Shaun Cassidy, Rocky Balboa, and Graham Crackos…

I’m sure your reading the title and wonder what all of those things have in common. My sister L is probably all “OMG” right now bc this post is about her….

I grew up the youngest of three sisters in the 1970s in Brooklyn, NY. Bellbottoms, roller skates, feathered hair, and classic rock defined my childhood. As a kid, you either want be like your siblings or you get tortured by them. For me it was a little of both. I wanted to be like my oldest sister E because she held the power of my chocolate milk (that is for another post…coming soon!). But my sister L was and always will be the resident bad ass.

It was from her that I learned that you can do outrageous things that will make your parents wish they couldn’t claim you with their DNA that are actually fuckin’ hilarious. L loved Shaun Cassidy and discovered through Tiger Beat, the teen Wikipedia of the 70s, that his favorite color was brown. She insisted all of the clothing Mom bought her was brown. She had a similar teen idol moment with Donny Osmond which resulted in her dressing in only purple for a year. When she didn’t do well in junior high, my mom lost her mind and took away everything she owned…and I mean everything…until she got her grades up.

As an adult, when my mom found out she had a tattoo, she gave her the lecture of her life. And you can totally tell she just wanted to laugh but she had to make believe she was somewhat remorseful. What made me laugh beyond control was hearing my mother say “But you don’t understand!!! No decent man will marry you now that you have a tattoo!!” The tattoo was a flower about the size of your thumb on her back. The way mom was yelling, you would think she got a skull and crossbones that said “Born to Ride” on her neck.

Despite all the hoopla, one of my favorite memories of growing up with L was her love for Sylvester Stallone. When L dug something, she loved it with her heart and soul. Sometime between 1976 and 1982, Rocky movies were very popular. Also popular those days was collecting proofs of purchases from cereal boxes in order to get toys and prizes. A cereal called Graham Crackos had a promotion for a Rocky Balboa poster. And guess what? L had to have it. I don’t know what  hell she did to convince my mother that if she didn’t have it she would die, but we ate a lot of Graham Crackos.

Back in the day, my parents, in an effort to stick to a budget, went food shopping once a month. Sometimes we would get two or more boxes of cereal, but when it was done, it was done and that was that. Every single box of cereal that came into the house for what seemed like 6 months was Graham Crackos. And we ate and we ate and we ate Graham Crackos. Then one day, the poster came. My mom rolled it out on her bed and held the corners down with soup cans. I remember hearing her screaming as if God himself handed the poster to her. All I could think at that moment was how much I wanted a bowl of Captain Crunch.

I spoke to my mom a few days ago and asked her about that poster. She said L just carried on until she gave in. Then she said “That was nothing. What I remember was having to get her those ugly Kiss dolls for Christmas. Do you remember that?” Oh my God….the kiss dolls!!!! Hey L, do you wanna rock and roll all night and party every day?