Sweet Mary Lou

The year was 1984. The place was Los Angeles. I was 9 years-old and in love with Mary Lou Retton. I watched sweet Mary Lou make the Olympics her personal playground, netting a gold in the all-around (who can forget the perfect 10 on the vault to clinch it?), a silver in the team and vault competitions and bronze in the uneven bars and floor exercise. Mary Lou – what a girl!

Through the unique physiology of gymnastics (i.e. Bela Karolyi keeps me in a tiny metal box so I can’t grow) I thought we were about the same age. I thought, “Look how tiny she is. She can’t be older than 10. I’m a pretty stylin’ for a 9-year old. I bet I could get into her tiny, tiny leotard.” Ok, I didn’t really think anything of the sort, but I couldn’t pass up the reference. She towered over me at 4’10 and 3/4’s and had about 25 pounds of muscle on me, but hey, otherwise, we were like peas in a pod. She was always happy; I was always happy. She could get a 10 on the vault; I could top 100,000 on Galaga. She would appear on a Wheaties’ box; I would hide in boxes.

I was really obsessed with her. Maybe even so much so that I could have end up stalking her. But tiny stalkers have tiny dreams and I eventually lost interest after reading one of the many biographies that came out about her (the extent of my obsession being reading dull biographies). I was shocked at some of the things I discovered. Mary Lou wasn’t 10-years old. She was actually a 35 year-old mother of 6 with severely arthritic knees and a penchant for sweet, sweet booze, Bartyle’s and James Wine Coolers, to be specific. . . . That book destroyed my dreams and started my lifelong hatred of books – with all their d@mn words and dream destroying.

Shortly thereafter, my love for Mary Lou had fizzled out and I focused in on my next obsession . . . Stevie Wonder.