A good scare is good for you

As I said in yesterday's post, my early contact with Tennessee Ernie Ford was so frightening beyond all reason, my mother decided I was to never be exposed to anything that would scare me.

Good luck with that.

The result was that a lot of things scared me because everyone was fixated on not scaring me. Our house was always full of sound, either from the TV or the radio, so there was always something to avert my eyes from, or some big brassy music to startle me. Although, this guy didn't scare me at all:

When I was four and saw Harry Belafonte on TV, I said (paraphrasing), "That is the most beautiful man I've ever seen."

My mom was scared then.

There was a particular scare every weeknight, when the Late Movie would come on. If I wasn't in bed before 10:30 (our household was a little lax about bedtime, among other things), the opening credits of the Late Movie would show a sort of "lazy susan" with characters, while the announcer listed the kind of genres you might see tonight. Romance, comedy, drama and ...

Yep. Horror, with this guy as their model. It was my singular motivation for getting to bed early, although, since my bedroom shared a wall with the living room, I could still hear the eerie organ music they played while Lon Chaney menaced the screen. It didn't help that the TV set was on that wall.






But a funny thing happened when I was 8 years old.



The Twilight Zone had been on for three or four years by then, but I managed to walk into the living room and catch an episode called "Little Girl Lost." A little girl falls through an interdimensional portal behind her bed and gets lost, along with a dog, in some kind of alternate universe. Good thing her dad has an astro-physicist as a friend!

The show totally creeped me out. I went to my room and checked the walls and floor. No portals, but I still found myself thinking about the episode, getting chills, and enjoying it. Wow, scares could be fun. I tuned in to every episode after that.

What could possibly be better? Tune in tomorrow and find out.

In the meantime, when was your first good scare? You know, the one that made you jump or creeped you out, but you laughed and went back for more?

Man, that torks me off.

I think I've always been a little unique in what attracts me in a man. When I was three or four, I became mesmorized watching Harry Belafonte on TV. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Belafonte was (and probably still is) a gorgeous man. He just wasn't the right 'color' of gorgeousness for my WASP (dare I say racist?) family. I tried to understand what they were talking about, and thought I had the rules, and then Chubby Checkers came along, who was just cute as a button (to me). So I suffered through another round of, "oh, hell no," from Mom.

When the Beatles appeared on the scene, I think I actually heard my mom sigh with relief. They may had have long hair, but at least they were white. But while my girlfriends were swooning over Paul, with George and John coming in at close second/thirds, I was in love with Ringo.

That's right, the weird-looking guy with the goofy sense of humor. Even with white guys, I wasn't attracted to the traditionally cute ones.

The Beatles faded away as I became a preteen and the Monkees flew into my radar. All of my friends had posters of Davey Jones on their walls. But not me. No, I fancied Peter Tork, the one with the goofy personae. (I'm beginning to see a goofy pattern here, but I digress.)

I read today that Peter Tork has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma. They first discovered it as a growth on his tongue. According to his website, it's pretty curable, it hasn't spread, but he'll be going through surgery and radiation.

First of all, I can't imagine anything more painful than radiation in your tongue/mouth/throat area. 'Raw', 'burning', 'unable to eat' images come to mind. Second, it sounds like a particularly horrid thing to happen to a singer. I am just so sad about my former crush having to go through this, and wish him a speedy recovery. I'm also amazed that I can feel so intimately affected by someone I don't officially know. We've never met, and if we did, I'd probably channel my inner 13-year old and drift between insane gushing and dorky shyness.

So, my question of the day is, has a famous person's personal crisis ever affected you as if they were a close friend, or even family member? Go ahead and share. I won't tell anyone.

P.S. I wouldn't call my husband weird-looking, and he has a sense of humor, but it's not goofy. You will, however, notice a distinct trend in my attraction to him:

What are we supposed to do with history?

Today was an important day for Americans. Not only did a new President take the oath of office, but the first ever African-American President took that oath. One hundred fifty years ago, African-Americans were objects to be owned, not human beings to be respected. Now they are doctors, teachers, presidents, and Presidents. This is all very inspirational, but a little too generic. Let me tell you about my own history with race, not because it's all about me, but because maybe you can recognize yourself in my words.

I was born into racism. My dad has always been blatant about it; he never shied from his feelings about blacks and could let the N-word roll from his tongue without a thought. My mom was the insidious racist. She never used that word and shushed my dad when he started on about color, but - this is important - she thought she wasn't a racist because "it's not their fault they're colored." As in, it's not their fault that they are inferior, that they are not as smart or as energetic or as motivated or as GOOD as white folks.

My external environment was no better. I lived in Decatur, Illinois, which is in the middle of the Midwest, and went to school where there was only one diverse child in all of Eldorado Elementary. He was Catholic. So I lived in a sea of Caucasians, and should have married a survival nut and become a card-carrying white supremacist.

Except that I didn't. One of my vivid memories is when I was 3 years old. We had a teeny little black-and-white TV in the corner and Harry Belafonte was performing on some variety show. He had an open, puffy-sleeved shirt, and was singing "The Banana Boat Song" (you know, DAY-O, DAY-AY-O), and I was glued to the image on the tube. He was the most beautiful being I'd ever seen, and I said so, in whatever language a 3-year old uses. My mother informed me, in the language that moms use, "Not only no, but hell, no." But she was too late; TV had opened the door to Oz for me - a wonderful world of color.

In the meantime, a young black child was growing up in the Crenshaw district of south central Los Angeles. He lived in a two-bedroom apartment with his parents and three brothers. His world was dark-skinned, with black neighbors and black teachers and black playmates. His parents were not racists, though. They were people who, although proud of their heritage, did not expect the world to either help or hinder them due to their race. As the young man, Dale, grew up, somehow just knew he'd marry outside his race. You see, he'd been watching TV, too.

Fast forward a few hundred years, to my thirties. Dale and I meet at work, fall in love, marry and have a son. Dale's family has been wonderful. My family has been... two thousand miles away, which is just as well.

Now that our son, Marcus, is a teenager and Obama is president, I'm looking at my colorful family and wondering if it means anything to him. After all, Dale and I don't bring race into our conversations. We don't act like being black and white is a big deal. Neither do our friends. Nor does Marcus' school or classmates or friends. Our musical tastes, our meals, our lives are eclectic. We're not ethnic-free, we're ethnic-inclusive.

Last night, I asked Marcus about the election, and about himself. He told me he was excited to see a black man elected president, but it wasn't as pivotal for him as it was for Dale. I asked him what I'd never dared ask before - had he ever been the subject of racial taunts or discrimination? (Before you go all open-mouthed on me, if Marcus had ever come home from school acting weird, it would be the first question on my list.)

"No," he said. "Nobody talks about being black or white or whatever. It's not important."

So the good news is that there may be a generation out there who doesn't care what's in your DNA. They're happy about Obama, but they knew it was possible, this event my generation listed as a dream. But what does that mean about taking pride in your ethnicity? If no one cares if you're black, do you still celebrate your African-American heritage? If no one treats you differently because you're Jewish, do you still warn of the dangers of the Holocaust? Once the world is truly a better place, where everyone respects one another's race, religion and politics, do we dare forget what might happen if we don't? How do we fit bad history into a better day?