Y'all remember the Fonz?
Crazy, I've been thinking about Fonzie for days now. The boy got a leather jacket for his birthday. From his grandmother, of course. It's a gorgeous jacket, the kind only a grandmother would buy for a kid like mine. I cringe when I look at it and realize what's in store for that poor jacket.
Especially since the boy adores it. Last night he informed me that he's never taking it off, and indeed he slept in it. So now we have the Romo Cowboys jersey and the leather jacket, both of which the boy has decided are mandatory clothing at all times. Underwear and pants are optional. And sometimes, for variety, he likes to wear the AC/DC style stocking cap on top of his girlie-length blond curls.
My boy has established quite a definitive look for himself. I hope you can imagine it because I dare not take a photograph and share it with you. It is too frightening.
Anyway, the fondness he has for his leather jacket—I was thinking the other night that it reminds me of something… what is it? Where do I know this from, this form of love for a leather jacket—ah, Fonzie!!
Yeah, so now I've been drenched in memories of 70's TV and a man who defined cool for generations to come. I can see him so clearly in my mind, can't you? He's the guy who inspires confidence by constantly thrusting his thumbs in the air in a "I'm alright, you're alright, man, it's alright," gesture while drawing out the first letter of the alphabet in a long, relaxed syllable that suggests there is absolutely nothing at all to worry about. He's the guy who's so good looking that he sometimes doesn't even have to comb his hair, so perfectly does it lay in its 1950's style mounds and swirls. He's the guy who can summon ladies from yards away with the simple snap of his fingers, or make a jukebox play a love song with the flick of his fist against the side. He can jump his motorcycle over a bunch of trashcans or jump over a shark on water skis.
So I told the boy, "You know, I used to know a guy who loved his leather jacket as much as you do. His name was Arthur Fonzarelli and he was extremely cool."
I love it when I can share the 70's with my son. The first thing he wanted to learn on the guitar was "Smoke on the Water." (and he did!) I told him all about KISS and showed him pictures and vids on Youtube. "They were pretty cool too," the boy's guitar teacher told him.
"Yeah, but they're all dead," he said.
"What? Gene Simmons is dead? No! What makes you think that?"
"Well, they lived way back in the olden days. Like Martin Luther King and Theodore Roosevelt."
Gee whiz, does he realize that *I* lived during the same olden days as KISS and Fonzie and Paul Simon, all those guys he admires but thinks are now dead of old age?
I learned that there were 255 episodes of Happy Days and 4 spin-offs. Can you name them? "Joanie Loves Chachi" is the only one I can remember—oh no, wait, "Laverne and Shirley." What else? I think "Mork" may have been a Happy Days spin-off, right? One more… anybody know it?
This latest mind excursion of mine has been quite entertaining. I just finished reading an article that explains why Fonzie is a Jungian representation of Jesus Christ. And guess what…he's not dead, he turned 62 this year.
