A Modern Day Gidget

2009-04-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

My favorite movie has always been Gidget...not the newer versions, but the very first one with Sandra Dee and James Darren. Ooooh, that James Darren was a dreamboat! Yours truly is not some young teenager of today, but a Baby Boomer and a teenager of the 1960's.

I can still recall it like it was yesterday. It was the winter of 1960, and I was living in Kansas City, Missouri. As a 13-year old girl, my life was as happy as any other girl of my age, I suppose. I really didn't know about too many other places outside of my own city. I guessed that most of the other cities in America had parks, lakes, and movie theatres, just like my city did. Other kids in all of those other cities must have been bored from time to time, just like me. On one particular winter's day, I found myself all alone in a movie theatre on a Saturday matinee. As the story of Gidget started to unfold on the movie screen, I became enthralled with what I was seeing. Could it be that such a life existed? The beach, the surf, the sun, the endless summer, the boys? How could I get to live such a life as that?

They say that you can escape from your own life, for at least for 2 hours, while watching a movie. And escape I did! But not only did I escape, I began to dream...and plot, as to how I could start living the life of a beach girl! And that was no easy task. As soon as I left the theatre, the cold, brisk wind hit me, as a harsh reminder as to exactly where I was living...and it was NOT on some California beach!

Of course, I was subject to where my parents were living, and I remember hearing my father speak and dream of moving to California one day. As fate would have it, my father actually died that year, and my mother bravely decided to sell their home and take a scouting trip to California! Well, I was ecstatic, and in my mind, I was already on my surfboard, hanging ten! After checking out Long Beach, California, (my personal favorite), my mother decided that she wasn't fond of the sight of the oil rigs off the coast, so she headed north. It turned out to be San Jose, as our final destination. However, there was one problem; the Pacific Ocean was 30 miles away, in Santa Cruz! But I figured that it was still a whole lot closer to the ocean than the land-locked city where we came from.

As I settled into high school life in San Jose, my "Surfer Girl" dreams subsided, as the busyness of every day life took over. I also could not figure out how to get 'over the hill' to Santa Cruz, without a car at my disposal. After high school, the years started to fly by, and before I knew it, I was married with two children. Sadly, my trips to the beach were few and far between during those years. My Gidget persona was under wraps for now.

Fast forwarding 30 years later, my husband and I were privileged to be able to move to Huntington Beach, California...none other than "Surf City, USA" itself! People were amazed that we were able to find a Condo only 3 blocks from the beach and famous pier. True, we were only renting a place, but I didn't care. Finally, we did buy a house about 2 miles from the beach, but still close enough for us to be able to ride our 'Beach Cruiser' bikes down there. Every evening, you could find us down at the beach, walking or biking along the sidewalk trail. My Gidget life had been re-kindled!

Now, over 40 years after I first saw that life-changing teen movie, I am once again blessed to live by the sea...this time on the Atlantic Coast. Did I ever step foot on a surfboard? Heavens no! But I am perfectly content to walk the beach every day, looking for unusual seashells, smelling that wonderful salt air, and holding hands with my very own Moondoggie, Don! Sandra Dee, I'm not, but a modern-day Gidget? That's me alright!

A Modern-Day Gidget

A Modern Day Gidget