Teen dreams

By Paulette Tobin (2/24/01)

Last weekend the Backstreet Boys came to Grand Forks. If you live with anyone between the ages of 4 and 14, you've undoubtedly heard of the Backstreet Boys. They are one of the hottest pop bands in the world today - five really cute young guys who sing about love and eternal devotion and all the other kinds of things that make teen-aged girls swoon and teen-aged boys pretend they are way too cool to care.

Our Emily is 16, and she and some friends had pizza at our house before joining another 20,000 or so screaming BSB fans at Grand Forks brand new arena/convention center. "You try to be cool," she said afterwards, "but then everybody's screaming and pretty soon you're screaming too!" She and her girlfriends were still all flushed and excited and squealing when they got home. Even the guys in her group said it was a great show, although they did manage to refrain from squealing.

Before the concert, I wrote a story for the Grand Forks Herald in which I interviewed a 16-year-old girl from Grand Forks who is crazy about the BSB. This lovely young woman showed me her bedroom, which was papered around 400 BSB posters. She also showed me her BSB compacts discs, books, action figures and the other stuff she'd collected. All this got me to thinking about the teen idols we used to drool over back in the '60s and '70s. As I recall, I had a few posters on my bedroom walls, too, when I was 16. Bobby Sherman, anyone?

Actually, my teen idol memories go back further than that, because I have a sister, June, who graduated from EHS in 1963, and as a teen-ager, she had to share her room with me, poor thing. When she was in high school, I was a little girl, and so we had many after-school fights over what we would watch on TV. She wanted to watch Dick Clark and American Bandstand. I wanted to watch Romper Room.

I recall the pictures of her idols included the dreamy Elvis Presley in his Army uniform, the Everly brothers, Paul Peterson, Fabian, Paul Anka, Bobby Vee and Bobby Rydell. Maybe Bobby Darin, too. The Bobbys were very big in those days.

I hit adolescence right around the time the Monkees came upon the scene, and I loved them, their music and their TV show. I still can't hear "Daydream Believer" without mooning a little. The Monkees were all so cute, but Davy Jones - the short one with the English accent - was definitely the cutest. He and the other Monkees still do reunion concerts from time to time and pop up in other places, too. I loved the cameo Davy made in "The Brady Bunch" movie a few years ago. Marcia Brady invited him to the school dance and when he got up to sing, all the middle-aged women teachers got all wide-eyed and slack-jawed and elbowed each other out of the way to get as close to the stage as possible.

Anyone remember the Cowsills? I loved them, too. They were a family group that included the mom, four or five brothers and a little sister, and their hits included a cover of "Hair" and "Indian Lake." My favorite Cowsill was Barry - I don't remember the names of any of the others. Later, a TV show, "The Partridge Family," was based on their group, and that show, of course, spawned another teen singing idol, David Cassidy.

I also remember a group called Paul Revere and the Raiders, featuring Mark Lindsay, who I believe had a Saturday morning TV show. Their hits included "Over You," "Just Like Me" and "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone." Then there was Gary Puckett and the Union Gap ("Young Girl," "This Girl is a Woman Now") and Bread ("Baby I'm-A Want You").

Of course, not all the guys we idolized as teens were musicians. I remember having a huge crush on Kurt Russell when he was a kid doing Disney movies. Also - and this is so obscure - there was an actor from India named Sajid Khan, who starred in a TV show with the teen-aged Jay North (formerly Dennis the Menace). Sajid was very dark and handsome with a beautiful smile. I remember nothing else about the show, except that the two leads were very cute and there was an elephant in it. Sajid and Jay North were regulars on the cover of "16" and "Tiger Beat" magazines.

Then there were the athletes. My brothers subscribed to "Sports Illustrated," and there were plenty of hunky looking guys in sports to check out. I thought Joe Namath was a real dish, and I remember reading his autobiography, "I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow (Because I Get Better Looking Every Day)," and admiring his rebellious attitude. We all have our "love the anti-hero" phase, don't we?

Then there was Mark Spitz, who won seven (or was it eight?) Olympic gold medals for swimming in 1972 or thereabouts. He was gorgeous, and I had a major crush on him. Virtually every other person who signed my senior yearbook teased me about the case I had on him. Some friends gave me a life-size poster of him in his Speedo. I read recently that he's now a dentist, but I still blush thinking about that poster.

Those are fun memories aren't they? Those early crushes added a little spice to our small-town lives. No matter how old I get, there will be some artists and some songs that will always take me way back. Here's a song that will always be one of my favorites. Hum along, if you remember. It's called "Traces of Love," by the Classics IV.

"Faded photograph, covered now with lines and creases,

Tickets torn in half, memories in bits and pieces.

Traces of love long ago that didn't work out right

Traces of love.

Ribbons from her hair, souvenirs of days together,

The ring she used to wear, pages from an old love letter.

Traces of love long ago that didn't work out right.

Traces of love with me tonight."

(Paulette Haupt Tobin grew up near Eureka and graduated from EHS in 1973. Today she lives in Grand Forks, N.D., and works for the Grand Forks Herald. You can e-mail her at tobin@infi.net)