With a slight hesitation in my step, I slowly approached the demi-god of my dreams as he was crossing the hotel parking lot. Jordan Knight’s dark black hair faded into the gloomy sky. His mysterious nature set him apart from the rest of the group of 20 he was with.
Every step we took drew us together until one moment we were one. For some silly reason, I thought he was walking towards me in order to proclaim his love to me, but this was my first experience as a New Kids on the Block groupie and, as I would later learn, there is always a lesson to be learned.
I raised my head and shyly said, “You are my favorite singer. Can I please have your autograph?”
A look of disbelief ran across his face as he said, “You talkin’ to me?”
I thought maybe he was a little hard of hearing or doing a weak impression of Robert De Niro in “Taxi Driver,” so I repeated myself.
“Can I have your autograph?”
And then he said the words that made me learn what humility is.
He replied saying, “Not right now, I’m hungry, so stop bothering me.”
Boy was I humiliated.
That was my first meeting with the New Kids on the Block, when I was 14. And it was also one of the first lessons I experienced through my years following the New Kids.
Humility is a hard lesson to learn, but the New Kids taught me this and many other things.
Yes, I was a New Kids on the Block groupie. Actually, my friends and I were the primo New Kids groupies. We called ourselves the Shunners and we were all that plus a bag of chips. We earned that name because we were the group of girls who had been following them the longest. We knew everything about the New Kids.
I lived for them. If they were on television, I stayed home to watch. If they were in town, I ditched school to see them. A lot of people feel I threw away my high school life in order to follow New Kids, while others thought it was a big waste of time and money.
In retrospect, it was not all in vain. New Kids taught me several valuable tidbits of information.
I know every four and five star hotel in California, Nevada and Arizona. I can name every concert venue and their capacity in California and some in other states.
More importantly, I learned several lessons from the New Kids like humility, as the above incident exhibits, perseverance and hard work. The greatest lesson I learned was that you cannot live your life through another person or, in my case, the New Kids.
This lesson started the night I met Jordan Knight. The heart of my obsession was during the month of June, 1989. New Kids spent an entire month in Los Angeles as they played Grad Nite at Disneyland. Through the month, my sister Frances and I traveled around California following the “Kids,” as we affectionately called them.
Maybe I was mental or something, but I actually won $1,000 on KIIS-FM and offered to give it away if I could get front row tickets to their end-of-the-month concert. My only joy could be found in the times spent thinking of seeing the New Kids. At the middle of the month, Frances had to arrange a meeting between all the New Kids and me in order to shut me up.
When that meeting finally arrived, I was embarrassed again when the Kids knew of me already through my exploits with KIIS.
Eventually, the month ended and by the next time the Kids came around, I was older and wiser. They knew who I was and I was not as big of a freak as I was in the beginning. Instead of ditching school everyday when they were in town, I only ditched on Mondays and Fridays.
My time as a groupie was well-spent and like any good club—because to me being a groupie is an exclusive club—you take away good memories and learn from the experience.
I’ll be loving you forever, New Kids!
