THANK YOU MOM, GRANDMA, LAVERNE DIFAZIO AND BIRTH CONTROL!

By Lisa Harmon

My life is sweet.  I have spent my entire life doing pretty much whatever I feel like doing.  OK so I have to work, I’m not independently wealthy, but that’s it.  After work its all Lisa time!  For that I need to thank my mother, my grandmother, Laverne DiFazio, and of course, the most wonderful invention ever -  birth control.

The sixties were a pivotal time for women.  Women’s roles were changing, and women were becoming independent. 

As a girl growing up in the late sixties the old and the new were right in front of my face.  My grandmother was a married woman.  My grandfather was the boss, and my grandmother did most of the work.  I saw that with my own eyes.  They were the old generation.

My Mother was the new generation.  Single, with a job and her own money.  She had it going on.  If it wasn’t for my brother and me, she could have had the life! 

But who really had everything that I wanted, who really was living la vida loca, back then, well, it was Laverne DiFazio.  I loved her and I wanted to be her roommate.

Laverne DiFazio – she had a job, an apartment and she was tough and funny.  She had no kids slowing her down.  Sure she had to work a shitty job, just like me, but she was free, free, FREE!  She was my idol.

It was fantastic knowing that I didn’t have to get married, that I didn’t have to have kids.  I knew I could just get a job and an apartment and be happy!  And believe it or not, that was my plan, when I was twelve.  I was going to get my own job, my own apartment, and done.  That was it.  That was the plan.

The plan came into effect at eighteen.  I left home, got my own place, and made my own rules.  I can listen to the stereo whenever I want!  I don’t have to make the bed!  I don’t have to do anything anyone tells me, because this is my place that I paid for with my money which I procured through my own hard work!  This is Lisa’s world.  Lisa’s apartment.  Lisa’s rules.  I was ecstatic.  I had my freedom.  In my entire life, that’s the only thing I ever gave a fuck about.  Being free.  And when work would get shitty and awful, I knew I was working for my freedom.  And I kept at it.  I loved being on my own, and I didn’t care how much I had to work for that little apartment.  I loved that place.  It was my little place to be me.  It was my tiny piece of this giant world. 

And none of it would have been possible at all without Grandma, Mom, Laverne DiFazio and birth control.  Thank you!  I love you all.

Laverne & Shirley Theme - Theme to my Life!