The 1980s, however, are just a little bit clearer...for the most part. We all know that as you get older, the childhood memories begin to fade. Granted, we can't remember all of the little moments of each day...and honestly, who would want to? I really do not want to relive the 3rd grade...but more on that later!
Without any further ado (Greek for preliminary nonsense legally required by the blogging syndicate), let us get to the 'stuff'.
1980
For the most part, 1980 was a pretty good year in my eyes. We were living in Wilmington, North Carolina at its start. I was in 1st grade at Pine Valley Elementary while my sister was in 5th at Wilson Intermediate. We were getting acclimated to living in the south, though my dad was finding that his new job was not quite what he thought it would be. In fact, he was hating it and wanted out. We were in a good neighborhood and both my sister and I had friends to play with. My mom was starting to look into becoming a substitute teacher. On the leisure end, we joined the local YWCA to swim in the pool, we went to the beach occasionally, went to the local waterslide, and saw a movie here and there. In fact, I saw the best Star Wars movie ever while we lived there: The Empire Strikes Back!
Around late spring or early summer (there it is hard to tell), my dad quit his job and rejoined his former job in Pennsylvania at Gilbert Associates, meaning he was gone quite a bit. We took a trip to PA in August, pretty much for my parents to start house-hunting, and stayed with our old friends the Kirkners. That was a nice reunion as I recall! When we got back, school had already started and I was a day late for 2nd grade. My teacher Mrs Sole was pretty nice as I recall. A shame I did not get to know her more than 2 months.
The moving truck did its thing on Halloween and my sister and I got some trick or treating in while they were finishing up. We stayed in a motel in Wilmington that night, then left North Carolina for good the next morning. We stayed for a few days at a hotel in downtown Reading. What I remember most about this short stay is that Ronald Reagan was elected in quite a landslide!
After a bit, we moved into a rental house in Shillington. Even though we were a small distance away from the Spring-Cumru township line, we weren't allowed a zone variance and had to take a long-ass bus ride into Governor Mifflin territory. My school was Farview Elementary. One thing about that school was obvious: I didn't like it and it didn't like me. I made no lasting friendships and the teacher wasn't too fond of getting a new kid. Luckily, it was only a 4 month stint.
In late November, I celebrated by 8th birthday at home. We ordered pizza and I got some new Star Wars toys, in particular the Millenium Falcon and Hoth battle set. Somewhere in this period, we had gotten my grandfather's Ford LTD and no longer had the Torino. A few weeks later, we did our final Michigan Christmas trip. LIke Forrest Gump once said, it's funny how you remember some things and other things you don't. Around this time, I was getting into highways and maps. On that trip I was paying a lot more attention to exit signs and what highways they led to. Almost 40 years later, not much has changed in that department.
1981
The misery of living in the rental house was continuing, though there were some amusements. I discovered the joy of voice recording on a cassette recorder as well as listening to a Bill Cosby record we had. Apart from that, the long bus rides were getting old fast. The morning commute was ok, it was the after school one that bit! I had to take a bus to my sister's school, which was apparently grand central where everyone tranferred on to a new bus for their correlating neighborhoods. That bus had a VERY long commute!
Luckily, those bad things came to an end when we moved into our new bought house. It was already bette rbefore we even moved in. A nicer neighborhood, Whitfield Elementary was an easy walk away, and there was a park behind our yard. In the first week of March, I started in Mrs. Lambert's 2nd grade class! Like any new kid, it is tough to make friends at first, especially when you're a geek, but this climate was already friendlier than the one I had just left! I quickly found out that I was behind the class in one subject: cursive writing! Whoa, that was a new world for me and only recently have I begun to master that fine art.
For the first part of the year, I went once a week to an eye specialist to help my eye muscles strengthen (I had had an operation 4 years previous). By early summer, I had enough of those and I think the specialists had enough of me. Ah, mutual parting is sweet!
In early summer, my Nana Moore passed away after years of cancer and its (then) brutal medical treatments. We were in Michigan for about a week for the funeral and other arrangements. My sister and I stayed with our other grandparents for the most part while the Moore house took care of business, though we went to the funeral. We actually ended up going twice more in the summer to Michigan, the second was more like a vacation (on that one I saw Raders of the Lost Ark!) and the last was a quick weekend via plane, though I don't remember what for.
In the spring and summer, we were also taking care of an infant son of one of my dad's coworkers while the mom went to work.
That fall, Kristin went to 7th grade in junior high while I was in 3rd grade with possibly the most grumpy unsmiling elderly teacher I can remember EVER having that has given me grades, and that includes college! in that class, I met a lot of people who would be staying with me for the next ten years in some class or another:Mike Eisenhower, Nelly Harding, Kevin Fehr, Eric Wanner, Mike Smith, Drew Manderbach, Mark Dusko, Lisa Azzolina, and Derek Coller. With the exception of Lisa, I keep up with the rest of those people well on social media and/or email to this day.
I also met 2 kids in my own neighborhood that fall: Jeremy Bitz and Eric Kuehn. Jeremy was a grade below me and Eric was three grades below. We formed a good friendship among the three of us with our own ups and downs for several years. Jeremy had a pretty cool basement with a lot of toys and gadgets and Eric had a new bunk bed where we had many sleepovers. There was a fourth named Tommy, but he left a few years later and he was originally Jeremy's bud. I also had a next door neighbor my age and a boy in Jeremy's grade named Jared, but neither of those kids really took with me...both could be jerks quite often.
That fall, my mom, after being stay-at-home for the most part for 10 years, she got herself a part time job in the library at Penn State Berks Campus. I was a latchkey kid for the first time in life!
I discovered a really cool Halloween celebration that year at school. At lunchtime, we had the option of going home and changing into our costumes or bringing our costumes and eating a cold lunch at school. When everyone came back, we as a school walked a sidewalk route in a parade then returned to school to party hardy!
In November, I had my 9th birthday and held a party at the bowling alley. I sucked as a bowler then but it was still fun. In December, we took a trip to Michigan for my grandfather's wedding (quite a turnaround from his wife's funeral 6 months previously, long story there). I definitely remember some snow on the way there, always a winter Turnpike hazard...and a kid's thrill!
A few weeks later, we had our first Christmas at home since I was 3! A real tree from a farm was decorated and we had our friends the Kirkners over on Christmas Eve. Plus, my mom's parents were in, so it was quite a special Christmas! I remember getting a bicycle as the big present, though I wasn't good at it yet (I was a late bloomer on many fronts!).
Up next: 1982-83...
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