Y? Because We Like You!

MAB and I sing a lot. We're the same age so we have the same reference points for music. (Except I know more punk than her and she knows more soul than me). We have this thing where one of us will say something that is reminicent of a lyric and we suddenly burst forth in song. Not a day goes by that we aren't singing, and usually more than one tune. Part of yesterday's "play list" ended up being the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. And that put me in mind of the one, the only, Annette Funicello.

I adored Annette Funicello. I thought she was beautiful. I would watch her on the MMC with rapt attention, watching her every move. I wanted to be her.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, there was the whole Beach Blanket movie thing. Somehow I knew about "Annette and Frankie" but the rest of it not so much. I was too young to see those movies in the theater and to this day I don't know that I've seen any of them. (Snippets, perhaps, but never whole stories). Point is, that is not part of my Annette ethos, which is comprised solely of the MMC and of a book, one book. It must have been purchased in a supermarket. It was cheaply bound, with a garish, shiny cover. It was a (fictional) story about Annette and I read it so much that the spine broke. I do not remember the story at all; however, a beach was involved and possibly a clambake. I do remember, and this is crazy, but I remember a reference to "abalone" and to "mother of pearl". At the time (I had to be in the second grade) those were very exotic terms and I remember Dame Judi explaining what mother of pearl was and how thereafter it was the first thing I would look for whenever I found a sea shell.

It isn't at all odd to me that Annette Funicello and the shimmering inside of a shell are forever linked. Annette embodies shimmer. She was a triple threat with a glorious smile. I'm pretty sure that parents of the era didn't cringe when they saw Annette the way some of us are now wont to do with the likes of Miley Cyrus (who, for the record, I don't hate but I realize that's the exception, not the rule). Annette was a classy role model for the era, and someone who has managed to live a pretty scandal-free life.

Annette lives out of the spotlight now, striken by MS in the '90s. But to me she will always be the cheery, beautiful girl of my youth.