Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

For a long time now I’ve felt that Brittany Spears needs to climb off the stage, cover her navel, and go home. Instead I’m regaled via AOL and magazine racks at the grocery check-out about how she’s learning to be a step-mom to her fiancй’s two daughters, one of whom is only five weeks old.

This adolescent, who once toyed with a Las Vegas marriage for 48 hours, is going to be a stepmom?

It makes me shudder. But it also made me recall musical icons from other eras who were probably as shocking in their day as BS is to me in hers.

Remember Frank Sinatra? Although I wasn’t born yet, I’m told teenagers swooned at the very sight of him. And what about Elvis? He caused a swoon or two as well. When Elvis made his debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, the cameramen showed him only from the waist up because his gyrations were considered too lewd. Where is Ed’s cameraman when we need him now?

Of course, these heartthrobs lived at a time when men were expected to serve their country in the Armed Forces; and each of them did. We don’t have a national draft these days, but this gives me an idea. I could settle for a voluntary hitch in the Army as a next career move for Brittany.