Kids say the darndest….

My sister, fave-bro-in-law and niece were over last weekend. My sister was flipping through Vanity Fair and came upon the question page.

First question my sister asked: “Did you know that Art Linklatter’s still alive?” Of course not; fave-bro-in-law and I thought fave sister was kidding. Though why we had no idea. It turned out that he is still alive, and my fave-famly didn’t, at first, remember that Linklatter had a daugher, Diane, who jumped out a window while high on Acid.

Do I have to remember everything for everybody? What’s going to happen when I don’t remember everything that ever happened to everybody I know or who has been in the news. Is my family going to put me in a home pronto? Am I going to spend the next part of my life worrying about my memory so much that I actually do lose it?

And the things that I remember won’t let me win on Jeopardy; however I’m great at Trivial Pursuit type games. I had a boyfriend who, along with his friends was more intellectual than good for them. They talked in ten dollar words and I had to translate to the general public and people my boyfriend and I worked with. His friends thought that I was cute but dumb until we played said game.
“Who was the first woman to win the Indy 500?”
“Janet Guthrie.”
I suddenly changed from dumb redhead to brilliant mauvehead. Now that’s stupid. I’ve read almost every issue of People since its beginnings and in 20 minutes would learn more about pop culture than I cared to know but did have a need to learn about.

Unfortunately the world has changed so much and there’s so much info out there that one or five pop publications doesn’t keep a person in the know. Back to last weekend:

For some reason fave-bro-in-law kept on confusing Art Linklatter with another–kind–of–reality–show icon of our childhood.

True story: Around 1970 a plane on route to Miami was highjacked to Cuba. When the high jackers told the passengers they began laughing and laughed all the way to Cuba. Do you know why? Fave-bro-in-law didn’t and he should have.

Alan Funt was aboard, and the passengers thought that they were on Candid Camera. If you’re going to be hijacked I think that’s a good way to pass the time. My family loves it when I tell stupid stories like this one.

Fave-bro-in-law, fave-niece and I then played “Who wants to be a millionaire” on computer. I knew every answer so I guess I still know more than I think or that game is for idiots. I think more the later. Fave niece is just ten and she knew more than half the answers. Of course, she practices by herself and many of the questions are repeats but still….

Note for those of you who don’t know who Art Linklater is and why you should know or want to know is beyond me: He had a show cleverly called “the Art Linklater Show” that I would watch on sick days. It was before Queen for a Day” which was before “American Bandstand.” Oh Dick Clark, please recover before New Years Eve; America needs you.

In a segment of “The Art Linklater show,” he’d go into the audience (separate child section) and talk to kids. They said “The darnedest things.” The show was spun off and he co-hosted it with a little known comic named Bill Cosby. I think, but can’t be sure, that they were the first Black/White co-hosts on TV.

Art Linklater’s 92 now, and I apologize for making so much fun of him when I was young. We all thought that the underground movie “The Diane Linklater Story” was the funniest thing. Of course we’d go to anti-drug lectures at college high on mescaline and do other stupid things.

This is my mass apology to anybody I might have offended during those days. No it isn’t. I’ll write more about the days when I believed my friends and I ruled the world later. We were basically nice kids turned mean for awhile.

Art Linklater didn’t deserve the grief we gave him. And I apologize for all the phony phone calls my friends and I made to Perry Como. We had his home number and would sing his theme song into the phone. Anybody who knows me will pay me not to sing.