DON'T WORRY BABY
/WE’VE GROWN WEARY of the news cycle: COVID-Trump-Insurrection-Repeat. We have also grown weary of regular TV—you know, endless ads for prescription drugs with happy old people risking it all on countless, awful side-effects, interspersed with bits of “Wheel of Fortune” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” reruns.
Let’s watch a movie! Netflix had a recommendation for us: “Runaway Bride” with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. It was just the comfortable, predictable, escape we needed. The title says it all (spoiler alert) it’s about a bride that runs away. She’s made several trips to the marriage alter, but flees just before vow time. But, then along comes Gere…
It took me back. Forty-nine years. Just this time of the year in 1972, I was attempting to woo and wow a pretty young lady.
I was a student at the University of Tulsa, playing drums in a rock and roll band, and driving a school bus for Tulsa Public Schools. She was a senior in high school and had just been selected Miss December by the student body. Her life was fine and full. I hoped to make it Fuller (wink, wink).
The top five tunes on the radio for this same week back in 1972 were:
You're So Vain —Carly Simon
Superstition —Stevie Wonder
Me And Mrs. Jones —Billy Paul
Crocodile Rock —Elton John
Your Mama Don't Dance —Loggins & Messina
The political scandal du jour:
In January 1972, G. Gordon Liddy, Finance Counsel for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President and former aide to John Ehrlichman, presented a campaign intelligence plan to CRP's Acting Chairman Jeb Stuart Magruder, Attorney General John Mitchell, and Presidential Counsel John Dean that involved extensive illegal activities against the Democratic Party. According to Dean, this marked "the opening scene of the worst political scandal of the twentieth century and the beginning of the end of the Nixon presidency". —Wikipedia (Dean, John W. (2014). The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It).
On Valentine’s Day 1972, I offered THE ring and asked that all important question: “So, do you think Nixon will go down in history as the worst…” NO, NO, NO! Not that question. THE question. The for-better-or-worse question.
She had so many reasons to say NO. She could have said, “You’re in school with high tuition hanging over you. You’re a drummer and a bus driver.” For-richer-or-poorer? “Ummm, No. I don’t think so.”
So how did it turn out?
I just told you about happily watching a Netflix movie together. Are you paying attention? My bride did not runaway. As Paul Harvey used to say: “And, now you know the rest of the story.” Was she ever tempted? Well, if I were married to me, I would have to say YES, I would have been tempted to run away from me on numerous occasions.
Maybe you've seen the movie “About Schmidt” with Jack Nicholson. The movie starts with his character, Warren Schmidt at his retirement dinner. It's the beginning of a road of dark comedy that many of us could relate to but none of us want to travel. The title of this blog--About Pops--is a respectful borrowing from the title and theme of the movie.
Shortly after retiring, Schmidt’s wife passes away. He slips deeper into a funk, believing his life has not counted for anything. He goes on a road trip, all alone, in a motorhome his wife purchased for their retirement years. One night he’s sitting in a park on top of the RV talking to his deceased wife:
“Helen, what did you really think of me, deep in your heart? Was I really the man you wanted to be with? Was I? Or were you disappointed and too nice to show it?”
That is one of the most tragic lines in any movie ever. I just wanted to shake him and say, “Warren; buddy, she didn’t run away did she? She bought the RV. She was looking down the road, the road with YOU. Sure maybe you’ve been a pain in the bumper, but apparently she was holding out hope for some bliss somehow somewhere.”
I remember January of 1972, I almost flunked out of a scuba diving class. (Had to get that pesky P.E. credit.) It was an evening class. On those winter evenings I wanted to be with her, not in a swimming tank learning how to decompress before surfacing from a deep dive. I skipped so many classes I almost failed my final test dive, but I had something more important going on.
Although certified, I’ve never been scuba diving. I’ve had something more important going on. Oh I don’t have the fervor that my 21 year-old self had, but I still hope to woo and wow her at 70 and beyond. Am I the man she really wanted to be with? Or is she disappointed and too nice to show it?
We’ve taken the whole quarantine thing really seriously. That is to say that we’ve had a lot of together-time. So far she hasn’t suggested that I enroll in a scuba diving class. I’m taking that as a good sign.
Well it's been building up inside of me
For oh I don't know how long
I don't know why
But I keep thinking
Something's bound to go wrong
But she looks in my eyes
And makes me realize
And she says "don't worry, baby"
Don't worry, baby
Don't worry, baby
Everything will turn out alright
Don't worry, baby