Just put Your Pickle on Everybody's Plate College boy and Leave the Hard Stuff to Me.

Teresa Arrowood
May 29, 2019
2 min read

If you are associated with the film at all, you know this is a quote from Johnny Castle. Patrick Swazye brought the character to life and to the big screen in 1987. I can remember going to see the movie and falling in love with it. I always seemed to have a connection with the era. I’ve told my mom many times that I grew up in the wrong decade. She’s always come back and said, “But look how old you would be now.” The movie had an innocence to it, but also the daring love of a young untouched lady and an older man from the other side of the tracks. He was a rough around the edges man with good looks and charm that fed a summer romance. I have watched it many times over and wondered what it would have been like to have been a character in the movie and dancing the way they did. At my age, I am not exactly flexible. I love the music in the soundtrack and the location of the movie. It depicted what it would have been like in 1963 the summer Baby met Johnny the first time. The movie wasn’t expected to make the splash that it did. It has become an American Iconic Movie for the generations.

This fall my husband and I will find our self at Kellerman’s which in real life is Mountain Lake Lodge in Virginia. A few years ago, we visited Lake Lure in North Carolina. The film was shot in both locations. The steps that baby danced on are there. Mountain Lake Lodge is where Kellermans is and where Babies family cabin is along with what was the lake and the beach where they held their activities and the gazebo where they danced and Baby talked with her dad and the trail where she walked to the employees' quarters where she saw them dancing along with carrying a watermelon. I look forward to seeing these sites and reminiscing this wonder movie and to honor Patrick for a simple love story he brought to life along with his partner Jennifer Gray. Baby started out a young and naive young lady to a woman who fell in love with the bad boy, which ended up not being such a bad boy.