When I walked out of my dance class yesterday, Bart was as usual sitting at one of the tables the Y puts out there. Bart, a very recently retired Professor of English, always has something interesting to say. I was betting on a quip about Margaret Thatcher, the news of whose death was all over the place that morning.
“Bad news,” Bart said, looking oddly doleful for someone I was sure had been no fan of Margaret Thatcher. “Annette Funicello died.”
My heart sank. The shock was real and scarcely related to the actual person of Annette Funicello, whom of course I’d never met and hadn’t thought of in over fifty years. I didn’t have to think about Annette because she existed perpetually, never changing, in my own history.
I’m in Jr. high and my first boyfriend David has walked me home from school, carrying my books and my Conn cornet in its clunky case. David is not allowed to come inside, since my parents are still at work, and that’s fine with me. Adolescence is a slow and patchwork affair in the 1950’s; I’m not really clear about why he insists on walking me home but understand that it’s expected of both of us. When he leaves I can go inside and turn on the TV (which has to warm up), and what’s on both of the two stations available? The Mickey Mouse Club!
And I watch. Annette, the most popular Mouseketeer, is twelve and so am I. By current standards we’re way too old for this juvenile stuff, but I don’t know that then. In my late-afternoon living room, surrounded by my mother’s collection of Wedgwood miniatures (green, not blue), it’s okay to be a child, or at least childish, again, and I revel in it. When the show is over I sing the closing song with Annette and the cast, alone in the final moments of both childhood and an era. I will never forget the song.
Bart and I analyzed the source of our reaction to Annette’s death. She was an icon in our history, a remembered symbol of something akin to innocence. Bart said he, like every other American boy, fell in love with her even before she got the famous boobs. He said she always seemed deeply wholesome in some way far surpassing the corny All-American Girl Next Door image. I remembered wanting to look like her, not realizing that I’d have to become Italian. It didn’t matter; she was us. Annette was an ideal, somehow embodying a goodness peculiar to that time, outgrown long ago but cherished in memory.
Bea, Bart’s wife and retired teacher, and Bonnie, an about-to-retire grade school teacher, straggled out of our class. Bart gave them the news; their reaction was the same. We stood around in the sun talking about Annette for a few minutes and then wandered toward our cars in the parking lot beneath a small shopping center. It’s all slab cement and girders in there, dim and echoey. Then somebody started the song and we all joined in, belting it out, the words bouncing off cars and cement, filling our world for one last time. M-I-C…K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWH9HGS7SvQ
I won’t forget that, either.
abigail padgett 
Very moving, a piece of adolescence has vanished…I don’t remember Annette because in those days I lived in South America, in Bogotà where we had no television except for the State TV that only aired political speeches – none were Fidel Castro (this was the late 1950s) but they were all very wordy and incredibly boring, especially to the young girl I was. Mickey Mouse? That sounds much better, must have been fantastic! I envy you that memory, be sure you cherish it!
Thanks for your comment, Claude. Political speeches in Bogata sound ghastly! In reality Annette was stricken with muscular dystrophy and her last years were terrible, and while writing the blog I Googled David and learned that he died in 2009. Impetus for those of us who remain standing to keep singing!
Abbie
I really love this one, Abbie. It’s gorgeous.
Thanks, Susan. It’s so weird, isn’t it?
This was beautiful! I loved how, several years ago, she appeared as herself in a movie about her life. She was lying on a chaise at a party, taking a rest, already suffering from MS – but began describing her story to a little girl who asked her about it as a real-life fairy tale. What class, and what a fabulous lady!
Thank you for a morning, or should I say mourning, tear. Annette was all that and well said.
Well, you made me cry. Annette was my age too. I followed her through the MS problems and thought of her often. I didn’t realize she’d been in a coma for several years. So sad. Thanks for your observance. Diane Steele
Loved it, Abbie. I so wanted to be Annette Funicello.
Abbie, your eloquently stated memories brought back memories of my own. My older brother was in love with Annette, not that he would admit it then, but I knew he was smitten by the way he scooted up close to the TV and watched her adoringly.
I was eight years old when I first saw her dancing and singing on the show. Her ballet dancing was absolute perfection to my young eyes. Exquisite! I desperately wanted to act and look like her. So, I cut her picture out of a teen magazine and took it to my mom’s hairdresser and asked to have a haircut and perm just like Annette’s. I disovered I was allergic to perm ingredients and my scalp formed scabs and the hair that didn’t fall out was a frizzy, unmanageable mop that took months to grow out.
She was a genuinely nice person from all accounts. Beautiful inside as well as out–a role model. She died too soon.
I am eager to see a cure for MS–my lovely cousin Marilyn has had it since she was 20. It progressed slowly but she was in a wheelchair by her mid 40s. She is now 59 and bedridden. For the last 12 years she has shared a room with another MS victim who was stricken in her late 40s. I hope a cure is found before it is too late for these darling women I love so much.
I AM SADDENED , IT’S A LOSS TO ME . SOMEHOW MY WORLD BECOMES
SMALLER UNTILL IT AND I ARE GONE . GOOD BY ANNETTE . FAIR THEE
WELL .
Thanks for writing, Charles. Too true, no denying it, but all the more reason to write it down! Write your life, at least one interesting tale at a time with all the little details that otherwise will be lost. Only you can do it!
Abbie
I was saddened by Annette’s death too. In my case, I both remembered her on the Mickey Mouse Club from the very beginning, and my own daughter died from MS at the age of 48 in May of 2011. It felt very personal to me when I heard of Annette.