Forever a Child of the 80's...

I had this album... yes album, as in vinyl. 

I may still have it in a box in my basement!

In a few days I'm off on vacation.  It's not a glamorous vacation, but days off from all jobs all together, so true enough, a vacation.  I'll be traveling "home" with The Hubs to visit with family for half of my time off, and then back "home" to my kids and zoo for the last half of my vacation.

No matter what I'm doing, whenever I get ready to take a vacation, The Go Go's song Vacation pops into my head and runs amok incessantly.  Having listented to the tune exclusively between my own ears for about an hour now, I had to run out to You Tube to watch the video.  Click the image above to go see it (embedding has been disabled for this video).

After delving neck deep into Go Go's nostalgia, I had to come on here and shout to the world that I am, and will always be, a child of the 80's.  The 80's was a very influential time period for me as I was in era of life where simply everything makes a huge, long-lasting impression.  Between 1980 and 1990 I aged from 10 to 20.  Talk about formative years!  I lived my teen years and entered college in the 80's. 

To borrow a song lyric from Dirty Dancing - I had the time of my life!

What the 80's mean to me...

• MUSIC!  I don't care what anyone says (in a negative manner) about the music from the 80's, but first and foremost, there was a heck of variety!  If the 80's didn't create the expression "one hit wonder" then it certainly embraced and popularized it!  If you took all of the top 20 hits from each week and put each song only once on a CD, I'm sure you'd still come up with a plethora of CDs from that decade... with NO repeats!  How great is that?  And the music was all about peppy beats, being independant, and S-E-X!  There was the New Wave revolution, the New Age birth and growth, not to mention the Top 40 be-boppers.  Hip Hop became popular and the 80's truly may have hosted the "second British invasion" with the influx of popular bands from across the pond during that time.  I will listen to music from the 80's until the day I die, and impress my kids and grandkids with my knowledge of lyrics in current-day songs that are just recycling those "one hit wonders".  (If they're so bad, why are people re-sampling them?)
• CLOTHES!  I admit, I was never into the fashion fads of the 80's when I was in the 80's.  In fact, every generation has it's "retro" look, and the 80's "retro" was the 60's.  So, I was more into dressing in the 60's peace-love-happiness and flower power type of clothes.  And I wasn't even that extreme, because, well... I was a wall flower and never wanted to draw attention to myself.  But I LOVED the ecclectic mish-mash of styles that defined the 80's.  Watch any music video or any John Hughes' film or ANY teen film in that era (Valley Girl anyone?) to see what I mean. 
• FUN!  I think the 80's were light-hearted and fun, and yet we had our share of serious issues to be afraid of.  The cold war.  Hostages in Iran.  AIDS.  But check out most music videos, songs or movies from that era... we were all about having fun!  I'll try to refrain from contrasting this with the influx of the Grunge & Depression of the 90's.
• BREAKDANCING!  I know it's not called that anymore, but it was in the 80's, when it became VERY popular.  It wouldn't have been a school dance without all those b-boys trying their share of moves, breakin' to the music.  I must admit, I did try a few moves myself... and, uh... well... let's just say I'm a bit to ample in the chest area to be doing the "worm".  And rug burns in that area aren't pretty!
• EVENTS!  So many historical events occurred in the 80's. I'm sure that's true of any decade, but it just seemed like so many big things happened both good and bad.  Here are just a few random things off the top of my head:
• The hostages in Iran...
• Mount St. Helens erupted...
• The space shuttle Challenger explosion...
• John Lennon was assassinated by Mark David Chapman...
• President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinkley...who was also stalking Jodie Foster...
• The Chernobyl nuclear disaster...
• The Exxon Valdez oil spill (which looks so small now, in comparison to the current BP fiasco)...
• The explosive growth of computers, developing into HOME computers...
• Movies!  The rise of Steven Spielberg, John Hughes, John Carpenter...
• Beginning of the AIDS pandemic...
• The rise of PC (political correctness)...
• South Africa Apartheid...
• The wall between east and west Germany dismantled...
• I WANT MY MTV!
• Valley "talk"... like, Omigod!  Gag me with a spoon, like, totally, fer sure! You're sooo tubular, dude!
• Pacman...
• Leg Warmers...
• Headbands...
• Rubik's Cube!

Yes... I am and forever will be a child of the 80's (with a distinct flavor for "retro" 60's)!  How about you... what's your favorite, influential 'time'?