Hey Guys, I think somewhere along the way I got lost in all the bullshit. Life can be a bitch and I know that we are all under a lot of stress. Sometimes we just have to put things in perspective. This may take a long time to read, but I believe it's worth it. DON'T CALL ME A GENERATION X-ER. I AM A CHILD OF THE 80'S. This is what I prefere to be called. Grunge isn't here to stay, fashion is fickle, and "generation X" is just a label some over 40 year old person made up to try and explain why we where flannel shirts in the summer. When I got home from school I spent hours playing my Atari. Pitfall, combat, breakout, Dodge 'em cars, or frogger. Was it possible to beat asteroids? I watched scooby doo, believed that Daphne was a goddess, and thought shaggy was always smoking something in the back of that psychedelic van. I hated scrappy. I would sleep over at friends houses on weekends. We would spend hours playing with G.I. Joe figures, and set up galactic wars between autobots and decepticons. I still have many of my star wars figures buried in a closet back home. Maybe you do too. We would stay up half the night throwing marshmellows or velveta at each other. Later we might teepee some poor unfortunate classmates house. We always kept the volume low so we would not wake the parents, while we tried to catch a glimpse of some brief nudity on Showtime. We never beat the Rubik's Cube. I got up at 6 AM on Saturday mornings to watch the Smurfs, snorks, captain caveman, or space ghost. In between I would watch school house rock. (conjunction junction what's your function?) I believe I learned half of my English skills this way. Daisy Duke was my future wife. I was going to buy the General Lee and shoot explosive arrows out of the back. I dented the hood of more than one friend's car trying to slide over it like Luke. Why did they weld the doors shut? I watched the nerds get revenge on the alpha betas, Indiana Jones save the arc of the covenant, and wondered what Yoda meant when he said, "No, there is another." Ronald Reagan was cool. Gorbachev was the guy who built a Mcdonalds in Moscow, and my family always took summer vacations and collected muppet glasses along the way. We had the whole set. We took our vacations before the invention of the minivan and usually sat in the back of the wagon trying to invent new uses for connect four pieces, like stuffing them in the airconditioning vent. I listened to John Cougar Mellencamp sing about pink houses, and the little ditty about Jack and Diane. I was bewildered by Boy George and the colors of his dreams, red, gold, and green. MTV played videos, and the moonman meant more than just a symbol of a time past. Nickelodian played "you can't do that on television" and "Dangermouse." HBO showed Mike Tyson pummel everyone except Robin Givens, that bad actress from head of the class. I drank Dr. Pepper. "I'm a pepper, you're a pepper, wouldn't you like to be a pepper too?" Shasta was for losers. And Tab was a laboratory accident. Capri sun was a social statement. Orange juice wasn't just for breakfast anymore, and bacon had to move over for something meatier. My mom put a thousand Little Debbie Snack cakes in my Chalie Brown lunch box, and filled my snoopy thermos with kool aid. I would never eat the snack cakes though, did anyone. I had about a thousand cheese and cracker snack packs and I ate those. I went to school and the same classes every day. Recess was filled with kickball and dodgeball. And some weird guy always won the eighth grade science fair with the working hydro-electric plant that always leaked all over my project about music and plants. God they loved beethoven! Field day was bigger than Christmas, but it always seemed to rain just enough to make the kids who fell over in the three legged race miserable. Deck the halls with gasoline, fa la la la la la la la la was just a song. Burping was cool. Rubber band fights were cooler. And the substitute teacher was a marked woman. Nobody deserved that. I went to cub scouts. I got the arrow of light, but always managed to come in second in the pine wood derby. I just know that the kid who beat me had an illegal amount of lead in the tip of his car. I received numerous skill awards but don't remember doing anything. "Always be prepared" was just a motto, now it seems like a way of life. The world stopped when the challenger exploded. Half of your friend's parents got divorced. People did not just say no to drugs. AIDS started, but you knew more people who had a grandparent die from cancer. Somebody in your school died before they graduated. When you put all this stuff together you have my childhood. If this stuff sounds familiar, then I bet you are one too. We are children of the Eighties. That is what I prefer "they" call us. We are the children of the eighties. We are not the first "lost generation" nor today's lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak. We are the ones who played with Lego building blocks when they were just building blocks and gave malibu barbie a crew cut with our plastic safety scissors that never really cut. We collected garbage pail kids and cabbage patch kids and my little ponies and hot wheels and he man action figures and thought she ra looked just a little bit like I would if I were a woman. Big Wheels and bicicles with streamers were the way to go. The last kid to get rid of his bannana seat always got made fun of. Skateboarding wasn't a social or a political statement, it was just fun. Sidewalk chalk and rock and roll were all you needed to build a city. Imagination was the key. Your old tree house was big enough for you to be Luke Skywalker, and a cloth that hung over the kitchen table was a tent in a forest. Couch cusion fortresses and a backyard were all you really needed to be happy. With your pink portable tape player debbie gibson sang back up at you and everyone wanted a skirt like the material girl, or a glove like Michael Jackson. Today we are the ones who sing along perfectly to Bruce Springsteen or the Bangles and have no idea why. We recite lines from the Ghostbusters and still look to the Goonies for adventure. We flip through tv stations and always stop on reruns of nightrider, fame, or "what you talkin' 'bout Willis?" We laughed along with Family Ties and the Cosby show and Punky Brewster and even simple catch phrases like "where's the beef?" We hold strong affections for the Muppets and the gummy bears and why did they take the smurfs off the air? After school specials were only about cigarretes and step families. Mister Rogers was nothing like Barney, and aren't the Power Rangers just Voltron reincarnated? We never thought it was funny that Bert and Ernie lived together. We are the ones who still remeber reading Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, the bobbsey twins, Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume, Richard Sacry and the Electric Company. Friendship bracelets were ties you couldn't break, and friendship pins went on shoes- prefereably black reebok hightops with velcro laces- and pegged jeans were in, as were unit belts and layered socks and and jean jackets and jams and charm necklaces and side pony tails and just tails. Everyone was a member of the member's only jacket club. Rave was a girl's best friend and braces with colored rubberbands made you cool. The backdoor was always open and mom served cool aid to the neighborhood kids. We never drank new Coke. There was always a neighborhood game of nerf football going on in the street and you got to be on the first team that called you. Entertainment was cheap and lasted for hours. All you needed to be a king, was a hill and a fierce determination; the sit n' spin always made you dizzy but never made you stop; pogoballs were dangerous weapons and the chinese jumprope always managed to trip someone. In your underoos you were wonder woman, or spider man, or R2-D2. We are children of the eighties. We remeber when Jordasche Jeans were cool. And all of your friends promised to get together at the end of the century and play "1999" by Prince over and over and over again. We remeber our first kiss came at a dance during "Crazy for You" by Madonna. We sat up late on friday nights making crank calls and dialing 8-6-7-5-3-0-9, just to see if Jenny would answer. We wore vans and always wanted to order a pizza in the middle of history class, so we could be just like spicoli in Fast Time at Ridgemont High. Somehow we never found the guts. In the Eighties, nothing was wrong. Did you know the President was shot? Star Wars was not only a movie. Did you ever play in a bomb shelter? Did you see the challenger explode or feed the homeless man? We forgot Vietnam and watched Tianaman's square on CNN and bought pieces of the Berlin Wall at the store. AIDS was not the number one killer in the United States. If I could relive just one of those days I know just what I'd do. I'd order that pizza! If this sounds familiar, you are one of us... pass it on to all the others...