Remembering Johnny Castle

I was so sad to hear this news late tonight.

Long years have passed and life has certainly changed a lot since the first time I sat transfixed, watching starry-eyed as the exceedingly handsome and impressively cool Johnny Castle danced his way into the heart of Baby and every other girl in America between the ages of 10 and 40. Oh how he could make my 16-year-old romantic heart swoon! :) Don't we just love to love the bad boys? Not that bad of course, but the guy with the checkered past, from the "other" side of the tracks. And Johnny Castle was all that....wrapped up with a gentle heart and a soft spot for girls who were hurting. Just what every girl is looking for.


But long before Johnny Castle taught us the difference between the mambo and the merengue, insisting that "Nobody puts Baby in a corner", there were those other bad boys we loved to love....The Outsiders.

Darrel (Darry) Curtis was the lone father figure for his two younger brothers, Soda Pop and Ponyboy, and a stand-in big brother to the nicest bad boys around. Ponyboy was really the star of the show, but Darry....there was just something about Darry that made you want him to be your big-brother-father-figure.

Man, I loved that movie! I think somehow I felt I could relate, as a shy 12-year-old who had already gone to seven different schools. Outsiders? Yeah, I understood where they were coming from. I wrote a creative-writing paper (loosely) based on the movie when I was in the sixth grade, and got a commendation from the school principal himself! My dog was even named Dally.

And can I just say....could there BE any more stars in this movie? (I copied that line from someone, but I can't remember who.) Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio, Diane Lane, Leif Garrett. If you're too young to have ever seen The Outsiders, you should have your local movie store dig it out of the attic so you can rent it. It's old. Sometimes cheesy. No modern special effects. But it's a classic. A must-see. Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold.

Ghost. Red Dawn. Point Break. Youngblood. Road House (don't tell anyone I've seen this movie). To Wong Foo (haven't seen this movie). North and South (loved this movie).

The bottom line is that I'm sad that Patrick Swayze is gone. I'm sad that he had to leave in such a terrible, devastating way. I'm enormously sad for his wife, Lisa, the love of his life for 34 years. And my heart can't even begin to contemplate the question of whether, at any point in his life, he ever made the choice to say "Jesus, I need You."

Oh, how I pray that you have made that choice....