Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Natalie R. Collins–an extremely tenuous connection
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
I woke up today old. Not OLD old, as my kids would say, but still old. The “wow, Mom, you must have been around with the dinosaurs” kind of old. Of course, I didn’t realize it until I heard the astonishing news that Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, and icon of my youth and era, had died.
I heard about Michael Jackson’s death shortly after I heard that Farrah Fawcett had passed away. Fawcett’s death was expected. She was seriously ill with cancer, and so, while sad, her passing was no surprise. But followed so closely by Michael Jackson’s death, I found myself looking face to face with my own mortality.
This week my baby, my youngest daughter, is off to drill camp. She is now a member of the SAME drill team where I marched, oh so many years ago. (Just FYI, they don’t really march anymore. Not like we did.) The first parade I ever performed in, as a member of this team, was a HUGE gigantic mess, because our drill mistress hadn’t had us practice with the music she had recorded, making it impossible for us to do our parade routine. We were scheduled to do yet ANOTHER parade that 4th of July, and we were all pretty upset about the music, when I popped in my Michael Jackson CD, and, as always, we danced. How could you NOT dance when MJ was on? We were dancers, after all.
And we discovered that every single song on that CD had a beat that was perfect. Michael solved our problem. We popped in the MJ CD, and finished the second parade without a hitch. MJ saved the day.
Of course, I marched in that parade with PERFECT hair, feathered back like no other, because we all had the Farrah hair in those days. And we KEPT our Farrah hair in place with a LOT of hairspray. I remember finishing my PE class one time, and another girl commented on how good my hair still looked. How did I do it?
Easy. Six quarts of hairspray. That hair could have made it through a tornado, and my limbs might have gone missing but those BANGS would have remained perfectly feathered. My homage to Farrah.
How sad that we have lost both of these icons of my youth, and that today I have realized I am old.
RIP Michael Jackson, 50 years old.
RIP Farrah Fawcett, 62 years old.
I woke up today old. Not OLD old, as my kids would say, but still old. The “wow, Mom, you must have been around with the dinosaurs” kind of old. Of course, I didn’t realize it until I heard the astonishing news that Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, and icon of my youth and era, had died.
I heard about Michael Jackson’s death shortly after I heard that Farrah Fawcett had passed away. Fawcett’s death was expected. She was seriously ill with cancer, and so, while sad, her passing was no surprise. But followed so closely by Michael Jackson’s death, I found myself looking face to face with my own mortality.
This week my baby, my youngest daughter, is off to drill camp. She is now a member of the SAME drill team where I marched, oh so many years ago. (Just FYI, they don’t really march anymore. Not like we did.) The first parade I ever performed in, as a member of this team, was a HUGE gigantic mess, because our drill mistress hadn’t had us practice with the music she had recorded, making it impossible for us to do our parade routine. We were scheduled to do yet ANOTHER parade that 4th of July, and we were all pretty upset about the music, when I popped in my Michael Jackson CD, and, as always, we danced. How could you NOT dance when MJ was on? We were dancers, after all.
And we discovered that every single song on that CD had a beat that was perfect. Michael solved our problem. We popped in the MJ CD, and finished the second parade without a hitch. MJ saved the day.
Of course, I marched in that parade with PERFECT hair, feathered back like no other, because we all had the Farrah hair in those days. And we KEPT our Farrah hair in place with a LOT of hairspray. I remember finishing my PE class one time, and another girl commented on how good my hair still looked. How did I do it?
Easy. Six quarts of hairspray. That hair could have made it through a tornado, and my limbs might have gone missing but those BANGS would have remained perfectly feathered. My homage to Farrah.
How sad that we have lost both of these icons of my youth, and that today I have realized I am old.
RIP Michael Jackson, 50 years old.
RIP Farrah Fawcett, 62 years old.
