Children of the 80's by Bryan Adkins


I am a child of the eighties.
That is what I prefer to be called.

The nineties can do without me.

Grunge isn't here to stay, fashion is fickle and "Generation X" is a myth created by some over-40 writer trying to figure out why people wear flannel in the summer.

When I got home from school, I played with my Atari 2600. I spent hours playing Pitfall or Combat or Breakout or Dodge'em Cars or Frogger. I never did beat Asteroids.

Then I watched "Scooby Doo." Daphne was a Goddess, and I thought Shaggy was smoking something synthetic in the back of their psychedelic van. I hated Scrappy.

I would sleep over at friends' houses on the weekends.

We played army with G.I. Joe figures... and I'd set up galactic wars between Autobots and Decepticons.

We stayed up half the night throwing marshmallows and Velveeta at one another.

We never beat the Rubik's Cube.

I got up on Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. to watch bad Hanna-Barbera cartoons like "The Snorks," "Jabberjaw," "Captain Caveman," and "Space Ghost."

In between I would watch "School House Rock." Conjunction junction, what's your function?")

On weeknights Daisy Duke was my future wife. I was going to own the General Lee and shoot dynamite arrows out the back. Why did they weld the doors shut?

At the movies the Nerds got Revenge on the Alpha Betas by teaming up with the Omega Mus. I watched Indiana Jones save the Ark 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.

My family took summer vacations to the Gulf of Mexico and collected "Muppet Movie" glasses along the way. (We had the whole set.)

My brother and I fought in the back seat. At the hotel we found creative uses for Connect Four pieces like throwing them in that big air conditioning unit.

I listened to John COUGAR Mellencamp sing about Little Pink Houses for Jack and Diane. I was bewildered by Boy George and the colors of his dreams, red, gold, and green.
MTV played videos.

Nickelodeon played "You Can't Do That on Television" and "Dangermouse" Cor!

HBO showed Mike Tyson pummel everybody except Robin Givens, the bad actress from "Head of the Class" who took all Mike's cashflow.

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.

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 Charlie Brown lunch box, and filled my Snoopy Thermos with grape Kool-Aid. I would never eat the snack cakes, though. Did anyone?

I got two thousand cheese and cracker snack packs, and I ate those.

I went to school and had recess. I went to the same classes everyday. Some weird guy from the eighth grade always won the science fair with the working hydro-electric plant that leaked on my project about music and plants. They just loved Beethoven.

Field day was bigger than Christmas, but it always managed to rain just enough to make everybody miserable before they fell over in the three-legged race. Where did all those panty hose come from? "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. A substitute teacher was a baby sitter/marked woman. Nobody deserved that.

I went to Cub Scouts.
I got my arrow-of-light, but never managed to win the Pinewood Derby. I got almost every skill award but don't remember ever doing anything.

The world stopped when the Challenger exploded.
Did a teacher come in and tell your class?

Half of your friends' 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 it.

NICE! I like that.

Good job, very creative. Great narrative style. :D

nice post, good stuff, and a good flow too

Oh I should of let you guys know....I didn't write this

I loved it and wanted to share

I know..
Bryan Adkins wrote it.
It has a lot of meaning to 80's children.

I almost got choked up reading that... Yup... Good read, good times...

Regan was NEVER cool, not to make it political but I just had to state that one small fact... other then that your golden .

i remember watching dangermouse and count duckula.

i love this

melissa

That sure brings back memories.




I played the same games. And I did beat asteroids on my Atari 2600. It took me about 5-6 hours but when my score reached 1,000.000 it rolled over back to zero.



I found the whole show annoying.



I beat mine. With a 50 pound sledge hammer. :D



I liked some of the old Saturday morning cartoons.



I bought the DVD.



She's already my wife. Just Kidding. :D But I had a serious crush on her and I wanted the General Lee, back then. The doors on race cars are welded shut for safety reasons.



I loved those shows!

As the rest. No Comment.

I was in my local comic store a few months ago and this guy came in wearing a Ronald Reagan t-shirt. Someone commented on it, which got him to talking about how he's a huge Reagan fan, and that Reagan was the best president ever and so on.

At least the guy had good taste in comics... he was looking to fill holes in his Transformers collection.

I did like Reagan he wasn't afraid of terrorists


I never thought he was the best, FDR was the best in my opinion

I just don't like trickle down economics... it is a very bad policy that overtaxes the lower and middle class and the man was Racist... good actor... NOT a good president.

scrappy was my favorite character on scooby due.

melissa 8)

Nice, I'm working on my little essay thingy too. But good job. 8)

Thats because you know who I am the others here don't :P

i did win the pinewood derby...my dad and put in alot of good time on that car...i wish i had a picture of that to throw on here.

i also watched you can't do that on television, danger mouse, starblazers,battle of the planets, battlestar galactica, and HATED the caliope theme song...because that's what my kid sister always wanted to watch...also pinwheel

i'll never forget the challenger disaster...they wheeled in a t.v. and made us all watch the developing coverage that afternoon.

likewise, they wheeled a t.v. in for us all to watch nancy's famous just say "no" speech...we were in jr high then and we just snickered at it.

i used to solve my rubiks cube by taking it apart and puting it back together in order.

i remember the old old old HBO intro

i've eaten at a real a&w drive up

i saw empire strikes back at a drive in...sat in the back of my parent's pinto.

i crushed hard on the empress in the never ending story and heather locklere in tj hooker

thanks for the great memories!!!!