Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett

Somehow, I suddenly feel that an era or an age I knew is slowly but surely passing away. Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett are gone and now, all the more, I feel old.

My 12-year old son told me last night that Michael Jackson was dead. I was surprised that he knew Michael Jackson and so I asked: "How come you know Michael Jackson?" His answer: "I read." Upon asking him where he read about Michael Jackson, I found out that he read about him in some Almanac.

Continuing with the conversation, I then asked my son if he knew that Farrah Fawcett had died too. "Who is Farrah Fawcett?" he asks. I then went on to tell him that she was a popular star from the television show Charlie's Angels which I liked to watch a lot when I was still a kid. My son then asks: "Charlie's Angels was a TV show?" It was then that I really felt what was meant by a generation gap. My son knew Charlie's Angels the movie - with Cameron, Drew, and Lucy but he never knew where it all started. I knew. I remember.

And so we remember Michael and Farrah -- people we grew up with, even if they never knew that we existed. I remember the Jackson Five and how Michael Jackson looked as a child and how he changed as an adult. I recall his music (Ben, One Day in Your Life, Billie Jean, Thriller), his moves, and even if I was not really a fan, nor did I exert any effort to memorize the song lyrics, I can hear them in my head. If you were a child of the 1960s to the 1980s, you had to be living under a really huge rock to not know who Michael Jackson was. His music was all around us. You pretty much had no choice but to be acquainted with him.

As for Farrah Fawcett, the girls were all preoccupied with how her hair looked. Her fly-away locks started a trend so much so that suddenly all the girls wanted to have their hair that way. Charlie's Angels was one of my favorite TV shows when I was younger. It was right up there with Little House on the Prairie. I recall watching the show weekly on Channel 7 (Where You Belong) and although my favorite was Kate Jackson who played Sabrina Duncan, Farrah Fawcett (who played Jill Munroe), was undoubtedly, the bigger star then. Soon after, she was replaced by Cheryl Ladd, who played Jill Munroe's sister, Kris Munroe and up to that time, Charlie's Angels had the best episodes. When the original cast members were replaced by people like Shelley Hack and Tanya Roberts, I didn't watch the show regularly anymore as I felt it went downhill from there.

And so we say farewell to Michael and Farrah. Thank you for the music and for the entertainment. They may have moved on to the next stage but I am sure we shall remember them as we recall more than one day in our lives...