Yep, I'm there, I've reached the point of no return...I'm in love with the Toyota Prius! No...! That wasn't it, Good heavens, I'd rather drive my old 1980 Chevy Citation with an AM only radio! My point being, I've reached the point of remembering the "old days" fondly. The problem is, they really do not seem that long ago.
The 80s really seem a few years ago to me in many ways. I love the music, TV shows, movies, and cars. I know many don't like the Reagan era, but it was the best of times to me. We knew who the "enemy" was...it was the Russians, it was the principals in "Ferris Bueller" and "Breakfast Club", it was the mall security guard, it was white rap, it was the New Coke! We knew what we liked and did not like.
The 80s, for many, ended when Reagan retired and George Sr. came in. Datewise, it ended when 1990 started. For others, the 80s went just a bit into the 90s and ended around 1992 or 1993, or the end of George Sr. Eras are different for different people.
So, that all being said and sighed over ("Knock it off, nerd! GET-WITH-THE-TIMES!!). Sorry, my pancreas drank coffee, and will probably be up late, just ignore it. Anyhow, we all remember our folks telling US, the 70s-80s-born generation X and Y, how good the old days were. Yeah, I know, Dad, you walked 50 miles in your sailboat boxers, brown socks and sandals through the snow so you could buy your Mustang and listen to the Beach Boys while looking for a Howard Johnsons to have a malt at. Yeah yeah yeah. I've heard it before. Seriously, I believe that Christopher Lloyd happened upon my dad with the DeLorean back in 1962 and, through some goofy Grandpa Musnster-like time experiment, KEPT MY DAD IN 1962! His clothes, music tastes, and views evidence this to a tee.
But now that I'm about 41 and legally have a past, it's time for Mr. Moore's list of "Back in MY day" gloats and self-barricaded views. Keep in mind that I will use a range of 1977-89. This is for the purpose of coming up with more crap to write.
Back in my day..
-Televisions had KNOBS! You had to GET UP to TURN THE KNOB to CHANGE THE CHANNEL...not only that...but you had to GET UP, WALK TO THE TV, AND CHANGE THE VOLUME AND TURN THE SET ON OR OFF!
-MTV meant MUSIC television, not MORON television!
-We could spend less than $15 to fill the gas tank in the car!
-TV dinners were in metal tins and had to be put in the oven for almost an hour!
-The Emergency Broadcast System and nails on the chalkboard were the main ways to make your ears bleed (Katherin Heigl wasn't heard of yet)
-Oh yeah, schools had chalkboards where you wrote with chalk and used erasers that made a cloud of dust. This was school smog!
-TV ad breaks were only about 1-2 minutes! And they weren't spent on promoting the same show 2 or 3 times!
-Disney meant an old classic coming on Sunday night, live or animated, and it could also mean an oldie coming to the theater for a couple of weeks...the concept of taking a little kid and programming them for success hadn't come until the Olsens.
-We did our research in books, which we found using a card catalog, and had to document our sources in really specific formats that made the term paper a nightmare! Er...bad example!
- When someone called you and you weren't available, the phone would ring and ring forever until they gave up. Sometimes, there'd be an answering machine that played a mangled tape, but lets stick with 70s normalcy here.
-A movie, popcorn, and soda could run you UNDER $10!
-Texting someone probably meant hitting them with your English book.
-Cars came with just a radio and an AM one at that.
-We listened to music on vinyl records that inevitably formed skips, then on tapes that melted or got stuck! THANK GOODNESS for CDs!
- School was simple: you came in at 8ish, learned for an hour or two, then you had a 15-minute recess, then another hour or so of learning, then lunch and more recess AFTER YOU ATE, then learned for another 2 or 3 hours, then went home.
-Pizza Hut was mainly dine-in and it was a fun place to be.
-Chicken wings were an often-discarded part of the bird, not a source of appetizer craze!
- TV had TEST PATTERNS, not INFOMERCIALS! Test patterns were these colorful stripes with a low steady beep...and were more intelligent than an infomercial.
-George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Bill Cosby were the stand-up kings and made us laugh! There was no "Carrot Top"
- Erectile dysfunction and yeast infections were kept in people's private hells, not advertised during "Tom and Jerry"!
-There were no "dating sites", unless you considered the corner pub a place to meet someone serious. You either married your high school or college sweetheart, or spent a lot of time at work passing the secretary's desk or were lucky enough to have a friend introduce you to someone...or you just lamely lived life.
-We said the Pledge of Allegiance without thinking about it, except feeling American pride!
-Junk food was sugary soda and buttery, salty crackers...there was no high fructose corn syrup....at least they weren't listend on the packaging. We just bought it and ate it happily. Of course, we also exercised by playing outside and riding our bikes.
-We didn't learn about sexual lies from any Internet...but we didn't exactly learn from our parents, thank goodness. No, we learned from dad's Penthouse or Playboy, older brothers and older schoolmates, and the scrambled pay channel's Friday night adult movie...and still screwed it up the first time, so to speak.
-We didn't get on anyone's case for weeks for saying an inappropriate thing, that was reserved for marriage!
-Movies tended to be ORIGINAL STORIES, not endless REAMKES!
-There was no Internet to give us lots of information, lies, sound bites, and video clips to expose us to things we didn't need to see. We just lived life as it unfolded live before our eyes.
So, it wasn't all Guns N Roses, there were some inconveniences. However, I'd take an innocent youth any day over all the imagery and violence that we, and our kids, are exposed to. Now, if you'll excuse me, a new episode of the "Cosby Show" is coming on. I gotta get up to change the channel...I wish!
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