Blast from the Power Past – And Use a No. 2 Pencil

When I was in middle and high school, I lived in libraries. Not only because I had term papers to do, but because I grew to love them. So when I could find the time to procrastinate on a paper, I took that opportunity and ran with it. This find is the result of one of my procrastinating sessions. And while I don’t encourage such behavior, to this day, I’m glad I spent a good 2-3 hours on a computer looking up newspaper archives on Power Rangers.

THE HARTFORD COURANT
June 30, 1995 Friday, STATEWIDE
SECTION: CONNECTICUT LIVING; Pg. E1
HEADLINE: FOR WOMEN WHO LOVE MORPHIN RANGERS TOO MUCH
BYLINE: COLIN McENROE; Courant Columnist

“I get some crazy letters from some older women . . . The strangest one said that she could feel my hair, I’m in her dreams, fate put us together and that I’m a ‘gargoyle of God’ to her.”

– Jason David Frank, who plays Tommy, the white Mighty Morphin Power Ranger

***

Dear Tommy,

Tommy, Tommy, Tommy.

Sometimes, in the afternoon, I am out in my cutting garden, musing over some dreamy puzzle of life such as: assign a hypothetical numerical value to the importance you place on your ability to control the “bad” things in your day and then another numerical value to the importance you place on doing work that is “useful” to others, and divide the sum by the percentage of time you feel bored.

Now think of a fish.

Was the number 7?

Tommy, my name is Gail Sheehy. I am a famous lifestyles researcher, and I love you very much.

Anyway, at these moments, when I am thinking about these questions (such as: How many friends do you have, friends to whom you confide everything, excluding those who share your ability to change into a distinctly different being with a metallic face?), I feel your hair.

Right there in the cutting garden. I’ve got a Hemerocallis “Green Flutter” daylily in my hand. But suddenly, it’s your hair. I feel your hair.

The other night I was having dinner with my friends — Judy Collins, Wonder Woman, Maya Angelou, Linda Ellerbee and April from Mutant Ninja Turtles — and we were talking about our journeys, and suddenly the bite of chicken tarragon in my mouth was your hair.

More than 73 percent of British women over 50 say they can feel hair of a person not technically present if that person is a burnished scimitar of virility poised to guide them on through the passage from semi-provisional middlescence to faux age-inventorying self- forgivenesshood.

Oh, Tommy.

Dare I ask? Does a woman over 50, a woman of passion and mastery, a woman typical of 38 percent of lactose-intolerant women 40 to 55 earning more than $100,000 (pre-tax), does this woman dare ask a sinewy, demi-articulate costumed hominid a question that springs from the very core of her heart?

In an average week, are you more likely to whip-kick an awesomely savage giant crow with fire-spuming artillery mounted on its head than to engage in sexual intercourse?

If you answered yes, which of the following best describes the reasons you feel you are not in a loving relationship?

* Others will find out I am not as good as they think.

* Portly radioactive blue dogs who breathe flesh-rending plasma will take over the planet if I relax my vigilance.

* Chronic constipation/diarrhea.

* Feelings of worthlessness when I see my action figure discounted in stores.

Oh, Tommy, perhaps that was too much.

But is it so wrong of me to want what 62 percent of allergic-to-shellfish Canadian women between the age of 52 and 58 responding to a survey in Wonderfully Complicated Woman magazine said they wanted: to lie back in bed with a younger man who has recently power- chopped vicious purple isotope-festooned iguanas into submission, to feast on his aluminum-tasting kisses while the afternoon light glinting off his space-age plastic helmet plays across the ceiling, to watch him subsequently touch the medallion covering his ripped, washboard abdominals and transform himself into a saber-toothed tiger who bounds out of the room to go fetch croissants and brie?

Because that’s what I want. At this passage, I am 130 percent more certain about 4/5 of the things that claimed 55 percent of my emotional life 8 to 12 years ago.

So I know that I want . . . oh . . . I want . . . oh! . . .

A gargoyle of God.

There. I’ve said it.

Attached is a 14-page questionnaire. Please take time to complete it. Think carefully about the texture and humanness of your answers. You are in my dreams, fate has put us together, etc.

And use a No. 2 pencil.

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