Another Saturday Night...

I was about to start writing about family vacations, and how so many of my most intense childhood memories are of the trips we took together, and how I think of this now--creating these memories--with my own children, but then I suddenly started thinking about Saturday nights instead. So Saturday night(s) it is.

Although I did not watch much TV as a kid--it was discouraged and I was just not that into it--as I got older Saturday night TV became a bit of a thing.In the suburbs, a 12, 13, 14 year old has limited possibilities on a Saturday night. Sleepovers were big, and often I had a friend over or went to somebody else's house. But Saturday nights are when suburban parents go out to dinner, sans les enfants, if you will, and that meant that once the days of the babysitter were over, whatever combination of kids was in whatever location could make their own rules for what was to shape the evening.

Do you remember Solid Gold? This was on early, just after the parents had left, sometimes when they were still home. I wasn't as into it as Alison was. I seem to be missing some pop music gene, or at least I have one that renders me immune to the charms of the pop music of my generation. I watched this because I sort of had to, to play along at the equivalent of the 6th grade water cooler, and I liked the theme song. It also served as a symbol of the transition from childhood to adolescence with its tight spangly lycra and seductive (or so it seemed to me) dance moves. Although hugely cheesy, maybe even back then, it felt illicit, dare I say sophisticated, in the same way slightly older girls with eye shadow and feathered hair seemed sophisticated.

But the big tickets items were for later, when the parents were definitely gone, and the evening was ours to, well, turn over to Aaron Spelling. Frozen pizza or popcorn at hand, we settled in for Loveboat--racy, innuendos galore, guest stars from the Brady Bunch--it only got better and better. Until Vicki, the first example I can remember personally of shark jumping. Better yet was Fantasy Island. I feel embarrassed to say that about a year ago I actually had a nightmare about a Fantasy Island episode in which a mother somehow saw what her life would be like if she wasn't in it--what her world (husband, child, etc.) would be like without her. In my nightmare the little girl on her tricycle was riding around in the driveway, and I wasn't sure if I was the girl or the missing (dead?) mother, but in my sleep, the second time around, a solid twenty-five years later, it still gave me a chill.

Saturday Night Live was the final stage on the transition train: watching Eddie Murphy sneak into the window of the ghetto apartment made me feel like a teenager, which maybe I was at that point. This show was not for kids. I didn't know about the drugs, but I could sense, sunk into the couch cushions in our little den, wiping popcorn grease on the underside of the cushion to avoid having to get up to wash them, that this was hardcore. I didn't get all the jokes, but I was willing to try. I can almost remember the mystified expression on the faces of a few friends at a sleepover once as we tried, together: It's a disconcerting feeling, knowing you're supposed to think something's funny, but not understanding why.

Anyway, it's Saturday night, and I'm 38 years old, and I'm watching Saturday Night Live. It's still only funny in spots, although I get the jokes now, and in a recurring theme--in spite of Ben, Lily and Annika asleep upstairs--I don't really feel that different from the me on the couch beside a snoring Alison, squinting in befuddlement at Chevy Chase impersonating Gerald Ford.