Baby, Be Mine

Driving down a California highway on a breezy day is the best way to rediscover your pop bliss.  I have experienced moments with Shaun Cassidy the likes of which I've never found with any man in the flesh.  It's that tingle I get when I hear the opening beats and the tambourine, then the guitar comes in, and soon I am "Da Doo Ron Ron"ing all over the place. 

Long ago, in a faraway time, I was a little girl with Michael Jackson stickers plastered all over my Trapper Keeper that I carried to classes in junior high, and I was in love with a boy who argued with Paul over who was the better lover, and danced his way into my life with his slick, groovy sounds.  Nobody did 'tenderooni' like MJ.

But then I grew up, and as I did, so did Michael.  He morphed into this unrecognizable person that I never quite understood, and I'm not going to sit here and profess to know whether the accusations against him were true or false, but the truth is I have had a very hard time listening to songs that should have been innocent fun - P Y T (Pretty Young Thing) - without hearing in a whole new light.  And his songs grew more extreme, but for whatever reason I just wasn't getting the message.  One could say we just drifted apart.

Today, as the wind tossed my hair around and I thumped on the steering wheel in time with the songs on my party mix playlist, I didn't skip ahead as I've done for so long when I heard the familiar opening notes of this song, Baby Be Mine.  It was a brief moment of remembering a moment that I shared with a young man finding his way as I began to do the same. 

So, for that few minutes, I let myself be young, and I let Michael be young too.