by Guest blogger Beverly Boynton

The year was 1962. My sister Pam was sitting on her bed surrounded by wrapping paper and ribbon. She was jumping out of her skin with excitement as she put the finishing touches on the shiny package.

“Biondi is gonna love it!” she said.

More likely he’ll hate it, I thought. It’s horrible. I had thought so from the moment I saw it at our local Community Discount Store.

Earlier that day we had been shopping when she spied it.

“We need to buy this for Biondi,” she said.

We? I was thinking to myself. Forget about it. He’s your idol not mine.

But Pam was adamant; she pushed me until I caved and chipped in part of my hard earned babysitting money. Then she ran to the pay phone to call her best friend Joan, another Biondi fanatic who usually accompanied her on their many trips to Chicago to see him. The following Saturday the two girls made a monumental trip down to the WLS radio station to deliver the gift to Biondi.

A year later, Dick released his first record-album, Dick Biondi’s Favorites - The Teenagers - and I was shocked. To my surprise, there on the cover was Dick, sitting in his convertible, surrounded by teenagers, wearing that hideous wild, sweater that we had given him.

Pam still has that album in her collection and the other day when I picked it up and looked at the picture of Dick on the cover I chuckled to myself and thought,

Gee, I actually like that sweater. My sister was right. It screams Dick Biondi.