I never had the pleasure or honor of meeting Dick Clark and that is most certainly my loss. I fondly remember the time of my youth when I would come home and watch him on television. I had the good fortune of having an after school baby-sitter, Karen, who watched him religiously every afternoon. I can still remember her dancing just as if she were there on stage with him. Occasionally I was pressed into service as her dance partner, even though I was 6 or more years younger than she. It was a simpler time for all of us, especially us kids who had so much less to worry about, really.
I remember the clean-cut young boys and girls that danced on his show and I recall the rate a record, which had a limit on how low or high you could go, so no artist or song was completely without value nor absolutely perfect.
He was in my living room every day for as long as I can remember and had become as near a member of the household as is possible, though his only presence was an image on a TV screen. I was actually kind of surprised to see him, and the American Bandstand set, in color, having seen him in black and white for so many years. I somehow thought he lived in another world where all was black and white, but I was very young and reality did eventually set in at some point.
I also remember the years of ringing in the New Year with Dick, who had become such an institution and such a part of my life that I feel comfortable calling him by his first name. Somehow calling Dick Clark “Mr. Clark” just does not seem right, unless I was actually meeting him, and I am certain in my heart that he would have said, ”Please, call me Dick.”
My only regret is that someone did not, or maybe could not, convince Dick that, after he had the stroke, it was time to fade away, his image intact. His incredibly youthful image will only be tarnished by the image of him unable to speak clearly, sometimes confused and unable to move one hand as he hosted the last few years of “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.” I wish we could only remember him as the eternal teenager we had come to love, but I will try to put that out of my mind, as will many, and remember him as the eternally young man, sitting on the bleachers at American Bandstand asking teenie-boppers what they thought of rock ‘n roll songs and artists.
Dick Clark will live on in all of our hearts and memories. We will hear the songs he played and remember him with a sigh. We will remember the friends we made watching the show and some of us can remember the girls we shared romances with, holding hands while watching. We will never, ever, be able to hear Les Elgart’s arrangement of Charles Albertine’s “Bandstand Boogie” without thinking of American Bandstand and Dick Clark. I am not sure how many people will ever know that is the name of the song used as the theme for American Bandstand, but they will always remember the Bandstand theme, forever.
The death of Dick Clark is an emotional moment for many of us. He reminds us of our youth and the good times, but also of the fact that no one, not even America’s Oldest Teenager lives forever. We should all hope to live our lives a fully as Dick Clark did. He will be missed and remembered, very fondly.
