You Are Young and Life is Long and There is Time to Kill Today

Now, we'll do 1973. I'm going to try to be less wordy on this one. we'll see how I do.

Age: I started out the year being seven, and turned eight that Summer.

Music: As I know I've mentioned before, I could never sleep when I was little, and so my mom let me have a radio on all night. It kept me from hearing every other little noise in the house and freaking out. That year on the radio, I heard a lot of Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly", Vicki Lawrence's "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" and loads of John Denver. (sigh) Tubular Bells came out that year, thanks to The Exorcist, and it scared the shit out of me every time I heard it. The biggest album in 1973 was Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. I would have to wait until I was in high school and buy it at a pawn shop, before I was able to wear out that one.

Movies: Besides the summer movies they showed for free at Mesa Junior High, like Cinderfella and really old Three Stooges movies, I didn't watch many back then. I did see Jesus Christ Superstar, but I had to wait to see most of the good movies from 1973. Most of them, like, West World, Soylent Green, American Graffiti and one of my all time favorite films, High Plains Drifter I saw either on television or Video when I was older.

TV: I'm sure you won't be surprised when I tell you that I watched TONS of television when I was a kid. I like to blame TV for my strange propensity to remember frightening amounts of pop culture trivia. As far as kids shows go, Sigmund and the Seamonsters came out that year. My all-time favorite Sid and Marty Kroft show, The Land of the Lost, wouldn't come out for another year, but I was still happy with Sigmund. School House Rock also premiered in 1973, and if I ever get drunk enough, I will very loudly prove to you that I know all the words to every song. Prime time shows I watched? Oh, all of them. My oldest sister loved Kung Fu. I was into the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family, and here's where I restrain myself from going on and on about Randolph Mantooth and Emergency again. We also watched, The Waltons, MASH, The Carol Burnett Show, Bob Newhart and Mary Tyler Moore. Whew.

Books: I know I read a lot, but I don't remember what I read specifically at that time. I remember reading Harriet the Spy, The Changeling, and Island of the Blue Dolphins for sure.

What I Wanted to be When I Grew-Up: I think even back then, I was entertaining that fantasy of moving to Colorado and stealing John Denver away from Annie.

Winter: Winter was tough for me because it was my first year in a new school. We had moved from Phoenix to Mesa the year before and I was a little too ghetto for all the Mormon girls in my neighborhood. I got made fun of a lot. For a while, I would hang out with my young hippie teacher named Mrs. Viola who was recently divorced and had hair down to her butt. We went to one of those Free to be You and Me Schools, and the transition to that from an inner-city elementary was tough too.

Spring: During the Spring, I became better friends with the boy named Skip who lived across the street from me. He and my brother and I would build forts and play Matchbox cars together. If my brother wasn't around, Skip would play GI Joe's/Barbies with me. Once my brother showed up, Skip would start throwing my Malibu Barbies and Mod Hair Ken (complete with facial hair stickers) all around, so my brother wouldn't think he was a sissy.

Summer: After one of my worst school years ever, Summer was great. My mom worked all day and my oldest sister was supposed to watch us. She was depressed and laid around in her room listening to Yes and The Moody Blues, so we could do whatever we wanted. The Tongans who lived two houses down from us, did Polynesian shows at hotels for a living and they taught me how to hula and do these other funky dances. The oldest son and his dad would practice their fire dances on the driveway. I loved watching that shit.

Fall: My third grade class was so much better. I loved my teachers and all the mean kids from my last grade, all went to other rooms. One of my teacher's husbands had been an MIA and a POW in Vietnam. He was one of the first prisoners be let go that year. He came to school and talked to us about what it was like as a prisoner and we were all in awe of him.