Fantasy Island

There was nothing better than Saturday night when I was a kid.  It was when Love Boat and Fantasy Island were on.  My parents didn't seem to watch those shows.  Why, I couldn't imagine, but I had a standing invitation to spend the night at my grandparents' house every Saturday night so I never had to miss Ricardo Montalban's "Welcome!  To Fantasy Island!"  Fantasy Island was a place of second chances, where you could change history, change fate, buy more time, do things better.

 We called our grandparents "Bill and Golda" instead of Grandma and Grandpa, and Bill would always make me a malted milk as we settled in to watch Love Boat.  He knew I liked the malt spoon with the twisted handle and the little mug with yellow and orange pansies on it.  He knew I liked vanilla ice cream, scooped out of the big, gallon bucket, sprinkled with just the right amount of Ovaltine (a LOT!) and bathed in enough Half & Half to make a milkshake.

What continues to astound me, as an impatient parent, is that Bill took the time to go through the malted milk ritual, with all the steps, in the special cup with the special spoon, and then to watch the special shows with me, every Saturday night.  It may have been simply that he needed me.  He needed me to change the channels with the rotary knob and fiddle with the volume on the wood-encased TV set.  He needed to know that if he commanded, "Mute!", I would scramble obediently over to the TV and click the volume control down to nothing.  I was a cute little puppy, especially after I got a perm.

Now my grandpa is gone, and my children will never know why his malted milks can never be successfully imitated.  I myself don't even know.  It must have been the special mug.  I just wish Bill could come back, holding a gallon of Farr's vanilla ice cream and a glass jar of Ovaltine.  I wish he could make us each a malted milk and we could all gather around his La-Z-Boy, turn on the TV and hear, one more time, "Welcome!  To Fantasy Island!"