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.