife and slice off a little twig from that tree, about the diameter of a pencil, cut a notch or two in it and the bark would slip up and down it, making an instant whistle. It was so cool! Sadly enough, as I zoom into look at their old house on Google Earth, I see that the Mimosa trees are no more. The Weeping Willow is gone, also, but there is a tree where the 'Slippery Bark' tree was that could possibly be the same tree and it looks like the big Magnolia is still out front. The neighborhood has changed. It was so 'out in the country' when I was a kid. I still remember hearing the far off train whistles at night and sleeping with the attic fan on and the windows open. Long white curtains fluttered gracefully in the breeze like friendly ghosts and I always woke in the morning to a chorus of birds and the smell of something delicious cooking in the kitchen. I spent a lot of time at my Grandparents' red brick home when I was a child and was allowed to eat as much ice cream as I wanted. I am almost afraid to drive by the house when I go to Tulsa to visit, because I think I would be overcome with memories and sad that it didn't look the same. God forbid someone has neglected it. I remember every tiny detail of that house, from the copper pulls on the cabinets to the tiny hexagonal aqua tile in the bathroom and I still dream that I'm there quite often. Sometimes my Grandparents are even there with me and I know, in my dream, that they have passed on and what a rare opportunity I am afforded to get to spend some more time with them. Next time, I'll be sure and look out the big plate glass window in the front room and see the Mimosa Trees. I know they'll be there!