Girls Just Wanna Have Fun in the 80's

We wanted to stand out in a crowd, our personalities glaringly obvious to the whole world. We were Smoking in the Boys Room, Talking about Jesse's Girl who was Under Pressure. It was Tainted Love, Pour Some Sugar on Me good. We Built this City with Jack and Diane. Cyndi Lauper WAS the 80's. She threw caution to the wind and became a legend to all the girls trying to find a voice of their own. She grew up in Queens, New York until her teen years when she took off to find herself. After several attempts to get her band to go big time,they broke up. Later Cyndi would get signed and her first solo album titled So Unusual would debut in 1983. She wanted to write her own songs, but they wanted her to sing what they had wrote up. When Cyndi was handed the music for Girls Just Want to Have Fun she re wrote it as a kind of Anthem to women all over.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun 1983 Time After Time 1983 True Colors 1986 All Through The Night 1983 I Drove All Night 1989 She Bop 1983 The Goonies are Good Enough 1988 Money Changes Everything 1983 Iko Iko 1986 Change of Heart 1986 Hole in My Heart 1989 When You Were Mine 1983 My First Night Without You 1989 These are just a few of the great songs she has given us. Many of these Iconic songs continue to be played today. There will never be another like her.

Fashion of the 80's

Have you ever been just sitting there going through old photos and your daughter grabs a photo of you and yells "OMG mom what is up with your hair?!" I have and it can be funny at times. I used to cut my own hair and then take Sun In and bleach the heck out of it. My hair was so fried for so long!We've come a long long way since then, well kind of. We all know that at times history does repeat its self. Take for instance leggings and short skirts. How many of us wore that back in the day? It's back again with our youth today. The things we did with our hair is iconic.

We wore Keds, rolled our jean pant legs,wore bandannas in our hair,teased our hair to extreme highs then used Aqua Net like it was super glue, which it really was for our hair.Guys frosted their hair, pulled their collars up on their double shirt, rolled the sleeves. Guys even permed their hair and used gel.Yes some of it transitioned over into the 90's, but was in full force before then. Remember using Salon Selectives shampoo? For many of us, it was a time from transitioning into a young adult from childhood. Some of us still dressed young, but others were trying to look older. We would dress in such extremes sometimes. I dont know if our parents could keep up half the time or even knew what half the things we wore were.

There was so much neon and jelly and I dont mean the kind you put on toast. I mean jelly shoes and purses and bracelets. We would wear jelly bracelets clear up our arms and all colors of the rainbow. I know for a while my children were wearing the same bracelets and I laughed that it would be coming back, but I quickly learned that it wasn't all innocent like ours was. They had made the colors mean something and not all of it was innocent. Kinda ruined the nostalgia of it for me. Today some of the older trends look pretty silly I know, but we really paved the way for so many new ways of expression. I enjoyed my time as a kid growing up. I only wish I had taken more photos, well kind of.

https://youtu.be/vrDr10f75dc

TV in the 80's

TV for me was watching Saturday morning cartoons on that HUGE wooden console in the the living room or after school cartoons and shows. So many memories of watching my favorite shows while having cereal or after school snacks. Scooby Doo, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,Alvin and the Chipmunks, Captain Caveman, Rescue Rangers, ALF, Darkwing Duck,Galaxy High, J.E.M. Then there were shows like The A Team, Growing Pains, Cheers, Miami Vice, Knight Rider, Family Ties, The Love Boat,Alice, Dallas, Good Times, Mac Gyver,The Wonder Years, Punky Brewster, Bosom Buddies.

I laughed and cried with these characters that came into my house everyday. I grew up with the sons and daughters, learned with them, hurt with them,had crushes on the boys they liked with them. I began to dream of what the world away from here could be like. The kids we watched on TV were normal kids that we could relate to. I look at TV today and it scares me what is on now. What are the lessons we are teaching the younger generations?

The 80's of my childhood

I was a very active child and I had an imagination. I wasn't too girly and not too much of a tomboy. I loved my dolls and cap guns equally. Growing up in Kansas was probably a lot like how other people grew up, the differences being I didnt have mountains to climb or oceans to swim in. I did have a lake to enjoy and the city pool. I always had a plastic pool in my yard in the summer to play in. I spent hours outside with my friends. We would build club houses out of anything we could find, whether it was cardboard boxes or treelimbs. Imagination was the key to our childhoods. We didnt need electronics to keep us occupied, we had each other. We survived without cell phones and tablets and portable dvd players or Nintendo DS's. If we wanted to know where our friends were we either used our home phone to call around or we got on our bikes and rode around until we saw a front yard covered with other bikes. That's where our friends were. We played front yard soccer or tag, would go to the highest hill in town and see how fast we could ride down it. Before bikes we had our big wheels, talk about drifting. We knew how to pull on that break to slide around a corner at full speed. I remember putting on my roller skates and being pulled by a rope tied to a bike then trying to jump a homemade ramp. We were dare devils, we were cool.

The bonds that were formed growing up in a small town were like nothing else. So many memories made with so many great kids. Yes there were arguments sometimes, but for the most part we were friends for life. We kept each others secrets, we had each others backs. Bravery could be had in groups, lessons learned, pacts made. The Goonies were real. Movies portraying how the 80's were aren't total cliches and music played a large part in our lives. 80's music gave us a voice, brought out our personalities.

Do you remember who it was that really spoke to you? Who you really wanted to be like the most? Did you want to be a Madonna or Cyndi Lauper or maybe you wanted to be Michael Jackson or Wham? When you hear those songs do they take you back to the days of being at the skating rink on a weekend or maybe being at the drive-in sitting in lawn chairs eating popcorn or running around with your buddies? It was a time of first crushes, Popsicles siting on the curb, cookouts at the park, crazy high teased hair, clear clipboards, holes in the knees of our jeans, leg warmers, double socks, banana clips.

My Earliest Memories

We lived in a two story house. It wasn't very insulated so it stayed pretty cold in the winter. I can remember still being in my crib, my animal mobile was up. I can still hear the song it played, I have that mobile in storage somewhere. When I was around 3 we moved to a new house. My dad and I were upstairs in the old house making sure everything was packed. I looked outside the window and I saw a shadow. I just knew it was a man on the roof. My dad tried really hard to make me see that no one had been there, but I just knew what I saw.

I liked our house we moved into. It had a big backyard for me to play in and I had really nice neighbors. This couple lived there next to us, they didn't have kids but they had a Chihuahua named Butch. I loved that dog. You would say to him, "Butch, hate big dogs." and he would run to the fence and pace as he barked and kicked his back legs out flinging grass and dirt. I grew up doing a lot of things considered old fashioned now. Like May Day baskets. I loved making up the baskets and filling them with the flowers I picked from my yard then, going and knocking on doors. It was so much fun to knock then run hide so it was a surprise. The look on peoples faces when they saw the basket was so worth it. Holidays were a big thing back then in this small town. Halloween used to really be fun. The whole town would be out going door to door trick or treating. There would be costume contests and parties. Easter I would pick out my dress, new shoes, gloves, maybe a hat or bonnet. There would be Easter egg hunts at the park, Easter service at church, pictures in my new outfit. Christmas was magical. Yes, I was excited for the presents from Santa. Every year we would wait for the big book of toys to get there. Go through page by page and mark what I wanted. Two x's meant it was something I wanted the most. We had a Christmas parade each year and my grandpa and Dad would drive their old cars in it with the Antique car club. Then at the end we would get to see Santa, sit on his lap, get a picture taken. At church for several days before Christmas, we would all gather together, all bundled up warm. We would go out into neighborhoods and sing Christmas Carols. It seemed so magical to me, the streets covered in snow, the lights on all around, the quiet of the night, then the singing as we walked. After we were done, we would get on the hayrack and ride out to someones house for apple cider and snacks. At church all the kids would get a bag full of apples, oranges, nuts, and candycanes. It seemed like such a simple yet happy time.

I was born in the summer of 1974. July 4th to be exact. Fire cracker baby. Top 40 music hits, 1. The Way We Were by Barbra Streisand 2.Seasons in the Sun by Terry Jacks 3.Come and Get Your Love by Redbone 4.The Loco-Motion by Grand Funk Railroad 5. The Streak by Ray Stevens 6. Bennie and the Jets by Elton John 7.Until you Come Back to Me by Aretha Franklin. Top movies that year, The Godfather part 2, Chinatown, Lenny, The Towering Inferno, The Conversation. World population was 4,031,026,667 and I was going to make that number go up.

My Momma was 15 years old and was letting her Aunt and Uncle adopt me. She asked the doctor if I was a boy or a girl. He said, "I cant tell you that, I have to let them tell you". So she asked, "well, were all the fingers and toes there?" The doctor said, "Oh yes, she has all her fingers and toes." My Momma just started laughing and the doctor laughed too, he knew she had tricked him. It was almost 40 years before I ever saw a photo of her holding me as a baby. I never knew any existed. Their promise to let her come visit often as she wanted never panned out. I barely remember her coming. Not until I was older.

Indroduction to ME

I grew up in a small town in central Kansas. My father worked for the City so everyone knew everyone else. I've been friends with some of the same people since I could walk. We played outside running around the neighborhoods til the street lights came on. Sleep overs, BBQ's, parades,block parties were just some of the activities happening each summer. Hours spent at the pool cooling off. Winter came and when it snowed the lake dam became the place to be. Trudging up to the top with our sleds or our cardboard boxes for those mere seconds of rushing wind as we sped head first, belly down, all the way to the bottom ready to trudge right back up again. It was a time when things were easier, friendships were forged in the pricking of a finger, deals made by a pinky swear. We were cool.

I'm now grown, married with children of my own, now two grandchildren. My kids have gone to the same schools I did, My friends have kids and most of them have grown up knowing my kids. The cycle continues year after year. The only difference being technology, trends, new arrivals. As time goes by I see more and more new faces in my town and less of the older ones. I have begun to reflect more, to look back at the past, remember what was. Is this how it starts? That feeling of time getting away from me?

I had a name once. Everyone knew it, it meant something. Now I'm called Mom or Nannie. It is beautiful, but once in a while Id like my name back.