F is for Fame

The summer of 1980 was hot, hot, hot. There was a drought, endless sunshine, and soaring temperatures. At night, the temps sometimes didn't get below 90 degrees. I was 19 and lived in a little duplex with no air conditioning, so it's not hard to remember.

I met a boy that summer that I kind of liked and he kind of liked me. We had hung out a few times, and one day, he told me a new movie had just opened that he really wanted to see and asked me if I would like to see it with him (duh, yes!). He picked me up in his 60's era Rambler that had, you guessed it, no air conditioning, and we drove an hour to the "big city" movie theater to see "Fame." I still remember that I was wearing a black, flowered sundress that had an open back, and my sweaty back stuck to the car seat all the way there AND BACK.

As we were driving, he told me that he knew a girl that was in the movie; he had known her when he lived in NYC (he was several years older than I was and had once aspired to be an actor). That was a fun fact. 

We settled into our seats in the blessedly air conditioned theater, holding hands, waiting through the previews for the movie to start. Then maybe a minute into the movie, he pointed to the screen and shouted, "There she is!" He proceeded to watch THE ENTIRE MOVIE leaning forward, elbows on his knees, eyes never leaving the screen. 

It seems he MAY have downplayed how much he "knew" this actress, and I suddenly felt as if I were crashing their date. So I did the mature thing and pouted throughout the entire movie and all the way home in his stupid hot car to my stupid hot duplex and hated my life.

It was our first and last date.

Postscript:

I saw the movie again later that same summer with my cousin and begrudgingly decided I rather liked it. It continued to grow on me and is one of my favorite movies (and don't ask me about the tv show - I hated it almost as much as I hated the abomination of a tv series that was created from the book "Little House on the Prairie").