 Doing some guitar in my basement during a sleepover. Closest to our dancing I could find. Ha ha. “Where words fail, music speaks”-Hans Christen Anderson (author!). Early 1980s, music brings it back - “Celebrate good times, C’mon…There’s a party going on right here…” Kool and the Gang sang out from Boom-Boxes passing on muscular brown shoulders strutting by Lake Harriet beach 5 blocks away from my childhood home. I enjoyed walking down there sometimes to hang out, swim in the murky water, and build sand castles. On school days, while waiting for my turn with the curling iron (had to go for that feathered hair like Farah Faucet of course), “Celebrate” sang out from the clock radio on my bedside table, cranked up to hear it in the hallway. Chicago’s “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” lamented or “Eye of the Tiger” invigorated from that little contraption too, among others. Our house ran with precision, Mom presiding over the routine. Breakfast, school, snack, homework, practice instrument, take your pile of neatly folded laundry from the step and waltz upstairs put it away in the drawer, wait for dinner to be called, eat what’s been presented upon your plate. Just maybe a merciless game of Parchesi, “20 questions” or competitive math problems, if offered afterward dinner. There was the politeness rule too: You MUST knock on ANY door, say “Please, May I come in?” and enter in ONLY if granted permission. But, there were exceptions. The basement was one. It was our “free zone”. No door to knock on, just a dark rectangle at the bottom of the steps, past the spider-webby laundry room. Out of sight, out of mind. The concrete floor was covered in pine green industrial carpet. Scratchy brown plaid couch and TV on one end/Picnic table, dollhouse, Legos. Bookshelves on the other,And yes, a Boombox of our own!!! Radio, antennae, cassette player, and round speakers built in. Black plastic masterpiece. Weekend routines existed, but with some embedded wiggle room. We milked as much flexibility as possible. Saturday mornings the big people slept in. Me and my sister, aka “the girls”, tip-toed downstairs to indulge in THE cartoons. Dad got up next to set about his gourmet cooking. He puttered, letting us watch or ask questions. Often eggs, herbs and wooden spatulas were involved. The smell was like garden meets browning butter. Good memories. Sunday evenings were precious metal to this soul. Set the mood: Every week, the interview show, 60-minutes, ticked along on the little TV on the kitchen table, while Mom tested the griddle with drops of water, then poured pancakes. Just when most of the emerging bubbles had popped, she flipped ‘em. Golden circles of homemade puffiness. We even got to choose when to request our stack! I timed my ask for the ending credits of 60-minutes. I grabbed that warm plate, plopped down, lathered them with peanut butter and syrup. Those were tasty, but what I was really waiting for was that next show: SOLID GOLD! Here it comes! Mom was too busy tidying up to come over and turn the knob. Those dancers moved to the songs from the top hits list. The Solid Gold dancers embodied the side of feminine I did not see in real life. I was glued. Secretly I wanted to be like them - curvy, athletic, confident. Dare I say sexy! I wondered if I could be paid attention to, like them. This was CLEARLY NOT the case for my awkward personality, but ]A GIRL COULD DREAM. **Down in that basement, my sister and I found a way to become SOLID GOLD STARS** There was a narrow built in wooden shelf that had Knot holes in it. My sister and I strung a jump rope through it. The handles magically transformed into the sturdy hands of the male Solid Gold Performers. We held those hands, moving back and forth, up and down, sexiness FLOWING through us with no shame. One of my prized possessions was an 8-inch “Disco Ball” whose battery operated motor said “rrrrr” as it spun, spewing out colored lights. When we added that to the mix, our Gold Star show surpassed even the one on TV! Music blaring, we did high KICKS, lay on the FLOOR, SPUN, and GLOWED. Then we laughed. Laughed and laughed ..... at our award winning performance. It was such a high to feel alive like that. My sister was older and lost interest in it after a-while. But I made my own dances too. No one else saw, but I felt shapely, beautiful, attractive and healthy in those moments. PSSSST, Don’t tell anyone, but I still grab those solo moments to dance here and there now. Why not!? LIFE is a golden gift. Lynn Jodeit Ouellette copyright 2025 Photo from personal collection, taken in the 1980s | ___Says it better than I can. |
