Pete comes clean

I used to own the album that this song was on.

Seriously.

A few questions...
How did the drummer and keyboardist get in this band? Was it because they didn't have any chest hair, just like their "funkier" band mates? How did they even meet? I don't see them running in the same circles, let alone being in the same band. One of their Dads must have been their manager.
Did the lead singer with the skull cap really get kicked out of the Village People for being "too gay"?
and most importantly...
...why did I own this album?

I wasn't a total loser. I swear. That year I also bought Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, My Aim is True by Elvis Costello, Aja by Steely Dan, News of the World by Queen, and Slowhand by Eric Clapton.

Oh.
And Saturday Night Fever.


Loser.

I remember jumping on the Disco Sucks bandwagon later that year. Those two albums of mine met their demise by some sort of incendiary device in the backyard of Danny Brown. Danny lived across the street from me. He moved there that year from Sheepshead Bay NY. Danny's father was a marine. Danny's older sister joined the Marines. After school Danny joined the Marines. I've out lived Danny.

God bless him...and all the others that fought with him that I did not know.

OK, back at it,

Maybe I can blame it on 1977 being a very strange year.

They discovered rings around Uranus.
(Hope that made you smile half as much as it did while I typed it. If it didn't go back and read it again. Slowly this time. There. See?)


I went to see the debut of Star Wars. First showing. That, my friends, was a big deal to this 13 year old boy. I rode my bike down the highway to get to the Maine Mall Cinemas. I'm sure I did the same thing to go see Close Encounters of the Third Kind... and the King Kong remake... and Rocky.
Well not Rocky. My Mom took me to see that.




Might have been one of the times the State Police pulled over to tell me that no bikes were allowed on the highway. Didn't matter to me. How else was I supposed to get to the Mall to meet my friends at the clock in the middle of the Mall at an agreed upon time so that we could hang out for the day that was set up by calling each other on our touch tone wall phones?



At least I had graduated to a ten speed by then. It had a speedometer/odometer on it. Oh, and a light.

            
Christ.

I went on a road trip with family friends to Cooperstown NY that year. Baseball Hall of Fame. On the way we went to the Bronx Zoo. They were still looking for the Son of Sam at the time. I know that because I remember hearing in on the car radio whilst I was on his home turf. Scared me a bit knowing I was so close to the most infamous killer I had ever heard of. In my entire life. For some reason I can picture hearing this while it was just "the kids" in the car. No adults. At night. We were vey close to being killed execution style ourselves. I just knew it.



...but then again, maybe not.

Elvis died. I remember where I was when I heard about it. I was in a car on Pennsylvania Ave in South Portland Maine. We had just got back from Canobie Lake Park in Salem New Hampshire. My Mom was going to see him the next night in concert in Portland Maine. The thing I remember as much about Elvis' death that day was getting in a mirror maze at Canobie that I couldn't get out of. Helplessly trapped.

I'm not sure which event scarred me for life more, the King's death or that goddamned mirrored maze.


It doesn't look quite as daunting now, does it?
....just the same, Homey don't play 'dat anymore.

Reggie Jackson hit three homeruns in one game to lead the Yankees to a World Series championship against the Dodgers.

Yawn.


1977 was my first year of Junior High.


Good times. Tough times. Wouldn't have given them up for anything, nor would I want to relive them.

Unfortunately I will when my youngest hits junior high next year.

Ain't life grand?

One last thing, contrary to popular belief, I did not have a Farrah Fawcett poster in my locker that first year of junior high.

I had it over my bed.



Stop it.

Much love.

..and remember..
May the force be with you.