Jill's journal: 'Peace, love and Bobby Sherman'

You’re likely scratching your head just from reading the headline, “Peace, love and Bobby Sherman.”

While I have no doubt that you can easily define “peace” and “love,” I’ve possibly piqued your curiosity with the “Bobby Sherman” ending.

The phrase is one I “borrowed” decades ago from a friend who often used the phrase when she was leaving. For whatever reason, it’s remained in my vocabulary ever since. I’ll use it from time to time when leaving a group of friends or darting out of the office. There’s been plenty of occasions when the phrase evokes a puzzled look from a friend or a co-worker. My response is that he was a heart-throb in the late 1960’s and early ‘70s, and his picture – along with an assortment of other teen heart throbs – had a place on the back of my bedroom door. (As an impressionable young girl, I was fortunate to have a subscription to Tiger Beat that provided me with full-page pictures of all of my “potential boyfriends.”)

I have a few other sayings that have stayed with me over the years. My middle school gym teacher graced us each day with her greeting, “Morning, Glories.” I’ve been known to use that one on occasion, and every time I do, my memories take me back to the dingy girl’s locker room with the green-painted walls and where the smell of powder and deodorant filled the room.

An opposite phrase I use from time to time when leaving is, “I’m off like a prom dress.”

I’ll let you digest that one.

My folks often used the phrase, “You’ve got more problems than Carter has liver pills.”

I never knew who Carter was or why he sold liver pills. But I surely knew what the phrase referred to. As for problems, sure, we all had them, but it’s when you become an adult is when the phrase takes on a whole new meaning.

I worked as a cook at family restaurant for the large share of my high school years. My boss, Dick, was quick to remind me of what “Thought thought.” It would fly out of his mouth the minute I’d say, “Well, I thought …” 

“Thought thought he was on the toilet, but he was really in bed.”

I’ll let you ponder on that one, too.

As for Bobby Sherman, he sang, played guitar and he could act, too. 

For me, his most notable gig was as Jeremy Bolt, a bashful, stammering logger, in the ABC television series, “Here Come the Brides.” 

As his resume tells, Bobby Sherman left show business in the 1970s for a career as a paramedic and a deputy sheriff, mixed with occasional performances in the 1990s. He volunteered with the Los Angeles Police Department, working with paramedics and giving CPR and first aid classes. He also became a technical Reserve Police Officer with the LAPD, a position, Wikipedia informs, he held for decades.

In 2011, he and his wife Brigitte Poublon, co-founded the Brigitte and Bobby Sherman Children’s Foundation in Ghana. The Foundation provides education, health and welfare programs to children there in need. 

And that, my friends, is the story behind “Peace, love and Bobby Sherman.”