peevish mama

Ah, Ricardo. I was indeed saddened to hear of your passing.  You will be missed by multitudes – by me. You bring me back, Ric . . . may I call you Ric?  Ric, seeing your handsome Mexican aristocratic features brings me back to a more innocent time. To my girlhood, Ric.  How peculiar that you, a gentleman old enough to be my the older brother of my father, should feel so inextricably woven with my youth – those tender years when I wiled away the hours watching TV on my belly on a musty brown shag rug in the basement of a split level suburban Detroit home. Your prominent and distinguished eyebrows, so reminiscent of my own at the time, bring back a flood of memories as softly contoured and rosy-hued as one of your fantasy sequences where you doled out wishes and life lessons with such knowing benevolence from your tropical pleasure cove. Ric, seeing you in your impeccable white suit, sitting with such ease and grace in that wicker wing chair, flanked by your trusty numero dos, Tattoo, is like opening a beautifully wrapped but long forgotten box tucked way back in my girlhood closet. Inside that box, Ric, are memories – oh so many memories. Memories of the most perfect Saturday night imaginable for a girl of eight in 1978: McDonald’s for dinner, the arrival of a babysitter, a fragrant and breezy kiss goodbye from the parents and the best night of TV in history.  

The holy trinity of TV:  Dance Fever, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island.

Oh Ric, I wish I could hold your soft tanned lovingly manicured hand as I take this walk down memory lane.  I’m sure you remember Dance Fever: four couples, four sets of razzle dazzle costumes, four shots at the big one!  All disco dancing their little hearts out under the sexy gaze and slithery pulsating hips of Danny Terrio. Oh, Ric, don’t make that face. Danny had nothing on you.  He strutted around in jazz shoes and white vests and yes, he had great hair, but he was just an acorn to your strong magnificent oak. You were a father figure to Danny, Ric. Surely, after all these years, you have come to see that?

After that extravaganza of sequins, sparkle, panache and heart came The Love Boat, setting a course for adventure, our minds on a new romance. Again with the face Ric! I’m shocked. What’s that you say? Captain Merrill Stubing was a bald paunchy nelly? Well, of course! He was just trying to be you with the white captain’s suit and all, but he couldn’t hold a candle. This is beneath you, Ric. You should feel sorry for Captain Stubing – he spent his whole career sucking in his gut and talking about you. But you must admit, Ric, The Love Boat promises something for every one – including this eight year old girl.  I might have missed the significance of most of the sultry looks, meaningful glances, and coy double entendres cast about in the soft breezes of the Promenade deck, but oh, how I loved that show. Ric, I know this is going to make you crazy, but I had a crush on Gopher for a little while. Get up, stop that! I know he wasn’t attractive, but I had to pick someone to have a crush on, and he was the only choice when you think about it.  I suppose now I would have picked Doc, but back then, well, Gopher just seemed so friendly.  Oh I know, I’m not proud of it, but I was eight, Ric! Cut me some slack. And really, it was that pool I was hot after. Imagine that!  A pool on a ship! Funny, at this point in my life, I hope to never see a pool on a ship, but back then . . . oh, how titillating that was. Do you happen to know, Ric, being such a man of the world, whether you feel the pitch and roll of the ship when you are in the pool? I always wondered.

And finally, Ricardo, your show. Be still my beating heart – the fabulously escapist and inimitable Fantasy Island came last of all. It was quite late by then, maybe ten o’clock, and my drowsy state probably enhanced the dreamlike qualities of your show. Ric, I wouldn’t have missed it for all the stickers in the world. I forced myself to stay awake. I imagined my eyelids held apart with toothpicks, like those of a sleepy cartoon character. Oh Ric, I loved that opening sequence, with the float plane and Tattoo – you really found a winning formula there. I loved the lays and the drinks and the expressions on your guests’ faces as they alighted from the plane: wonder, skepticism, confusion. Oh, Ric, it was just too much! Each episode was so exciting, an unwritten chapter in a book of wonders and you were the magician, Ric.  A dashing, distinguished, and wise magician. You allowed your guests to seek and strive, to chase their dreams, but you always knew when to step in to save them from themselves.  Danger, romance, longing. You were a virtuoso, Ric, a puppet master of unequaled skill and wisdom. Eventually I would lose my battle with the sandman, the toothpicks snapping into useless splinters. I would drift off to the sounds of your deep and knowing chuckle, the pitter patter of Tattoo’s little shoes on the dock, the propeller, revving and then fading into the distant horizon. Have a safe flight, Ric . . . and a happy landing.  And one more thing.  Thanks.