Nostalgic For Nostalgia

 Cindy Williams gets my vote. If I was voting for a likely source of prepubescent fascination of a certain generation. Not mine, of course. That was Elizabeth Montgomery for me. 

But that's a tale for another time.

Cindy "Shirley" Williams passed away this week at the age of seventy-five. If you have a picture fixed in your head of Ms. Williams, it might be difficult to imagine that. Seventy-five? For a generation, she was twenty-something, rushing out of the door grabbing her coat on the way to the brewery where she worked with her erstwhile friend and roommate Laverne Defazio. Shirley was the sweet to Laverne's savory. She dreamed of something more than being a bottle capper for Shotz Beer. 

Shirley did escape Milwaukee. In season six, Laverne and Shirley moved to Burbank, California. In search of dreams and guys. The rest of the gang found work on the left coast where fake snow only had to look like fake snow because they were in Hollywood. 

In real life, Cindy was able to hold down a steady TV-based acting career, never fully realizing the heights her roomie Laverne experienced, or that Cunningham kid she dated that one time. They won Oscars, for goodness sake. 

Speaking of Opie Cunningham, it was Cindy's starring role opposite Ron Howard in American Graffiti that will always be my fondest memory of her. With her boyfriend's letterman sweater draped over her, she clings to Ron in their spotlight dance at the hop. All her tough talk disappears as the weight of his imminent departure sinks in and a tear falls. "What's wrong?" he asks. Pulling him just a little closer, she replies, "Go to hell."

A couple of years later, Cindy and Ron were reunited when Fonzie set up a double date for him and Richie with Laverne and Shirley. The events of that night set the wheels in motion for a new nostalgic look back at the fifties starring a moderately sanitized version of everyone's favorite brewery gals. 

And now I find myself looking back fondly on the late seventies, when we were all looking back fondly on the late fifties. Cindy follows her pal Penny to the great beyond, where they will Schlemiel, schlimazel into eternity. Cindy Williams slipped and slid across the Terra for our amusement. She will be missed.