If you are a child of the 80s, maybe you can relate: every time I stayed home from school, no matter what I had or how unwell I felt, there was always one bright spot during the day. If memory serves, that bright spot was at 11 am, eastern time. As I lay on our brown plaid couch with whatever ailed me, my eyes would light up as my ears heard Johnny Olson (or later, Rod Roddy), say "So-and-so! Come on down! You're the next contest on the The Price is Right!', and the familiar tune filled the air. Yep, The Price is Right was one of my absolute favorite shows growing up. I loved to guess along with the contests -- What does a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese cost in the state of California? Will the yodeler fall off the edge of the cliff? Will the Plinko disc land in the $10,000 slot? Will the big wheel land on $1.00 in the first round, or even more exciting, on the bonus round? Will a contestant in contestants' row get to reach into Bob Barker's coveted suit jacket pocket for a $100 bill for guessing the exact price (and not a penny over, of course!)?
My memories of TPIR (as true fans refer to it) span most of my life. Even as I grew up, I still loved to catch the show whenever possible. As I married into my husband's family, my father-in-law discovered how much I loved the show. I used to joke that it was my life's dream to go to a taping of it before Bob Barker retired.
One day, when my first two children were very small, my father-in-law offered to pay for flights for my husband and me to fly to LA to watch a taping of the show. We happily accepted his generous offer, sent away for tickets, and soon after flew to Los Angeles, leaving our kids with my in-laws -- another part of their kind gift to us.
The show taping was an all-day affair. You had to arrive at 5 am and get in line, as there was no guarantee that you would actually get into the taping; they distributed more tickets than were actually seats in the studio. But my husband and I were there, and if memory serves, we were third or fourth in line. After much debate and consultation with friends at home, my husband was wearing his clerical collar. Everyone had come to the consensus that that might get him chosen to be a contestant. (It did not.). We stood in the dark with 300 of our new best friends, and hours upon and hours later in the late afternoon, we finally taped the show. It was such a surreal experience, being on the set of a show I had watched virtually my whole life. Seeing Bob Barker so near and watching all of the games happen in front of me was an experience I will never forget. And even though we never got called up, we were visible several times during the show, since we were seated directly behind contestants' row. It was such fun to watch back months later when it aired.
The other day I was putting something away in my husband's dresser and found this shirt. I had no memory of him having it and asked him about it later. He reminded me that we had bought it for his dad as a memento of the trip he had sent us on. My father-in-law, slow to purge things, had kept it since 2002, and when he passed away, my husband kept it too.
So now, as I look back on my silly "life's dream", it's pleasantly intermingled with memories of my dear father-in-law, who so lovingly sent us to California to see Bob and his renowned show.
