Dick Clark Has Left the Building and Took Our Youth With Him

No writer of baby boomer age should let Dick Clark’s death pass without comment.

A man died, but he was much more than that. Dick Clark was rock and roll. He was the beginning of an age of dance, music and all the amazing changes embraced by a post-war generation.

No one left school slowly. It was a mad dash home to watch Pat Molittieri dance. Assure ourselves Justine and Bob—and Arlene and Kenny—were still a couple. And of course see what they were all wearing. If you don’t know who Justine Carrelli and Carole Scaldeferri are you must have been on Mars.

It was a time when guys wore suits, women wore sweaters and tight skirts with kick pleats, and Dick Clark was the deliverer of all that was fun and upbeat and musical in our lives.

As Don McLean sings about Kennedy’s death as the day the music died, I must offer this opinion: Dick Clark’s death is the signal the music has died. At least the music of my past.

He delivered us to rock and roll, to dance contests, to teen idols, to a time of innocence combined with a beat. Now where should we find the music? In our grandchildren, but of course I am prejudiced on that account.

It seems only a moment ago we were all running home to watch a young man in Philadelphia holding a microphone behind a podium introducing Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon.

Or chatting with Frankie Avalon.

Or watching intently as the cameraman scanned the regulars to see a new hairdo or how large the flips were that day.

We cared about those things. We embraced this new culture brought to us daily by a young man who introduced us to the Philly sound, to Elvis, to Little Richard and—of course—James Brown.

Innocent, carefree and with little to trouble our world.

Oh sure, adults talked of atom bombs and cold wars, and my next-door neighbors actually built a bomb shelter in their backyard. We opted for a plastic swimming pool and I was glad for the choice.

But Dick Clark was our innocence, though I cannot exactly pinpoint the moment we awakened from the dream. I suspect it was Vietnam. At least I believe it was. Talk of war, protests, friends moving to Canada to escape the draft—it wasn’t all rock and roll and Bandstand any longer.

Dick Clark continued to look young and clean-cut as we morphed into hippies. We traded tight skirts and sweaters for tie-dyed shirts and bell-bottoms, and a pair of water buffalo sandals.

We changed, but Dick never did.

A new generation embraced Bandstand and now there were no longer suits, guys from Philly or couples you’d rush home to see and emulate.

But Dick still looked like he did the day he stepped in front of that podium so many years before. He was the Dorian Gray for our generation. Even as our generation grew more haggard with age and went from hippies to yuppies, he stayed young.

It was astounding and somehow comforting to see him, to remember what it felt like back then.

To be innocent and naïve.

To be carefree and not care-warn.

Dick Clark could be relied upon to remind us of happier times. Of a childhood that will never occur again on planet Earth. Innocence has left the building. Dick Clark took it with him when he left.

Rest in peace, Dick.

And if you see our childhoods while you are on the other side, please say hello for a generation that owes you our youth.