Calling All Children Of The 80's
I am haunted by the ’80s. I guess that makes sense since it was, after all, the decade where so much happened in such a short period of time in my life, even though it felt like an eternity while I was living it.
I was only 8 years old on the December night in 1980 when John Lennon was killed outside of The Dakota by the deranged Mark David Chapman. I vaguely remember hearing about it on the news one evening as I sat beside my mother on the couch bogged down in homework. I don’t think I really even knew who John Lennon was at that time, or how much the world had just lost. It would take years to fully understand.
Somewhere around 1982, my memories come into clearer focus. I love Rock -n- Roll by Joan Jett and the Black Hearts and Eye of The Tiger by Survivor from the film Rocky 3 were both monstrous hits. On top of that, Michael Jackson was just beginning his legendary rise to the top of the charts with Thriller, not only one of the greatest-selling albums of all time but one that also provided much of the soundtrack for the rest of the decade. Then there was Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster film E.T. which stayed in theatres for well over a year and made millions upon millions of people cry in their popcorn wherever it played, which was just about everywhere with running water and electricity.
Everyone who was anyone in my school had a Rubik’s Cube by 1983 umm… except yours truly. I begged and begged until finally my mother broke down and bought me one. I was awed and jealous of anyone who could solve the damn thing because, despite my exuberant expectations, I couldn’t even come close. My greatest accomplishment with it was matching just two of the six sides. It all went to hell from there, and I remember heaving it against my bedroom wall more than once. I think my older brother eventually solved it for me which made me feel even worse.
By 1984 I had gotten my first breakout of acne, my first real crush, and my first somewhat real girlfriend, which amounted to the passing of a few artfully folded notes back and forth during study halls and a couple of phone calls before being dumped via one of her friends a week or two later. I tried not to be too crushed, but I was only 12 years old, so of course, I was anyway.
In 1985 I must have watched the highly anticipated film Back to The Future in theatres probably at least three times, and after it was released on video, several more. I own a copy of it to this day. Also, in 1985, a little home gaming system called Nintendo was first launched, and Irish folk singer Bob Geldof organized more than 75 of the biggest acts of the time including U2, Queen, Madonna, Elton John, and David Bowie for a benefit concert to raise funds for Ethiopian famine. The concert dubbed Live Aid was like nothing anyone had seen since Woodstock, and it took place simultaneously in two locations — one at London’s Wembley Stadium and the other at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. Phil Collins somehow managed to pull off performing at both venues. The concert raised an estimated 127 million dollars for famine relief. Just a couple of months later, another big concert Farm Aid took place for the first time (but certainly not the last) in Champagne Illinois featuring Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, and B.B. King, just to name a few. It was attended by at least 80,000 people and raised over 7 million dollars. Thanks to Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, and more recently, Dave Matthews the concert has taken place every year since (excluding 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic) and has raised over 60 million dollars in relief for American farmers.
One day in 1986 one of my teachers offered any of us that wanted one a pass to the library to watch the historical launch of the space shuttle Challenger. It was a very big deal. For the first time in history NASA was sending a teacher, Christa McAuliffe, into space, and to top it all off, she was from Concord New Hampshire, a neighboring state. I don’t remember why but I declined to go down and watch that day, but I’ll never forget a short while later when classmates who had gone came running back into class, faces sheet white, and talking all at once. It was difficult to sort out what they were all saying. Then the principal’s shocked voice over the loudspeaker said those unforgettable words “There has just been a terrible tragedy at Cape Canaveral.” For the first time in my life, I rushed home from school and turned on the television, not to watch my usual afternoon cartoon lineup, but to continuous news coverage of the explosion. It is still the only event in my life, aside from 911, that I remember so vividly, where I was, what I was doing — the shock I felt at the time.
A few months later that year, the United States under President Ronald Reagan bombed Libya in response to threats from its leader Muammar Gaddafi, temporarily escalating tensions with the Soviet Union. As it was, growing up in the cold war ’80s, you never stopped hearing about nukes. How many the U.S. potentially had, how many the Soviets potentially had, and you lived in fear of catastrophic World War 3 scenarios. With films like The Day After and Red Dawn, (the first film ever to carry the PG-13 rating) along with Whitley Streiber and James Kunetka’s haunting novel War Day, how could you not be a little wary of the potentialities? The artist Sting, in his first solo album, addressed these fears in a song simply titled Russians. The words in the chorus went something like I hope the Russians love their children too. Shaky times to say the least.
By the end of the ’80s my school years were wrapping up and I was well on my way to becoming an adult — the moment I had always looked forward to, though I’m not sure what I expected to happen once I actually got there. I should have listened to my parents when they used to lecture me about how I shouldn’t be in such a damn hurry.
In 1988 while I was still in high school, I began my first job. And just as my mother had always said, once you begin working you never stop. That has pretty much been the case. Kudos to mom for getting it right.
With all of that said, hardly a day goes by when something doesn’t pop out of the ’80s like a phantom jack in the box and clobber me with a memory or two, or maybe ten. All I need to do is wander down into the basement to retrieve something where after all these years, for whatever reason, there is still a box of dusty VHS tapes kicking around with old hand-scribbled titles on the labels and not a single working machine left to play them on.