A Little Bit

I don't feel bad for Marie Osmond. Not exactly. She's got her health. She's got her career. She's staying busy. The part that started to bother me the other day was when I found myself watching Marie doing her job selling Nutrisystem. There she was, letting us know how you can lose pounds and inches with the shakes, boosters and meals offered by her employer. Marie says she has lost more than fifty pounds using this system of nutrition. That's a success story, right?
Except I remember her from her show back in 1976 with her brother Donny. She was a little bit country. He was a little bit rock and roll. They were a huge part of my Friday nights in those days. For an impressionable teen like myself, the Osmonds were show business. They could sing. They could dance. They could get everyone from Barbara Eden to Evel Knievel to guest on their show. They were on lunch boxes.
Yes, it was a simpler time. They kept my mind off of a gasoline shortage and disco, even if both of these topics provided fuel for this variety hour. These were the salad days for Marie, when she and her family represented not only what was good but also what was powerful in show business. Wholesome entertainment.
Then the eighties came, and those big smiles fell out of fashion. The Reagan years brought more irony and less polyester. The Osmonds became more of a punchline than a power, but they persevered. In 1998, Marie returned with her brother to host a talk show called, without a trace of irony, Donny and Marie. Barbara Eden and Evel Knievel did not appear on this show.
Now it's 2018, and Marie is beginning her fifth year as spokesperson for Nutrisystem. A whole generation who never saw all that singing and dancing, or even all of that talking, now sees what was once America's sweetheart as America's Before and After model. Not that there's anything wrong with that. As I mentioned earlier: she's got her health, she's got her career.
But I wonder now if she's still a little bit country.
Because I'm still a little bit rock and roll.
Some things never change.