So I was on the radio the other day . . .

[peg22]

on my friend's show where he had people come on and tell a story about a song that 
was significant in their lives and then he played the song. It was really great. 
Some of the songs were Carole King and Joni Mitchell and Evelyn Champagne King. 
And Tchaikovsky . . . and mine of course was David Soul . . .

So my nearest and dearest told me to post it. Cuz the general population probably didn't 
get the subtle nuance of a good Torino joke . . .

Who knew when I bought my first Huggy apple hat, that I'd be buying another one 30 years later . . .

Don’t Give Up On Us

 It was the bicentennial. I was 13. The entire country was awash in red and 
white and blue and stars and stripes of every combination never imagined by 
Betsy Ross and her darning needle. But in my little corner of the world, I was 
still in my green and brown checked polyester. I was not allowed to get, or 
worse, did not fit, into any bicentennial fashion. No flag jeans, no flag 
shorty shorts with the stars bursting from the crotch, no red striped chunky 
cork 2-inch sling back sandals. No suede jacket, red, white and blue with the 
24 inch double fringe. No, the only thing I got was a blue t-shirt with a brown 
and purple paisley iron-on of the number 76. Long may I wave.

But since I was 13, with a 13 year old attention span, I was soon onto something
 equally devastating. 

I discovered David Soul. And Starsky and Hutch. And I fell hopelessly in love 
with those two street-wise cops - who cried on screen more than Penny, the 
girl in my 7th grade band who had to play the oboe with a full set of braces. 
And I squealed with delight every time those grown men touched or hugged 
or emoted all over each other – which was like 12 times an episode. 
Gorgeous, macho, nurturing men in touch with their feelings. I had hit the 
motherlode. Or Aaron Spelling’s fantasy programming. Whatever.

 But every epic tale has its obstacles and mine was a tough one. Because even 
though I was technically a teenager, my bedtime was still 8 o’clock and the 
show was on at 9 o’clock, so the only way I could “watch” it was to shove my 
little cassette tape recorder right up next to the speaker on the chromo-color 
Zenith, and pray my dad didn't change the channel during an important car 
chase or interrogation or declaration of love that always happened between 
Starsky and Hutch right after the girlfriend of the week had disappeared, 
been arrested, murdered. Whatever. They didn’t need girlfriends. They had 
each other. And I fell for it hook, line and sinker. 

And then I discovered David Soul the Rock Star. Hutch could sing to me right 
in my own bedroom – on a record player. I bought the 45 and played Don’t Give 
Up on Us Baby over and over, transporting myself out to Bay City, California, 
into the backseat of that red Torino with the fancy white stripe, right next to 
Kristy McNichol, who had begun showing up that season in the roles obviously
 written for me - cute young neighbor girl, smart-talking shoplifting stowaway.

I wrote my first TV script listening to that song - all about how me and Kristy 
would help Starsky and Hutch solve the worst murder in Bay City history, 
and we would get to run through back streets and duck into alleys and they’d
 call us Kristy and Kaye and at the end of the episode we’d get all those hugs 
and caresses from Starsky and Hutch that they usually saved for each other . . .

And then my house burned. And all my albums turned into wax sculptures. 
And we had to move into my Nana’s house and my mother went to Guatemala 
on a medical mission and my dad threw out everything in an attempt to wipe 
our family slate clean, whatever that meant, and I got my period in my fifth 
hour science class in a pair of white gabardines and then my Nana traumatized
 me for life by strapping me into some harness contraption she insisted I wear 
during my “delicate time." All in the space of a week.

But my nana also bought me the David Soul album. The whole album. 
Which I played over and over on her enormous credenza stereo that you 
opened from the top and you stacked 10 records up and let it go.















Don’t Give Up On Us Baby became my escape. David Soul’s thin pretty voice 
and those lush 70’s strings allowed me to forget about the fact that my parents
 had separate rooms in my Nana’s house and that my clothes had been given 
to me by the fat girl at my bus stop and that the Meet the Beatles album that I 
had been saving to play because I wasn’t quite into the Beatles yet looked like 
a demented Easter hat and that my parents decided to get a divorce. After we 
rebuilt the house. Which felt a little backwards to me.

And then the show got cancelled and David’s 2nd album clunked and I headed 
to high school  and found that being on a basketball team was a lot like 
Starsky and Hutch – you touch, you cry, you emote all over each other about 
how “We go one, we go all,” and “We are the champions” and Kristy McNichol 
kept getting cuter and cuter, and then I went to college and found that sororities 
are also just like Starsky and Hutch – you get all hazed up and march through 
deserted corn fields blindfolded, tied to your pledge sisters, promising loyalty 
and love to cigar-chomping seniors who beat you with noodles and then you 
take off the blindfold and tell Hutch (or Melissa or whoever) that you couldn’t 
have done it alone and then you all go to Huggy’s (or El Toro’s – whatever) and
 get drunk and make-out. God bless Aaron Spelling. 

 And then I fell in love with a real cop. And it wasn’t like Starsky and Hutch 
at all. Well, she had been my best friend since grade school, so it was kinda 
like that, but more like Archie Bunker in The Heat of the Night show and then
 David Soul moved to the UK to try to get his act together on the stage and 
Kristi McNichol had a nervous breakdown and my parents never did get divorced,
 but they did finally move out of our rebuilt ranch that always smelled a little 
bit like smoke and then David did a concert in a pub in London and someone 
sent me the cassette and it was just like listening to an episode and he told 
the audience that Starsky was still “the best friend I ever had” and that sentence
 alone made me feel a whole lot better cuz if Starsky and Hutch can’t make it, 
what chance do we mere mortals have out here in this cold, cruel world?

 And then Al Gore invented the internet and I found my people again. But now
 they were 40 year old teenagers who also had the German AND Japanese release 
of Don’t Give Up On Us Baby and the board game and the lunch box and 
action figures and billfolds and cardigans and key chains and who were also 
wrecked at a young age by the unattainable ideals of a celluloid friendship that
 never faltered, even under the stress of accidental heroin addiction and three
 gunshot wounds to the chest.

 And it was fun and nostalgic and I finally acknowledged that David Soul might 
not have the best voice in all the world and then a miracle happened.

I met the love of my life. Finally. Serendipitously. Poetically. Through Starsky 
and Hutch. And livejournal. And listserves. I’m not kidding. Could there be a 
better tag to my episode?  Two people find each other through Aaron Spelling 
and David Soul. What better happy ever after for a child of the 70s? It’s a 
ready made for TV after-school special starring Kristy McNichol and Jodie Foster. 
I’m telling you, it’s great TV. And we can get David Soul to sing at our wedding
 and we can tie streamers and tin cans to the bumper of our 1976 candy apple
 red Torino and we can ride off into the sunset, with the 8 track blaring 
Don’t Give Up on Us Baby . . .

And . . . fade out.

Comments

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

Aw, man. That's....gorgeous. Gorgeous and nostalgic and damn.

[peg22.livejournal.com]

thanks laura! thought there may be others remember way back when . . .

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

Perfect example of how my memory works - or doesn't. I just read this like I'd never read it before - yet obviously I did!

Still a sweet, chuckle-filled story and I enjoyed it for the first time all over again!

[peg22.livejournal.com]

wow, thanks - just stream ot consciousness, really. what would I write about if it weren't for the 70s I wonder . . .

[callistosh65.livejournal.com]

As one of the 40+ teenagers who is very happily along for the ride with you, may I say how much I enjoyed this beautifully written, heart-warming, occasionally heart-breaking look at your life, loves and fandom??

Y'know, you're damn fine at this writing lark, bachgen.

[peg22.livejournal.com]

ah thanks girly. love that icon, btw.

[jazzybabe56.livejournal.com]

OMG I found this link that you posted over at M&T and I'm crying! (I'm such a softie) This was an absolutely gorgeous autobiography with a "happily ever after" ending to die for!

I wish you both EVERY SINGLE happiness in the world and I'm sure you will both have a wonderful life together - you already have the basis for that just by both being S&H fans! LOL The groudwork has already been established.....;)

So congrats on your pending nuptials - I'm sure it will be but one of your happiest days on earth! ((((HUGS))))