Local Life

Retro TGIF Fair Haven Sleepover

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If there was ever a perfect night for a classic pre-teen sleepover, tonight might just be the night. It’s all about drizzly dampness made toasty with a little help from friends.

In the early 1970s, those girls’ night sleepovers were all the rage. And this snapshot back to one at the Fair Haven Foley house typified what was going on in the perfect TGIF, or Saturday, hunkering down among best of buddies.

If you remember back to those days of us dinosaurs, if you hosted a great sleepover, you were a hit with the “in” crowd and gave something to talk about at school on Monday.

There were no cell phones or Netflix, so there was a lot of chatter, goodies, dancing, gaming and pranking. All you needed was a room in the house where the all-night chatter wouldn’t bug anyone else, sleeping bags, groovy pajamas, a record player and the relentless giddiness of a gaggle of girls.

Now, about those games … it was usually a night filled with Truth-or-Dare, a little Magic 8 Ball, and, lest we forget, The Bachelor. Remember that crazy game? Who got The Dud?

And then, of course, there was the playlist a/k/a good ol’ vinyl records on that record player! There’s no record on this one, but it’s a good bet that the albums played were David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman and/or Donny Osmond. Then again, there were some in those days who were obsessed with Gilbert O’Sullivan. Why a pre-teen would be singing and swooning along to Alone Again, Naturally is debatable, but there were reports back then of one mom knitting a copy of good ol’ Gilbert’s signature “G” sweater for one obsessed girl to wear. OK, then. Truth.

And speaking of truth, who remembers what the most popular subject was for questions in that game? Boys? Ding, ding, ding! The dares? Hmmmmm …

Dare ya to have a better cherished memory among friends. Cheers to the TGIF sleepover of yesteryear!

— Photo/Jeannie Foley Mitchell