Monkey mania

Daydream Believer, while it may have been one of The Monkees greatest hits, it was also me, thinking I could pull off the stunt of the sixties and get away with it.

It was 1967.  What a fantastic time to be a teenager.  Hipster pants, paisley shirts, mini skirts and Go Go boots were all the rage.  Flower Power, Make Love not War and Peace, were the mantras of the day! 

And, if you weren’t puffing on a joint or taking a trip, and I don’t mean in the car with your parents, then you just weren’t hip!  And you thought Puff the Magic Dragon was a kid’s song??? 

Fourteen years old, I knew it all, or at least I thought I did!  Well, one thing I did know for certain; the Monkees, ( Davey Jones, Mickey Dolenz, Mike Nesmith and the love of my life Peter Tork) were coming to town and I was dam sure I was going to have a front row seat at that concert!   

The problem was, my parents were dam sure I wasn’t going to have that seat.  How could I convince them I was old enough, and, responsible enough to attend a concert?  Couldn’t they see I was a hip and happening teenager, or…. was that the problem?

It was the Age of Aquarius and everything was groovy.  At least it would be groovy if I were in the front row when those guys rocked that arena!  This was going to take some work.

What my parents needed to understand and what I had to convince them of; was that my older sister, who was also a Monkees fan could chaperone me to the concert!  After all, she was already fifteen and by my estimation definitely old enough!

Convincing! I had to be convincing!  Now, you have to understand, this was the sixties. It was just the beginning of young girls going crazy over their idols. The beginning of the crying, screaming, passing out at concerts era.  It had all started with Elvis, continued on with the Beatles and now we had THE MONKEES. 

And… my parents, great parents that they were, did not like seeing young girls behave in such a bizarre fashion! There was no way their daughters would be seen screaming and throwing themselves at these so called long haired teenage idols! 

But I had a plan and it would begin with pleading and begging.  If that didn’t work, I would offer to pay the $5.00 for the ticket out of my own hard earned allowance. That would make them realize how much I wanted this.  After all, it takes a long time to save up $5.00 when your allowance is $.50 every two weeks.

And if nothing else worked I would absolutely swear to behave.  I would promise not to act like all those other wild teenage girls!  There was no way; no way I would jump out of my seat, screaming and crying when my idol came on to that stage! I would listen to my older sister, no matter what she said I would listen!  If only they knew, that wouldn’t be hard…when it came to being a Monkees fan she was crazier than me!          

They finally agreed with only one condition!  We had to promise that their trust in us would not be misplaced.  We had to agree that we would behave like the nice young ladies they had raised us to be!  No problem, we could do that!  My plan had worked. My pleading, my begging and all my convincing had not been in vain! I had done it! We were going to our first concert!

The announcement came over the radio; tickets for the Monkees were going on sale! We practically flew downtown to Eaton’s; we had to beat the crowds! We made it!  First in line we waited all night.  When those doors opened we tore up to the 7th floor to buy our tickets with our hard earned money, confident it was being well spent!

The night of the concert finally arrived.  WOW, did we look great.  I was finally going to be in that front row with my hipster pants, paisley shirt and my new and fashionable twiggy haircut.  I was ripe and ready to grab the attention of my idol Peter Tork.

My parents, filled with trepidation, drove us to the concert.  Their parting words would forever ring in my ears! ‘Now, you girls behave yourselves, and, no jumping out of your seats, ranting and raving like lunatics, like all those other crazy teenagers.’ 

We gave them our heartfelt promise.  Their trust was not being misplaced! We would behave like the well-brought up girls they thought us to be????

Finally the moment arrived.  The lights dimmed, the music started, ‘Heh Heh, We’re The Monkees and people say we Monkee around.’ And there they were! The arena went crazy! Pandemonium broke out everywhere!  Thousands of teenage girls screaming and crying, jumping out of their seats!

Oh My God there he was, there was my Idol Peter Tork!  And there was my sisters Idol, Davey Jones.

OH MY GOD! We knew the instant our eyes met, we would never, could never; keep our promise to mom and dad!  Sorry mom and dad!  Out of our seats we flew.  We screamed, we cried, we ranted, we raved, we jumped up and down and the tears streamed down our faces!  We were in the front row watching our Idols sing all of our favourite songs!

The press were everywhere! The cameras were flashing, and the more we screamed the more they flashed.  This was our first concert.  We were pumped!  Our adrenalin was working overtime!

But, like all good things an end must come, and so it would be with our first concert!  They had sang their last song, had said their good-byes.  We dried our tears and tired but happy went out to the waiting arms of our parents.

It was hard to sleep that night, between the left over excitement and the anticipation of seeing the next day’s reviews in the Winnipeg Free Press! We knew our hero’s would hit the front page and what a keepsake that would be.

First up, I went and grabbed the newspaper.  I couldn’t’ wait to see the front page to get another glimpse of my idol, Peter Tork!

I opened it up and…. WHAT?  OH MY GOD!…., To my utter shock and horror THE MONKEES were not on the front page!  Instead… there were two screaming, ranting raving, crazy teenage girls, my sister and I, Sandra and Donna Martin!  There we were for the all of the world to see. 

Quickly, I woke up my sister. We had to hatch a plan!  I saw the disbelief and amazement in her eyes when instead of seeing The Monkees she saw pictures of herself and the sister she was supposed to be supervising, plastered all over the front page! 

What were we going to do?  My parents simply couldn’t see this!  This was an all out disaster! 

Finally we calmed down.  We had to put a plan into action and quickly.  Mom and Dad’s, newspaper; that was an easy one!  We would simply hide it.  We would tell them the delivery boy had just missed us that day!

Now what do we do about the neighbours?  There was absolutely no way we could allow them to open up their Free Press and see Sandra and Donna on the front page! 

Up and down the street we went stealing Saturday morning newspapers. Okrainec’s, Sylvester’s, Miles’s, McKernon’s, Woodhall’s.  Every family our family knew, lost their Saturday edition that morning!  Those Saturday Newspapers, in April of 1967 would never be seen again! We were safe!

Back home we went, confident that we had saved the day.  Our poor parents wouldn’t have to be disappointed in their two girls!  They could continue to believe we had kept our heartfelt promise. They would never know how we had ranted and raved, cried and screamed and acted like all the other crazy teenage girls! They could go on thinking we had behaved like the nice young ladies they had brought us up to be! Most of all they could believe their trust had not been misplaced!

Thank God, they would never see that picture, never know that their daughters had been caught in all our glorious action on the FRONT PAGE OF THE WINIPEG FREE PRESS! Success and relief, we had pulled it off.

And then, the telephone started ringing????????