By now I’m sure you’ve heard that Michael Jackson passed away today. And although in the last 10 or 15 years, his physical and mental health issues eclipsed his talent, I am still a fan. Thriller was the first cassette tape I bought with my “own” money. And we WORE. IT. OUT. I still think Beat It is the quintessential 80’s song. I mean, MJ with an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo… what’s more 80’s than that? And I’m pretty sure I didn’t attend a single birthday party during the 5th or 6th grade that didn’t involve watching The Making of Thriller.

I think most younger people (ok, under 25) don’t get just how popular he was in his heyday. One of my favorite Michael Jackson memories involves my grandfather. And just so you can understand why I think this is funny, let me give you a little background on him. Poppa, as we called him, was country. He was raised in Park Hill, Oklahoma (near Tahlequah) on the same land that his Cherokee ancestors received after arriving in OK from the Trail of Tears. I think he dropped out of school after the 9th grade, but managed to make a pretty good life for himself as a master carpenter and owned his own construction company. He was an avid fisher and hunter. And the only TV shows I remember him watching were Hee Haw and Jimmy Houston fishing. So, during a camping and fishing trip to Roaring River State Park, we were all sitting around the campfire one night, being silly, when my little sister started to moonwalk. And Poppa gets up and says, “No, let me show you how to do it” and then he got up and moonwalked across the camp site. My country grandfather knew how to do the Michael Jackson moonwalk, and he was pretty good! We laughed and laughed about it.

There was always a part of me that hoped he’d get it together and make another album worth listening to, but it was not to be. RIP Michael Jackson.