Don't Dream It's Over

We have to go back into my awkward adolescence for this one. 1987 if you must know. I refuse to believe that was 23 years ago, so don't even try to convince me.

My friends and I used to go to under 21 dances at this sports complex called Grand Slam---us teeny boppers referred to it simply as "Slam," as in, "So, like, can your mom drive us to Slam tonight? Make sure she drops us off way at the bottom of the parking lot so no one sees us getting out of her car."

I can't recollect if that was the first time I had seen Jeff Kubay. He was a friend of my brother's who was three years older than me. At the time, I was a freshman and he was a senior. That was major back in those days. I had a huge, huge crush on him (when I say huge, I mean I all but turned into Glenn Close's character in Fatal Attraction, but I digress).

The whole story goes that at first I think he dug me, but then I stalked him to the point where he couldn't stand me. Then I think once I came home from college and he was all into me again, but by then the thrill was gone.

But the story began with a slow dance. He came up to me that first night I saw him at "Slam" and asked me to dance. We danced to "Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House. And though Jeff and I were not to be, my love affair with Crowded House and Neil Finn is still going strong all these years later. And every time I hear the first strain of this melody, I'm taken back to when I was 14 and the joy that first dance brought me....Don't Dream It's Over.

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