Growing Up in the 80s

I was born at the perfect time for me.  I’m really happy with when my “coming of age” years occurred in the scope of American history and pop culture.  I was a girl who was happy to play outside, catch lightning bugs, wear a string of frog eggs as a necklace, and so forth until Mom called us in to take a bath and watch Bugs Bunny on a Saturday night in the summer.  I filled a Helen Hutchley’s bag with all my little Smurf figurines and could play with them for hours, with no structure but my own.  One of my key summer activities was riding my bike and going to the pool.

The music in the 1980s (when I was 6 – 15 years old) will never seem like “oldies” to me, no matter how old I get.  There will always be something badass about Bon Jovi, something universal about Journey, something risqué about Salt ‘N Pepa, and something disturbing about Robert Palmer.  This was a decade when no one batted an eye at bands with names like Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Men at Work, Kajagoogoo, or Frankie Goes to Hollywood.  I got to see Michael Jackson, Prince, and Madonna debut and rise to the heights of their fame and success.   I had crushes on the likes of John Schneider (Bo Duke from The Dukes of Hazard), John Cougar (before he was John Mellencamp), Michael Jackson, and – regrettably (and much to my parents’ horror) – Axl Rose. I was completely comfortable in fluorescent clothing and acid washed jeans.  I was thoroughly entertained by Family Ties, The Cosby Show, Silver Spoons, Punky Brewster, Golden Girls, The Barbara Mandrell Show, Miami Vice, Who’s the Boss, etc. 

We didn’t have all sorts of amazing technology, and that was fine.  Our cable box had a wire that ran to the TV, so yes it was a remote control, but no, not really.  The phones all had cords and none of them were mobile.  We were lucky enough to have a Colecovision but not an Atari.  The printer that went with our Commodore 64 was dot matrix and had those little perforated sheets along the edges.  My Walkman played cassette tapes and we had an 8-track player in the car.  Never had a TV or phone in my room, never mind a computer.  Internet?  Nope.  Encyclopedias.

I often joke about how if I had been alive 100 or 200 years ago, I’d have been burned at the stake.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  We’ll never know.  I just know I think it’s really cool that God had be show up at the precise time he did.  I remember writing this on the cover a journal when I was 16:

Hold onto sixteen as long as you can

Changes come around real soon – make us women and men

~John Cougar, “Jack & Diane”

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I guess nothing can last forever

…Those were the best days of my life

~Bryan Adams, “Summer of ‘69”

Summer's going fast, nights growing colder
Children growing up, old friends growing older
Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each impression a little bit stronger

~Rush, “Time Stand Still”