From the Bandstand Memories Collection — A Tribute Letter Shared with Permission
Dear American Bandstand Team,
My name is Paul R., and I live in Rockford, Illinois. I’m 79 now, a Vietnam veteran, and a younger brother. I’ve carried a memory for over sixty years—not just mine, but my brother’s too. He passed in 1969. He never made it home.
But before he left, he loved a girl he never met. Her name was Arlene Sullivan. And I believe, in his own quiet way, she helped him feel a little less alone.
I don’t expect this letter to mean much to anyone but me, but after seeing your photo of Arlene a few weeks back, I felt the pull to write. Maybe, just maybe, someone else remembers the way she danced—and the hope she gave to those who were watching from places far from joy.
My Brother, Before the War
His name was Tommy. He was three years older than me and five inches taller. Blond hair, quiet voice, always humming something under his breath. We shared a room growing up on the west side of Rockford, bunk beds, a shared dresser, and a black-and-white TV our father brought home in ’56.
Tommy didn’t talk much about feelings. But every weekday after school, we tuned into American Bandstand. I liked the music. He watched the people. More specifically, he watched her.
“She doesn’t dance for anyone but the music,” he said once. “That’s the kind of girl I like.”
He meant it. He cut her photo from a teen magazine and taped it inside his locker. Said she reminded him of the girls back home that didn’t need to be noticed to matter.
The Draft and the Goodbye
Tommy was drafted in late 1967. He didn’t fight it. Said, “If I don’t go, someone else will.”
The night before he left, we sat on the back porch, passing a transistor radio between us. A slow tune came on—”Since I Don’t Have You” by The Skyliners. He closed his eyes.
“This one’s for Arlene,” he whispered. “And all the girls like her.”
That was Tommy. Always soft, always steady. I wish I’d told him how much I looked up to him.
Letters from a War Zone
He wrote home, every week at first. Never long, never dramatic. Just little details: the smell of rice paddies, the boys in his platoon, the music he played in his head to keep sane.
In one letter, he wrote, “Tell Paul I still remember how Arlene used to glide across that dance floor like the music lived in her. I watch her in my mind when it gets too loud over here.”
I still have that letter. It’s yellow now, folded soft at the corners. I take it out on his birthday.
He was killed in March 1969, just weeks before his return. We never got to say goodbye. But I believe he carried something warm with him through the worst of it. I think, somehow, Arlene was part of that warmth.
Why I’m Writing Now
I saw Arlene’s photo on your Facebook page last month. She looked older, of course. But the poise was the same. That gentle self-assurance. That grace that doesn’t age.
And I thought: she should know.
She should know that somewhere in a field camp half a world away, a young man kept her in his memory like a song that couldn’t be drowned out. That she helped someone hold on.
And I thought others should know too. That sometimes, a smile on TV—an honest, quiet smile—can matter more than we think.
A Thank You Long Overdue
Thank you, Arlene Sullivan. You probably never knew that a teenage boy in Illinois watched you dance and carried that memory with him to a war zone. But you did.
You were the picture in his locker. The song he replayed in his mind. The softness he held onto when the world went hard.
And to everyone at Bandstand: Thank you for giving boys like Tommy a few beautiful afternoons, and something worth remembering when things turned dark.
With respect and remembrance,
Paul R.
Rockford, Illinois
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