Nineteen Eighty Something

One of my favorite channels on Sirius XM is the Eighties on Eight channel. I like listening to it and remember the years I was a kid.

Remember being a kid? Remember being able to ride your bike around your neighborhood for hours on end? Remember playing in the dirt, pretending purple weeds were the most exotic flower and picking handful after handful? Remember making endless chains of flowers and tying them around you? Remember the days of neon-colored bouncy balls and jump ropes made of colored tubes on twine?

I do.

Remember getting your first Nintendo with Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt? Remember the little laughing dog, mocking you when you couldn't shoot those dadgum birds? Remember your first Barbie doll? Remember giving her her first haircut...and making over her face with a ballpoint pin?

I do.

Remember jelly shoes? Remember the accompanying foot odor and blisters? Remember those HUMONGOUS yarn bits that Goody used to make, that your Mom would use to tie up your hair? Remember those little gray rollers with the pink sticks, and how they would become implements of torture whenever someone would curl your hair?

I do.

Remember preschool? Remember "upstairs, downstairs, basement" and "color inside the lines"? Remember those blue pads where they would have you take a nap? Remember when Wednesday was Peanut Butter Sandwich day and Friday was Show and Tell Day? Remember "Follow the Leader" and "The Big Bad Wolf"?

I do.

But most of all, I remember wanting to be a grown-up. To get married, have my own place (and no bedtime!) and to eat pizza every night.

Wow, have things changed. Some days, I just crave a simpler life. Even though those simpler days are gone forever, I still like to remember.