I’ll set the scene.
The 4-foot long windowsill in the spare bedroom of my childhood house.
Me, in all my 6-year-old crimped hair glory, dressed in either my dance recital outfit or a “Get In Shape Girl” leotard complete with leg warmers, bangle bracelets and my own personal touch—two foam balls shoved into my shirt to emulate cleavage, a practice I may or may not still employ today.
“I know you like what you see.”
An enormously bulky boom box was situated in the corner. After visualizing my upcoming performance, I would adjust my jelly sandals and run to it, hitting “play” before quickly sprinting back to the stage mark on the windowsill before the music started.
“And if you want more, if you want more, more, more, more.”
When it did, I would brandish my “Barbie & the Rockers” microphone and launch into what I can only assume was a Star Search worthy rendition of “Jump (For My Love,)” waiting for that chorus so I could literally jump off the windowsill for dramatic effect.
“Jump, I know my heart can make you happy.”
These concerts went on for quite some time, and I must have been rather impressive for my mom relented and took me to see the Pointer Sisters live. While I had no idea what exactly a “Neutron Dance” was—and come to think of it, still don’t to this day—I did just that on the chairs throughout the whole concert.
“When you are next to me, oh I come alive.”
I’ve since been told that my mom’s greatest fear wasn’t that I would fall through the collapsible chairs I was dancing on, but rather that the smell of pot wafting through the air—thick enough to give a contact buzz to half the crowd at Woodstock—would linger in my hair for weeks.
However, I would like to think that it was my Day-Glo Swatch watch and a chronic love of the music, not second-hand chronic itself, that fueled my Pointer passion.
“Jump, jump for my love.”
Regardless, it was simply a warm-up for my second act years later, one that would include switching from jumping (for my love) to lip syncing Mariah Carey’s “Vision of Love” in the front yard for only 25 cents a ticket.
Hey, times were tight in the ’80s and a diva needs her bangles—and foam balls.
Some things never change.
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