We had tickets to see Grease.

I was the dad-chaperone for Katie and Anne - two sister-cousins, born just a few months apart.

They were seven-year-olds that still loved storybooks and princesses and had embarrassingly early bedtimes.

It didn't matter who was in the cast that night. It wasn't about Sandra Dee. It was the velvet curtains, the stage, the music and the magic that the girls would remember. The wonder of theater.

The sister-cousins wore their winter wool coats, dresses and patent leather shoes. I held their mittened hands as we walked against the icy Lake Michigan wind. It was fittingly snowing, a Christmas powder gusting and swirling around taxis and L-trains.

When we finally reached the theater and the posters announcing Grease, they were giddy.

This was the first of several holiday theater trips for us. And it was as special as Christmas on Michigan avenue could be, among the snow and twinkling tree-lights, the Marshall Field's windows and green shopping bags and bell-ringing Santas. The honking taxis and madness and chaos of Loop-land.

As we entered the theater and walked down the aisle, I remember how it felt. I think it was a lot like how boys feel at Wrigley Field when they see the green summer grass and ivy for the very first time.

The dance and the music transported the girls as far from their suburban neighborhoods as Narnia. As far from their second grade classrooms as Rydell High School was back in the 1950's.

Which was the whole point.

Watching them that night was like watching someone cast a handful of sparkling glitter on their souls.

During the musical, they had to kneel in their seats to see. They sang with the cast - Summer Nights, Beauty School Dropout, Hand Jive, Grease, Sandra Dee, and of course, You're the One that I Want. They were wide-eyed with the music, the dancing and the pageantry.

Watching them, I wished that their happiness and innocence, their smiles and enchantment - would never end. That those patent leather shoes would never be too childish, that the plastic barrettes would forever hold back their hair.

That they would never be too old to ask me - to need me - to hold them, higher, to see the stage. To see the dancing and the music.

And while those wishes didn't all come true, some did.

The turbulence of real life was just around the corner then. Pressures and expectations. Junior high. Life would try to steal some of the magic.

Thankfully, Katie would always love music and dancing. Her world was about song. Spontaneous ballet poses. Pirouettes and tumbling.

And everyone knew that Katie's handstand flourishes on piers and backyards and swimming pools were normal. They were so Katie.

Later, in college, she had to explain why she was on the Dance Team.

"They have a team for dancing?" I remember asking, thinking how funny and perfect it was for Katie.

As I write this, I remember the lyrics from this 1970 song:

On the day that you were born
The angels got together
And decided to create a dream come true
So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of golden starlight in your eyes of blue

For it's the glitter and dancing and dreaming which makes Katie - Katie. It's the essence of her charisma, in so many ways.

It's what draws special people to Katie as if she were karmically magnetized.

To me, to her fiancé, to so many others - we can say of Katie, two decades later -

Katie - you're The One that I Want.

Citations -
from the album Close to You
Released May 15, 1970
Format 7" single
Recorded 1970
Length
4:33 (LP version)
3:40 (7" single)
Label A&M 1183
Songwriter(s)
Burt BacharachHal David
Producer(s) Jack Daugherty

Link
You're The One That I Want

#grease

The one that I want