i love the 80's

so last night i downloaded a mess of alternative 80's hits and have been playing them over and over again allowing the memories to wash over me. the 80's were not my favorite time... i was a depressed teenager filled with angst that would have made ally sheedy's character from the breakfast club seem happy-go-lucky. and yes, i now have a copy of don't you forget about me by the simple minds.

while i didn't enjoy the 80's i certainly have some amazing memories of friends and the music we listened to.

walking home from the bus stop with ed, who was dating one of my best friends while i was dating one of his, singing the violent femmes, blister in the sun while wearing our combat boots. i was so proud of mine which resembled cowboy boots. i still have them because i used to say that i wanted to be buried in them. of course my feet have grown after all this time that it would be a real trick to get them on my feet even if they were dead feet.

then there was malcolm, who all us girls in highschool would describe as dark chocolate. he was a swimmer and tall and as smart as he was beautiful. there really isn't one particular song that made me think of him, but once you start reminiscing other memories appear and so did one's of malcolm. years after graduating i was flipping through my yearbook and realized that i hadn't noticed that he had signed it saying that he had as big a crush on me as i had had on him. while i am grateful for the life that my mistakes lead me to... if i had known then...

on my 19th birthday the pobble and i took a weekend trip to va beach. it still ranks as perhaps the best vacation of my life. it was a four hour drive from her home to the hotel with the view of the beach. at the time i had a cassette of roxette's she's got the look. it was one of those singles... the kind with one song on each side. we might have listened to side b a total of 3 times the whole trip fast forwarding it every time it came to the end so we could listen to side a one more time. we were in va beach before we decided that perhaps we should listen to something else for awhile.

but 80's music reminds me most of college even though i didn't finish college until the mid 90's. i had a few friends who were dj's on the college radio station. one had an all 80's show, another had an all female show, and the third, my big sister from the sorority i was in would make me keep her company while she did her late night show.

when i was having boy trouble jacklynhyde played i need a lover who won't drive me crazy by pat benatar and once while she was covering for ted's saturday night 80's show she dedicated a song for me called jesus was way cool... or something like that... while i was working on a sermon i was going to preach in the chapel the next day. i can't for the life of me remember who sang it or any of the lyrics... but it was hysterical. it didn't help with the sermon prep... but it did give me a good laugh (and a few worries about who might show up in chapel the next day to hear me.)

and then there were the pet shop boys and erasure... i can't go into the stories that erasure brings up from my college days... needless to say we played them loud and got really goofy in the college owned house we lived in senior year.

ahhh... the 80's where we could dance if want to... climb up solsbury hill... and shout, shout... let it all out.

God's peace y'all