I've been a sucker for
summer since sometime between my 1st and 7th viewing of
the movie Grease during the summer of
1978. Just 11-years old at the time, I had yet to experience the sensations of summer
love that Olivia Newton John and John Travolta’s characters, Sandy and Danny,
shared. But I did understand enough to swoon vicariously in my cineplex chair
while jotting down a few mental notes about how I, too, could “have me a blast”
with some of that summer lovin’ that “happened so fast.”
If my memory serves me
correctly, the ingredients for the good time boiled down to a suntan, a break from the academic
pressures of the school year, and meeting a tall, dark and handsome boy my
parents would never approve of who would rescue me if I swam by him and got a
cramp. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.
In a natural progression of
logic, I spent the next 10 summers being “saved” by every lifeguard along the California coast in search of a Sandyexperience of my own, and the next 20 summers after that smiling nostalgically
about the couple of Dannys who bought my act hook, line and life preserver.
It all seemed like an
innocent rite of passage—until this summer.
It just occurred to me, you
see, that my youngest daughter is of the same age I was when I first saw Grease. This also means, of course, that
I, the former “swooner,” am now raising two daughters who are well into the summer
swooning demographic themselves.
And it makes me wonder: How in
the name of all that is right and pure has this movie not been burned and
banned by responsible parents everywhere?
For the record, I am a
reasonable person. I have no problem with suntans—provided that my girls have come
by them despite the layer of SPF 50 I have them slather on. And believe me, I’m
all for the break in homework and test preparation. After all, who do you think
cracks the whip during the school year to rein in those who are too young to appreciate
how their choices in middle school affect the courses they are prepared to take
in high school, which affects the kind of college that will accept them, which
is ultimately the deciding factor as to whether or not they will become not
just the first female President of the United States, but the first sister act?
I assure you that my calloused hands need the summer off just as much as my
daughters’ weary brains do.
But, honey, within these
plans there is no room for summer lovin’ with the likes of a Danny Zuko. If
that boy were to show up on my porch, I’d turn the shine on my minivan into
some “Greased Lighting” of my own with the hair on his knuckle head.
Yes, I said it: the same boy
who gave me chills that were “electrifyin’” when I was coming of age would be singeing
me with the voltage of an electric chair if he were pursuing one of my sweet Sandra
Dees.
This realization makes me
wonder where Sandy’s
parents were during the summer of love and the school year that followed. Were
they not concerned that their daughter morphed from Polly Puritan in a poodle
skirt to Lucy Libidinous in black leather?
The only way I can make
sense of it as a parent is that the movie was running long and they had to edit
out the role of Sandy’s
mom, the lovely Mrs. Olsen. Otherwise, I’m sure we would have seen her take
control of the situation. In fact, I like to think of her lurking on lane 7 as
the lustful duo went bowling at the arcade. I also see her dressed in some
crisp sand-colored capris as she tried to blend in with the beach landscape while
shadowing them during those strolls when they drank lemonade. And with my whole
heart, I also know Mrs. Olsen would have intervened sometime before 10:00 so
they’d have no chance to make out under that dang dock.
Just as sure as summer leads
to fall, I now understand that Sandy’s
mom breathed a huge sigh of relief when it turned colder and that romance
seemed to end. Because there’s just something about those su-uh-mer ni-ights
that makes a mamma want to “have her a blast”… right through the barrel of her
just-purchased shotgun.
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