A Spa Day, and the Price Is Right
How Bob Barker helped me through my adolescence. By Mike Kerrigan Aug. 27, 2023 5:06 pm ET Bob Barker in Los Angeles, Feb. 28, 2007. Photo: Jonathan Alcorn/Zuma Press Bob Barker’s death at 99 hits me—and, I suspect, many of my Generation X contemporaries—hard. The entertainment value of “The Price Is Right,” which he hosted masterfully from 1972 to 2007, is only part of the reason for this profound sense of loss. The 1980s were a less communicative era than the present. The need for wellness was there, only it was more inchoate and much less frequently discussed. As the name “self-care” suggested to latchkey kids like me, one’s care was largely up to oneself. Sometimes it was the next day’s middle-school pre-algebra lesson—witchcraft to me at the time—that I couldn’t face. Other times it was not wanting
Bob Barker in Los Angeles, Feb. 28, 2007.
Photo: Jonathan Alcorn/Zuma Press
Bob Barker’s death at 99 hits me—and, I suspect, many of my Generation X contemporaries—hard. The entertainment value of “The Price Is Right,” which he hosted masterfully from 1972 to 2007, is only part of the reason for this profound sense of loss.
The 1980s were a less communicative era than the present. The need for wellness was there, only it was more inchoate and much less frequently discussed. As the name “self-care” suggested to latchkey kids like me, one’s care was largely up to oneself.
Sometimes it was the next day’s middle-school pre-algebra lesson—witchcraft to me at the time—that I couldn’t face. Other times it was not wanting to run the 50-yard dash in gym class, where my time was measurable with a sun dial, that bade me to stay home. But I was never alone: Bob Barker beckoned.
A minute of poorly faked flu symptoms before a mom who herself was getting ready for work was all that stood between me and a mental-health day highlighted by an hour with the charming Mr. Barker. Invariably recharging, this self-help was like an adolescent spa day in the Reagan era.
I pray Mr. Barker has won his heavenly Showcase Showdown, the just reward for a life well lived. But I miss my friend who saw me through adolescence and find myself recalling a beautiful line from the poetry of Elizabeth Akers Allen: Make me a child again, just for tonight.
Mr. Kerrigan is an attorney in Charlotte, N.C.
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