Regrets

Regrets, I've Had a Few.

I'm sure everyone has second thoughts about decisions made in the past. Fork in the road moments that we pray about and then ignore any direction we might receive are common. However, there are decisions that impact life changing moments that we live to regret.

I have one that I want to confess. One that I need to get off my chest. It seemed to be the right choice at the time. It made sense from every angle. There was no way on earth that this could go wrong. My decision had "genius" written all over it. It is clear that I could have not been more wrong. Yes, I regret this one particular choice and have no idea what I was thinking at the time. How could I have been so wrong? Why was I so blind?

Picture, if you can, little Jeff, age 7. I was the sweetest boy that you could imagine and I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of Saturday July 19th, 1969. My parents had promised to take me and my brother to the Rosecrans Drive-In to view a re-release of the Walt Disney classic "Peter Pan". The day before this momentous occasion, my Mother informed me that The Monkees were going to appear on "The Johnny Cash" TV show at the same time we would be in flight to Neverland. The Monkees were my group. They were my introduction into music. My first album was "More Of The Monkees". Their TV show captured the magic of music, the fun and camaraderie of friends creating songs. It had been off for over a year. This was only their 3rd TV appearance since the demise of their show. This was days before VCRs, DVR's and any timeshifting device. My parents said that we could postpone the drive-in extravaganza until the next week so I could see the Pre-fab 4(reduced to 3 at the time) perform on the Cash show.

Here was the first dilemma of my first young life. Give up the movie that I had excitedly awaited for what seemed like an eternity or stay home and watch the Monkees with Johnny Cash. I debated in my clearly not fully formed mind. In a decision that I have regretted for 40 years, I succumbed to the allure of pixie dust and chose the Lost Boys over the Long Haired Weirdos.

I did enjoy the movie going experience and the Ghiridelli Chocolate Flicks. The next morning the regrets began. My uncle came over to visit my Dad and began recounting the Johnny Cash show from the previous night. He told him that it was classic and we should have stayed home and watched it. Johnny sang a verse of Last Train To Clarksville and then after a great new Michael Nesmith song, he sang a novelty number with them. He said that they were hilarious. I pretended to be asleep on the living room floor because the realization of my horrendous blunder was already causing me embarrassment and shame. I had figured that the show would be repeated. My young mind did not understand that, for some reason, variety shows rarely were repeated.

As the years progressed my decision haunted me. In the Fall of that year, the Monkees series began reruns on CBS Saturday Mornings. This pleased me because I was only 4 when the series started so many of these episodes were new to me. But as each rerun aired, although I enjoyed the shows, I had a weekly reminder that I missed the Johnny Cash appearance. The Monkees began appearing in commercial spots for Kool-Aid and Nerf products. So numerous times each day, I was reminded of my mistake. The Monkees show left Saturday mornings in 1973 but went into syndication in 1976.

As I grew older I realized that Neverland was just a myth, but The Johnny Cash show with the Monkees never aired again and the song they sang was not released until 1987. Peter Pan became available on VHS video and I purchased it for my young daughter remembering my gaffe each time we watched it.

My trauma was exacerbated in 1986 when 3 of the Monkees reunited for the highest grossing tour of the year. I had tickets for the final show of the tour. However the success of this revival, fueled by MTV rebroadcasts, caused the tour to be extended and my show became the next-to-last night. No big deal except at the final show, the next night, all 4 Monkees were reunited for the first time since 1968 and I missed it.

Recently, someone posted the Monkees appearance on You Tube. I got to watch it, finally. The monkee was finally off by back. The flim clip did not seem as spectacular as my uncle's 1969 review but the 7 year old Jeff would have loved it. On the 40th anniversary of my tragic mistake, I feel free.

Do you have any regrets?