Sugar Sugar

I came to my desk this evening to write a review Carol Shield's book Unless.  Alas, the song "Candy Girl" by the Archies came on the radio and temporarily sidetracked my thoughts.  It's always amazed me how certain songs can bring back not only memories of a certain time, but also the exact way you were feeling at that point in your life.  "Candy Girl", for instance, reminds me of driving in the car with my dad when I was about nine years old.  I had recently discovered his impressive collection of Archie comics.  They had been accumulating for over thirty years, only to land in the crawl space of my parents' house.  (Note: never put books of any sort in crawl spaces - it causes moisture to seep into the pages, leaving them damp and musty-smelling.  As a result the comics had to be thrown out several years ago.  Poor Archie).  As you might imagine, this enormous pile of Archies was a gold mine to a nine year old girl, and it wasn't long before I was entirely immersed in the world of high school love triangles, milkshakes, and chocklit shop philosophies of life.

So imagine the thrill when "Candy Girl" came onto the radio (sixteen years ago, not today) and my Dad announced that the band singing the song was the Archies.

You mean the real Archies?  From the comics?"

"Yup."

I was at once baffled, weirded out, and excited beyond words.  "But they're make believe characters, from the comics.  Or are the comics about the band?"

I'm sure he proceeded to explain the truth of what we were listening to, but I seem to have blocked that part from my memory.  What I do remember is being awe-struck by the Betty and Veronica lines (Betty and Veronica are singing!!!).  It was like discovering Santa Clause is actually real.  

Ahhh, for two minutes I actually felt young again.