I Call on the Godfather: Reliving History With Dick Clark
When I was 12, I had a fantasy. No, we're not talking about the "grow up and become an actress" dream, or the "gee, I wish I lived in a big house and had my own room instead of this cramped apartment" entreaty. Not even some vague reward-thoughts about an extra dollar in the allowance if I brought home all A's—which, at least, usually happened.
I Call on the Godfather: Reliving History With Dick Clark
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Toby Goldstein
When I was 12, I had a fantasy. No, we're not talking about the "grow up and become an actress" dream, or the "gee, I wish I lived in a big house and had my own room instead of this cramped apartment" entreaty. Not even some vague reward-thoughts about an extra dollar in the allowance if I brought home all A's—which, at least, usually happened. That meant I could rush out and buy two new 45s, which in 1961 cost 49 cents apiece.
This earnest prayer took the form of communication with the black and white console television that sat, monolithjc, in our living room. Every school day, at 3:30 p.m., the set would glow into life on the New York City ABC affiliate, Channel 7, and music familiar as the national anthem (and far more beloved) ricocheted off the apartment walls. Watching the clear-voiced, smooth-faced announcer welcome his lindying regulars, then greet "his kids," millions of other young people, I yearned, "Oh, if only I were 13, I could go to Philadelphia —the next best thing to the Emerald City —and dance on American Bandstand."