OUCH. That sure makes me feel old! Either that or you are clueless. Let me think about it.

When I was a barely pubescent teeny bopper, Ricky was the guy for me. When he would be showcased on the show and the camera did a close up of those sexy bedroom eyes, I melted. My best friend kept Elvis scrapbooks, but my prized possession was an autographed 8×10 of Ricky. I had fantasies of touring his TV set and being picked out of the crowd of fawning fans to be his forever. Oh starry-eyed youth. I finally saw him live in a Sunday afternoon concert at the San Diego Wild Animal park just days before he was killed. By that time, my kids were older than I was when I was one of those “fawning teeny bopper fans.” He still had those sexy eyes which still had the melting effect on me, even though his singing left much to be desired that day.

The fact that you didn’t know who Ricky’s parents were reveals you to be hopelessly young and callow.

So was David! :-)

Ricky was married to Kristin Harmon, Mark Harmon’s sister.

And Ricky Nelson’s children were minor celebrities in their own rights. His twin sons Gunnar and Matthew had a couple of hits in ‘89-90 as “Nelson,” and his daughter Tracy played Sister Steve in The Father Dowling Mysteries.

Yeah my mom listened to him before she got into Dylan.

I remember Nelson. I remember that broken-heart song … “There it goes, up in the sky, there it goes, beyond the clouds, for no reason why … and I can’t cry hard enough … for you to hear me now.” That was theirs, wasn’t it?

When I was in HS I thought it was a breakup song … looking at the words now I wonder if they didn’t write it for their dad.

“Can’t Cry Hard Enough” was actually by a different set of identical twins—The Williams Brothers. They had their own showbiz connection; they were the nephews of Andy Williams.

Doh. Thanks Hondo. Well, hell, I wonder what actually is Nelson that I remember, then.

Ah. “After the Rain.” Boy did I have those two groups mixed up. Nelson were much harder rockers, relatively, than the Williams Brothers—at least those two songs anyway.

Speaking of David Nelson, his role as Ted Carter in the “shocking” for the fifties “Peyton Place” was some of the worst acting you will see on a movie screen. He also played a homicidal trapeze artist in the movie “The Big Circus,” and did all his own stunts on the trapeze. He did everyone a favor after the Ozzie & Harriet show ended and got out of acting and into production.

Mark Harmon, who married Pam Dawber (Mork and Mindy), raised Ricky Nelson’s youngest son, Sam, after taking custody when Kristen Nelson was too drugged up to be a decent mother.

Well, since he played himself in the TV show (but not the radio show), I pieced it together watching reruns as a kid.

I’ not sure age has much to do with it. Ozzie and Harriett had been in reruns if decades when I was born, but I’ve know they were Ricky’s parents for as long as I can remember. I was only 10 when he died and only knew who he was because my mom kinda liked him.

On the other hand, I loved watching Ozzie and Harriett reruns which were running on the Disney channel so I was kinda out of my time on that one.