When I was five years
old, disco (and John Travolta) fever was in full swing!
My mother and father
had divorced when I was two, and Mom had married another man not long after—a friend
of her brother’s. He was a good man, and because I only saw my biological
father on Sundays at my grandmother’s house, my stepfather was the man I understood
to be my “dad” at that time. Young children don’t recognize the ins and outs of
adult relationships, and in the 70s, people didn’t necessarily tell their
children what was going on in their lives. I understood that there were some
things that I shouldn’t ask about, so I didn’t. There were some things I did
ask, but was told, “Don’t worry about it. That’s not for you to think about.”
So I was left to worry and think about it in silence, in the confusion of my
own five-year-old mind.
For the most part, our
family seemed like other families. I didn’t know anything about divorce, none
of my friends’ parents’ were divorced, and it didn’t occur to me that my
stepfather was anything other than my dad—after all, I had never lived with any
other man but him. It didn’t seem strange that I called him by his first name
because I called my grandmother by her first name too. He did all the things
that dads did. He worked, he came home, he played golf on the weekends. We
played games together and he told me he loved me. And that was enough.
He seemed to love my
mother too. I never heard or saw them fight—at least not during those early
years. He was an important guy where he worked and there were many dinners and parties
associated with his job, and I loved watching Mom put on her dresses and heels
as they got ready to go to the country club or to some other function. I was
happy then. Through my five-year-old eyes, they seemed happy too. Everyone I knew
seemed happy to me at that time.
When Saturday Night Fever came out in the
theaters and everyone was gaga over the movie, John Travolta, and the BeeGees,
Mom and my stepfather took disco lessons. I remember them coming home, playing
the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack
on the turntable, and showing me the steps they had learned. Turns, shuffles,
hands moving and fingers pointing diagonally across their bodies and then in
the air. And “More than a Woman” played on the stereo…
