The best dancer with the worst reputation

I was saddened to read that Annette Charles passed away yesterday at age 63 of complications from cancer. Annette Charles, for those of you that don't know, is perhaps best known for her portrayal of bad girl Cha Cha DiGregorio in the film adaptation of Grease.

I think you need scientific notation to most succinctly express how many times I watched Grease as a kid. It was on HBO every other day and I swear I watched it every time it was on. Most of that was due to my intense love of Olivia Newton-John during that time, but I also loved the music and the melodrama that the movie version of Grease delivers. I've owned the soundtrack on just about every possible format and I know for a fact that we had multiple copies of the record album growing up. Simply put, it was a very influential movie for me even though now it is kind of dismissed as lightweight and "girly." WTFE.

The thing that always gets me about the movie is how watching it now, you realize that all the leads (and, to be honest, pretty much all the actors playing high schoolers) were too old for these roles. Rather than being high school students at the dance, they look like they should be chaperones for the dance. I never really noticed that during any of my umpteen viewings of Grease until I got older. I remember being a kid and wondering what my high school years would be like and if they would be anything like those in Grease. Let me assure you that they were most decidedly NOT. No one every spontaneously broke into song in my lunchroom.

The most surprising thing I read in hearing about Annette Charles' death is that she became a speech professor at California State University, Northridge. I'm always fascinated when celebrities return to the real world so-to-speak. I wonder how many of her students knew that she was Cha Cha to so many of our generation. I can't imagine that she broadcast that information. She certainly didn't need to be ashamed of it though. We loved to hate her in that role.

RIP Cha Cha. Because of that small role in a major movie musical, you will never be forgotten by anyone in my generation.

5-H

Whenever I get my hair cut, I always get caught up on news from back home.

The woman to whom I entrust my haircuts (no small honor) is also from Carroll and so, we have a lot of common ground and she always has a tidbit be it gossip or whatever (usually it's gossip.) Yesterday, while she was cutting my hair, she said to me, "Did you have Miss Hindman as a teacher? Did you hear about her?" My response was "Please don't tell me that she died!"

Sadly, the answer to that was "yes." She passed away on Friday - apparently rather unexpectedly - at the early age of 59.

Joyce Hindman was my 5th grade teacher and is certainly not the first of my elementary school teachers to pass. That honor goes to Esther Zimmerman, my kindergarten teacher who lived to a very ripe old age. I remember her coming into the pharmacy where I worked during summer vacations, long since retired from teaching. She had to have been in her 80s by then but she still remembered who I was. When she died, I affected me much like the death of anyone who is elderly and lived their life to the fullest does. But for Ms. Hindman, it's different. To die at 59 and and in the middle of a school year jolted even me.

This surprised me a lot as it's been probably 20 years since I last saw her, and probably longer than that since I last talked to her. But she was a cool and hip teacher of whom my friend Jeff and I have many good (and some hysterical) memories, many of which have been embellished on over the years to great comic effect.

My biggest and most enduring memory of Ms. Hindman will always be my uncontainable jealousy of the fact that she was able to see Olivia Newton-John in concert when the Physical World Tour stopped in Ames back in 1982. I had begged my parents to let me go see ONJ to (predictably) no avail. I seethed at them and was green with envy when I heard that my teacher was going! The concert ended up as an HBO special later that year which I watched a bazillion times. But I remember Ms. Hindman letting me bring in my Olivia's Greatest Hits Vol. 2 record album to play during class parties. Seriously, how I survived elementary school without being beaten up on a daily basis is a continued mystery to me.

Joyce Hindman taught me about Ponce de Leon and the Fountain of Youth via her packet on explorers. I remember her putting up the solar system on the back wall of the classroom during that unit. She had a penchant for Snickers and Pepsi (or so I recall). In the building shakeups that the Carroll district had over the years, she went from 5th grade to 4th grade, leaving behind the 5-H moniker that I so distinctly recall and becoming 4-H. She was, in the end, a great teacher who left a subtle yet recognizable impact on me. And apparently I'm not the only one as there's already a Facebook group dedicated to her memory.

The visitation is this afternoon in Carroll and were it any other day, I'd drive over to pay my respects. But I think I'd rather leave it like this. It's better this way.

RIP Ms. Hindman. You will be missed.

And then there were none

My last living grandparent died on Thursday. Gladys Newcomb was 87 years old. Her death was peaceful and was right after lunch. It is hard to feel sad about the death of someone who has lived such a long life, especially someone who, in my mind, changed tremendously with the loss of her longtime husband a year and a half ago and was longing to be with him again. Yet, we still mourn. It's what we do when someone dies. We all do it in our own ways but mourn we must. There's no way around it.

My grandma had been in a nursing home for the last year or so and had been in hospice care for the last couple of months. I managed to make it up to see her a month or two ago, which I am now very glad I did. When I saw her, although she had stopped wearing the wig that she had worn her whole life and was very frail, I still could recognize the woman that I remember so well.

As I detailed in my post about my grandfather's death in Jaunary of 2007, it's never how someone was at the end of life that sticks with us, for that is only a brief moment in a lifetime full of memories and stories. And as per usual, I will always remember my grandmother as a soft spoken woman who was dedicated to family and took the job very seriously. She was also the person who gave me my very first Star Wars action figure (Hammerhead, IIRC) I loved her very much and am very glad that I made a point to tell her that and to kiss her on the cheek the last time I saw her. And while her passing is not unexpected at her advanced age and in her declining health, it is still difficult for me.

The reason I think it is difficult is because, while I mourn the loss of my grandmother, I am also mourning the passing of yet another milestone in my life. She was the only grandparent I had left, and her death is one step closer to my own, even though I hope that day is decades in the future. We all live on this planet and then die, there's not getting around that either. But the trick is making each day count, living (as the one and only Cher muttered in "The Music's No Good Without You") each day "like it was my last." That is trite and cliched, yes, but that doesn't mean that it is not true.

Those who know me well know that I can have a significant melancholy streak, and today, it was wider than it has been in a while. It took me a while to figure it out, because I had a great night last night with a good friend who took me out for my birthday. Great food, great conversation as always, followed by Guitar Hero on the Wii. How can you go wrong? Well, my grandmother's death was obviously on my mind. This coupled with the devastating floods going on in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City and the fact that I really didn't want to go to work today really did a number on me. I was a big bucket of boiling over emotion by the end of the day and while that's nothing meditation can't fix, I still felt like it came from nowhere and left me with no place to put it. It has been quite a damn long time since the melancholy streak has been in the driver's seat, and it brought back some not so pleasant memories.

There's nothing to worry about. I'm fine, as I always am. But I still am sad for the loss of yet another family member, even though we knew that with my grandmother it was just a matter of time. In the end, you always wish you had just a little bit more time.

When I was walking home from work, I decided to work with the melancholy and put on Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Between Here & Gone." It's a song abut death and change and it always gets me, no matter what. (mp3) Anyway, I heard these lyrics today and found them appropriate for the occasion.

I thought a light went out, but now the candle shines.
I thought my tears wouldn't stop, then I dried my eyes.
And after all of this, the truth that holds me here,
Is that this emptiness is something not to fear.
Yeah, I'll keep wondering how we know where we belong,
After all the journeys made, and the journeys yet to come.
When I feel like giving up instead of going on,
Somewhere in between ... here and gone

May you be at peace Grandma. You're no longer on this plane, but you're somewhere in between here and gone, for you will never truly be gone as long as your memory lives on. Sorry that this post was more about me than it was you, but you clearly inspired it.