I Don't Usually Write Stuff Like This...Or Post Terrifyingly Bad Pictures...

     I don't usually think much about when celebrities die, but Davy Jones has me choked up a little. When I was around ten or eleven years old, I went through this weird phase where I was obsessed with The Monkees, especially Davy. I had a couple of episodes of the tv show on an old VHS tape, and I think the second or third CD I ever bought was The Monkees' Greatest Hits. I can still picture being in front of the huge stereo in the living room playing it. I still watch the show when I catch it on Antenna TV.
     When I broke my arm rollerskating and I just got my cast put on, I remember my mom ordering out food (I had chicken fingers..big surprise) and I watched the Monkees reunion show on tv. I remember being really excited and happy because I had my chicken and I got to watch Davy Jones!
     I even have a school picture that has a little Davy tribute in it. Before I describe this sad excuse for of a picture, I want to tell you guys that I am the QUEEN of terrible school photos. Anybody reading this who's my brother or sister, or my best friends from grade school will attest. Anyway, in this particular picture I had my red and white Seuss-hat looking striped sweater on...and I was holding one of those cheap ass tambourines that you used to see in the toys section of the grocery store. (Do they even still have that section???) It was an orange plastic tambourine, and I was sitting with it and grinning stupidly into those blinding lights they use on Picture Days.
      It might be weird, but despite the fact that I was born decades after their heyday, I have really vivid memories of The Monkees from when I was little. I walked down Chestnut Street singing along to "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" tonight on the way home from school. And you know, just like I was happy being a kid with that cheesy tambourine, I did not care that people were looking at me weird.
       RIP Davy.


(PS...just to show you how serious I am about my awful school pictures...here's two of the BETTER ones. I'll see if I can find the tambourine one sometime soon.)