Memories

No, no this post is not about the sad case of Susan Boyle, belting her heart out to sing the saddest song in musical theater history and then having to go to the hospital for exhaustion. (Although the poor woman needs to go back to Scotland, sit down in a comfy chair, put a cat on her lap, drink a strong pot of tea and be happy to sing to an audience not consisting of emaciated blonde women and men with overly gelled hair.)

No, this post is about my own little song of memories.

Since I'm almost 30 in bodily years and at least 75 in personality years, I feel like it is appropriate for me to wax poetic about the 1980's. And how I miss them, or at least what I remember of them.

I grew up in an incredibly Republican household, so in the 80's we were flying high, or at least I think we were, (minus the parental divorce and subsequent aftermath- maybe I'm waxing poetic about the 90's? who knows? but a different post, nonetheless)

Anyway- I was thinking today about how sad it is that children now have to have cell phones and texting and tweeting and facebook. Which brings me to the dentist chair my friends and I found sometime in 1988, sitting alone in the back woods behind our subdivision.

Who knows if I remember the creepy chair correctly (no iPhone photos)- I do remember long days of that summer where each of us would sit in the chair while we concocted elaborate, gruesome stories of why it was here. We were heavily into Unsolved Mysteries so to us the chair was part Indian Burial Ground, part Ghostly Murder Site. (In reality some redneck dentist had probably had his brother haul it out there to avoid a dump fee- woo boy!).

And no matter if I remember it correctly the dentist chair became our club house were we played MASH and talked boys, and made things out of wildflowers, and imagined. Sounds idyllic doesn't it? Now imagine a cell phone bleating out and my mother on the other end reminding me I hadn't cleaned my room. All pretend independence and imagination out the door. If the kids even make it out the door. If I had had a Wii I sure as hell wouldn't have.

And although I love iPhones and wish I had my very own, I sometimes really long for a tape player, wall mounted phones in the kitchen to call your grandmother, credit card machines that you have to physically slide, answering machines, checks, a pharmacist who knows who you are, a firm notion of right and wrong, a U.S.A. of Ralph Lauren American flag sweatshirts.

I don't long for them because these notions are sweet and pretty in a false looking back at the 50's kind of way- but because nothing fostered creativity like the time it took to make a mix-tape, especially from the radio. Or that if you had a wall-mounted phone in the kitchen you couldn't do three things at once while talking to your friend who is in crisis (guilty as charged).

Sometimes I wish I lived in a time when I wasn't constantly looking to see who texted me, or checking facebook so I can make sure i haven't fallen too far behind the milestones of my friends, or reading about how companies I used to love are trying to lie to consumers about the BPA in their products, or how the Taliban threatens to kill little girls, or the melting glaciers, drowning polar bears, children in slum dog millionaire starving, oh I could go on.

Maybe sometimes I wish I was just 8 years old and had no clue what was going on.

Yeah, that was pretty sweet.

Cats was pretty awesome too. Especially Mr. Mistoffelees.