A former classmate of mine has been posting scanned pages from our yearbooks on Facebook. When it first started happening I cringed knowing that sooner or later my face would appear. But it didn't. Not for a long time. Until a day or so ago.
There I am, front row, frizzy BIG hair, sitting next to my best friend with her BIG glasses. It was shocking. It really was.
And I could only think of one question: "Where was my mother?"
I mean seriously! How could that woman let me leave the house looking like a Q-Tip? All this time I thought I was pretty cute in high school. Ahh how the mind deceives!
Granted, it was the 80's. Big hair, big belts, short skirts, lip gloss, air guitar, new wave, punks, stoners, preppies and dudes with eyeliner (and you thought Adam Lambert was the first...snicker).
The 1980's was a strange time. I thought different. I was a LIBERAL. I thought the grown-ups and Reagan were going to blow us all to kingdom come. I even wrote a play about that topic that won a national award.
I recently found that little bit of dribble and re-read it. Scary. Not that the topic is scary, but that it WON an award! Who judged this piece of tripe? Uggh.
Anyway, the 1980's brought us movies and music that we will not soon forget. Oh, that we could!
Top five movies from 1985 (the year I graduated):
Back to the Future
Rambo: First Blood Part II
Rocky IV
The Color Purple
Out of Africa
But wait! Where is The Breakfast Club, Fast Times at Ridgemont High (my mother let me watch this??), or Sixteen Candles?
Top albums for the 1980's:
London Calling, The Clash
Purple Rain, Prince
The Joshua Tree, U2
Remain In Light, Talking Heads
Graceland, Paul Simon
Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen
Thriller, Michael Jackson
Murmur, R.E.M.
Shoot Out The Lights, Richard and Linda Thompson
Tracy Chapman, Tracy Chapman
Now, granted, I copied this list from a pop culture website, so maybe these aren't THE top ones, but I'm willing to bet they are pretty close. Unless you were a headbanger. Than these did nothing for you.
Top ten heavy metal albums from 1980's:
Ride the Lightning/Master of Puppets (1984/1986)- Metallica
Life After Death - Iron Maiden
Live Evil - Black Sabbath
Among the Living - Anthrax
Holy Diver - Dio
Balls to the Wall - Accept
Blizzard of Ozz - Ozzy Osbourne
Power and the Glory - Saxon
Theater of Pain/Shout at the Devil - Motley Crue
Appetite for Destruction - Guns n’ Roses
Strange times my friend. Strange times. The year I graduated my best friend got pregnant. The staff tried to force her to quit school. She wouldn't. The kids were cruel to her and called her dirty names. I stuck by her. No one applauded when she walked up on the stage, six months pregnant, and took her diploma. Which is so different from today when young girls are encouraged to stay in school and no one blinks when they waddle up on stage.
Like every generation before us, we struggled to find who we were and to somehow avoid turning into our parents. We thought we were better, smarter, stronger. In reality, we turned out to be humans simply trying to survive on this little rock we call Earth.
3 comments:
Fast Times is one of my all-time favorite movies.
An old friend just drug out our junior high yearbook and I was shocked to find out I was president of the typing club. The typing club! How could I forget that? Oh, maybe I forgot it on purpose!
It was another "Adam" I remember wearing eyeliner . . Adam Ant.
How about "Footloose" the ultimate teen rebellion movie . . . Mark and I were watching that thinking that was not such a great movie after all - but the dancing was great :)
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