be my baby

In the late winter of 1983 I was hired for a brand new adolescent program – The Drug and Alcohol Resouce Program – as a counselor and referral information gatherer. I was about six weeks from having something of a spiritual experience and getting sober myself. Which is only peripherably connected to girl groups. I guess, me still here to offer all this gushing reverance.

My second year in the program I found myself two days a week in a small office in the guidance department at North Reading High School as an outreach, drop-in, resource, you can even get out of class this way counselor. Referrals from guidance, referrals from teachers, mostly word of mouth gathered a crew of regulars, and one of them was a young lady named Sandra Jeanne. I was there at NRHS more than a school year, and most of the administrators, counselors, teachers, and kids I got to know a lot loved me.

I don’t remember the why and how come of it, but at some point I spent a night or two creating a mix-tape (cassette) for Sandra Jean, and one of the songs on board – the only one I remember today – was “Be My Baby” by The Ronettes. That particular girl group song kind of went to SJ’s head, and she got a little woozy around me. Somewhere, in some box or envelope I have the senior class picture she gave me, which referenced that song and her thinking it would kind of be a cool idea. To be my baby. She never was, and I haven’t seen Sandra Jean since, some 41 years on.

Brian Wilson, genius Beach Boy, has two daughters, Wendy and Carnie, and I’ve read many, many times their accounts of growing up with this — the very first thing they heard upon waking each morning, their dad blasting – “Dum dum dum, Da, Dum Dum Dum, Da………..”

“And if I had a chance I’d never let you go.” Like so many of these girl group anthems.