I know it’s almost the next decade of the 2000s but there are some major parts of me that are still stuck in the 80s. I was born in the early 1970s, so I look on the 80s as my coming of age years. My favourite movies – Flashdance, Dirty Dancing, Pretty in Pink, Footloose, Fame etc – I have them all on DVD and watch them often.
I still wear legwarmers and still possess off the shoulder sweatshirts like Alex did in Flashdance. We all tore up our jeans – which is so standard now. I remember my grandma being so shocked with those jeans, offering to sew up the rips. We wore big shoulder pads like they did on Dynasty and Dallas. We wore slouch socks (I still have some) and keds. We had those clip thingies to tie a knot in our shirts.
I know all the words to Madonna’s songs and can croon all of Lionel Richie’s love songs. The first song I remember being performed on TV was Wham!’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-go – I was home sick and it was daytime TV. We loved Duran Duran and dreamed of meeting Michael Jackson.
I miss the days when I had big hair and tied lace in it, to match the fingerless lace gloves that I still possess. I liked a mullet on a guy back then – thankfully that has changed! We spent hours crimping our hair too – no one does that anymore. Not sure if that is a good thing or not. We even wore ponytails on the sides of our heads. Can’t really carry that off anymore at my age.
I became an expert on the handheld orange Donkey Kong game and the red Mario brothers game. I can still hear the tune in my head. We learned what Atari was and spent hours playing PONG – the kids today would be bored rigid playing that game! We broke our heads trying to do the Rubik’s cube – my brother solved it…. We also thought boom boxes were the coolest thing. I remember in the mid 80s my brother got a rubber keyed computer – the ZX Spectrum, which we operated with a tape recorder to save our BASIC programs.
The Care bears and the Cabbage Patch dolls – we all wanted them, the my little ponies too. Strawberry Shortcake – if you had any of her stuff you were set for life in school.
Oh what a trip down memory lane, and it all started with my buddy posting a youtube video on my FaceBook of limahl with “a neverending story.”
What are your favourite 80s memories?
In the Pink 