Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar... by Liz Flaherty #RomanceGems

This is my newspaper column for this week. The column's always my favorite thing to write, and this subject matter is important to me, so I jumped on this empty page. My apologies for the regionality of it, but maybe you'll still identify. I hope so--the memories are sweet. Thank you for your indulgence. Have a great week.

I’m listening to the Dave Clark Five. There, in case you didn’t know (or care) how old I am, is irrefutable evidence. 

As I listen, and maybe sing along, I remember. I remember going to movies at the Roxy and at the Times in Rochester and the State in Logansport. I saw A Hard Day’s Night seven times—at least once in each of those theaters.  I saw Woodstock at the Roxy, Bonnie and Clyde at the State. I remember Shindig and Hullabaloo and American Bandstand and Where the Action Is on TV.

I remember Friday night basketball games and football games and convocations at school. Painting mailboxes (and ourselves) to earn money in 4-H, when we rode from house to house in the back of a pickup. Once, when we were playing outside at school, some of us sixth-grade girls asked if we could take a walk. The teacher—I think maybe he was playing baseball with the boys—must have given some absentminded approval, thinking we meant we were going to walk on the school grounds. Instead, we took off down the road. A mile later, someone came along and gave us a ride back to school. In the back of his pickup.

It was a more innocent time, of course, but it was neither as good or as bad as most of us who were around then remember it. Our music was the best that ever was—argue that if you will, but we know. We know. We remember the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and Elvis and Chubby Checker and…oh, we remember.

It’s kind of unusual for me to look back so dreamily on those days, although I tend to wax sentimental on many of the ones that came along later. I’ve always liked being an adult a lot better than I did being a kid. I liked being a mom and a wife and a postal worker and a writer better than I liked being a teenager. Those are the times I cherish most in my memories.

Except, of course, for senior year.

I remember that there were only two seniors who had to ride my bus in the 1967-68 school year and I was one of them. Janie was the other one and I am so glad she was there. Jim Shambarger, for six years straight, had the locker beside mine.

It was the year our school’s basketball team fought and scrapped their way to the semi-state. When none of us could talk because we just stayed hoarse from week to week from yelling. When Logansport’s Berry Bowl—the old one—was stuffed with supporters. Whenever our cheerleaders did the old “Two Bits” yell, everyone in the gym stood and “hollered” except the supporters of the school our team was playing against. Even now, I remember how much fun it was. How exciting. It defined the year for North Miami’s Class of ’68.

Although I’d never want to go back, I still get a little ache when I think about it. When I listen to some of the songs from those days, tears push against the back of my eyes and it’s a good thing I’m alone in here because I couldn’t talk if my life depended on it.

Listening to “Glad All Over,” I find myself thinking of Connor, my fifth grandchild, who will graduate from North Miami this year. He’s done what grandkids do, gone from being a toddler to being six-foot-three in the blink of an eye. He’s big. Hairy. Funny. He works and drives and knows what he wants to do. Like the rest of his grandfather’s and my Magnificent Seven, he is our hearts.

Covid-19 came along and his friends and he and all the other 2020 kids missed their senior trip, their spring break trips, and getting away with the kind of stuff you get away with your last semester of your last year in school.

It shouldn’t be a big thing in the scheme of things, in the overall big picture of life. But it is. It is. That ache again, for him. For his classmates. For all of the class of 2020.

They came in, this senior class, with Nine Eleven, when the nation’s hearts all broke in unison. The unison didn’t last long. We were back to being controversial and confrontational in no time at all. Quarreling and blaming, cheating and lying, hating and…oh, loving, too. Learning and laughing. Growing in spite of ourselves. Going on.

You, the class of ’20 and the ones before you and after you—you’re the best of us. You’re our chance to get it right. The generation that follows you won’t think you did—you’ll screw up as many things as you fix. Most of us don’t make the mistakes of the ones who went before us; we think up new ones of our own to make. You will, too.

But you’ll still be the best of us. The brightest light in this year of dimness and pain and sorrow. The loudest laughter. The sweetest music. When anyone does the “Two Bits” cheer, we’re all going to stand and holler for you because you’re so good. So smart. So precious to us all.

I’m so sorry for the damage that’s been done to your senior year. I know it’s time that you’ll never get back. But it’s not the best time of your lives—it’s just one time. There are so many better times ahead for you. Because you can do anything. Be anything. Go everywhere. Have good times and bad and survive them all.

Do you remember in the movie Hoosiers, when Norman Dale looked around at his team in their gold satin warmups as their hands met in the middle of their circle? Do you remember what he said?

He said, “I love you guys.”

You are the circle, class of 2020. You’ll make us laugh. Make us weep. Make us proud. Whether you’re in gold satin, denim, or leggings, I know I’m speaking for everyone who knows you when I swipe that line and change it up a little.

We love you guys. 

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