Does anyone remember those "Stretch Armstrong" toys from the late '70's and early '80's? You could pull his arms and legs for days and then he would spring back into shape. His body had a heavy, doughy feel, and not unlike a rising loaf, you could press your finger into his chest, making an indentation, and it would slowly fill in back into place. (My childhood neighbor, Shawn Flannery and his friend, once pulled it so far that his appendages did actually break off--not an easy thing to do.)
Anyway, that's what I need to do to my brain right now. You see, I'm thinking about something, some thoughts of mine about Bob Dylan, Kurt Cobain, Brittany Spears, and Miley Cyrus. I don't have it completely thought out--I don't have my "brain" wrapped around exactly what I want to say or I haven't thought about it deeply enough yet. That's why I need a "Stretch Armstrong" brain right now. I need to pull it, stretch it around these thoughts so I can be clear.
I once told a friend from long ago, Lisa K., that I sometimes would just like the time to meditate on a single word or a single sentence. To dive deeply into what something really means. So maybe that's the case here--not just time to pull my hands around gray matter, but the time to do it.
Here's one of those fabulously cheesy commercials from way back when: Stretch Armstrong and Stretch Monster!
This morning I was flipping through an art book and came across a page of small-boxed colors. The first one that caught my eye was "violet." When I read that word and saw that color, I took myself out of this frigid February and suddenly found myself walking home with my elementary school friends.
Not far from our grade school was a huge hill that would magically become covered with inky purple violets in the spring. We used to pick all these pretty flowers in our chubby little kid hands and take them home to our moms and/or grandmas. We would clutch them as we walked down the hill, over a creek, and down and up a huge, black-topped hospital parking lot. Those poor little wilted bundles of purpleness were gasping for vases of water waiting at home.
The other constant I remember was unpeeling the wrapper from a Tootsie Pop. Seemed like we always had one as an afternoon treat on our way home--victory after wading through new spelling words, cursive writing, and complex "greater than" and "less than" math problems. Freedom was marked by these sweet treats. And we'd always re-enact the Tootsie Pop commercial. Anyone remember it?
"How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?".
Isn't it just so innocent?
Things did seem so much more innocent when I was a kid. And, I know I'm not the only one who thinks that. I think something good was going on in births in the mid- to late- '60's. See, look at the big four vocalists from that era.
Kurt Cobain - Nirvana 2/20/67 - 4/5/94
Chris Cornell - Soundgarden 7/20/64
Layne Staley - Alice in Chains 8/22/67 - 4/5/02
Eddie Vedder - Pearl Jam 12/23/64
And please don't forget other huge "grunge"/alt lead vocalists:
Mark Arm - Mudhoney 2/21/62
Mark Lanegan - Screaming Trees 11/25/64
J Mascis - Dinosaur Jr. 12/10/65
Buzz Osborne - Melvins 3/24/64
Andrew Wood - Mother Love Bone/Malfunkshun 1/8/66 - 3/19/90
ANYWAY, I remember Kurt Cobain saying the following in AJ Schnack's 2006 documentary, "About a Son":
"I've always felt like my generation was the very last innocent generation, ya' know. When there was television that wasn't violent. We didn't have cable, we had "Sesame Street," and "Speed Racer," and "H.R. Puff 'n' Stuff" and that's it. Everything was a total fantasy. Everything was just very basic and just medieval compared to things nowadays. Kids are just so advanced and expected to be so much more advanced than they are."
My friend Shelley's husband, Dan, says that when we were kids, everyone would watch the same t.v. shows. He's right. I remember when we would all come to class and everyone would talk about "Laverne and Shirley" and what happened on "Happy Days" and Jimmie Walker saying "Dy-no-mite" on "Good Times." We all watched the same shows and all related to them together. So many choices now...Dan says that the only thing remotely resembling that bonding in school the next day is when kids ask, "Did you see such and such on YouTube?"
O.K., sorry for this long stroll down memory lane. I just find myself tasting a cherry Tootsie Pop and smelling the lingering scent of violets. They stayed with me longer than I thought.
