What were the 80's like?

[drawkcabi]

When it was dinner mom would ring the dinner bell and we would come running home. Some other moms would just yell kids names and moms down the street would repeat it.

There was no call waiting with phones and when people lived in the city they were charged to call the burbs but the burbs could call the city for free. My Yaya would call and ring twice and hang up. That was the signal to call her.

I remember whenever we were playing and one kid was being especially annoying one of us would say "Hey "____", isn't that your mom calling you?" and the rest of us would say, yeah we heard her too, and the kid would be like "Oh, I gotta go," and we'd be rid of him for a while.

[S John]

I burst on to the Earth scene in '84, officially making the decade one of note.

I loved both Ghostbusters and The Land Before Time from a very early age. I also loved Huey Lewis and the News as a small child and remember rocking out using a pillow as a guitar. I remember my house, being in Kindergarten, and when my sister was born in '89. But most pop culture or world news type stuff I remember from being a kid happened in the 90's. For example, U Can't touch this by MC Hammer, along with the associated popularity of ridiculous pants is a phenomenon that I remember very clearly... but that came out in 1990.

I feel like my sister is more of a millennial than I am. That 5-6 year age gap actually made a pretty big difference in terms of what we were exposed to early on. I remember life before household computers, widespread internet, and cell phones - she doesn't.

[sj4iy]

The 80s for me was:

Playing in the field behind our house, and exploring the creek down and across the street.

Listening to "La Bamba" and "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" on my Pocket Rocker while sitting on our front stoop.

Playing with our puppies and kittens, whichever we had at the time.

My dad taking us to the miniature golf course down the street from where he lived.

Dancing with my mom to one of her Kenny Rogers' records in the living room.

Actually believing that my mom would marry Magnum, PI.

Helping my mother put the tinsel on our christmas tree.

Christmas dinners at my great grandmother's house, then at my grandma's house.

I was born in '81, so my childhood pretty much spanned the decade. It was by no means perfect, but I remember it very clearly.

[Kikajon]

The most incredible things I remember are "explosive" chewing gums, I'd like to have some now and then but I think they don't exist any more, most probably they have been outlawed.

Glitter glitter and glitter everywhere.

Striped shirt that it was perfectly normal to wear.

Abnormal big shoulders everyone.

[Jaxom 1974]

Drawk said it all. Close the thread. Fade to black. Debate over.

[drawkcabi]

Drawk said it all. Close the thread. Fade to black. Debate over.

I felt a summoning..:)

[Whitestripe]

Was that base Ft Bragg?

.

Ding! Ding! Yes, it was.

[zelticgar]

I remember whenever we were playing and one kid was being especially annoying one of us would say "Hey "____", isn't that your mom calling you?" and the rest of us would say, yeah we heard her too, and the kid would be like "Oh, I gotta go," and we'd be rid of him for a while.

Kids were bullies and got bullied back then. It was a lot tougher because if you got out of line the kids would beat the crap out of you. I remember getting into fights occasionally when i was a kid. I look back on it now with mixed emotions. It helped mold me in some ways but I also recall that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach when i knew that the neighborhood tough guy had his sites set on me. I cant speak for girls but growing up in a neighborhood full of boys was tough. We were often out in the woods on our own.

Changing topics - one thing that the 80's had that was awesome was packs of dogs roaming the neighborhood. Almost no one kept their dog on leashes when i was a kid. That started happening in the later 80's but for the most part you just had to be aware that vicious dogs could be lurking around corners or in neighbors backyards. I remember getting chased by dogs all the time when i had my paper route.

[Buckwheat]

From what I can gather about the 80s, Tito died and then everybody mourned deeply for a long time before deciding they do not want to live in the same country anymore. That is about it, I am too young to have any personal experience with the 80s ...

[Elder Sister]

I don't remember much of the 80's, but I had a really good time.

The 80's was the decade where there was no social media or cell phones to capture your many embarrassing moments, David Lee Roth was still cool, and my hair was so big it deserved its own zip code.

ETA: This thread has taken me back - jelly shoes, Motley Crue, Dokken, acid washed jeans, ginormous shoulder pads, and earrings the size of hub caps. I am so, so, glad that the 80's are dead.

Although I do still love Dokken.

My prom date went to jail, I totaled 2 cars, had my nose broken twice, and just in general was a juvenile delinquent.

The 80's made me who I am today, so if you've got a problem with that, you can blame The Scorpions, pasture parties, and Merle Haggard.

[Fragile Bird]

The 70s spawned Thatcher and Reagan. The 80s were caused by them.

You are so right, I should have said the 80s saw the horror of Ronnie and Maggie. But spawning describes them so well. :)

[Elder Sister]

Kids were bullies and got bullied back then. It was a lot tougher because if you got out of line the kids would beat the crap out of you. I remember getting into fights occasionally when i was a kid. I look back on it now with mixed emotions. It helped mold me in some ways but I also recall that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach when i knew that the neighborhood tough guy had his sites set on me. I cant speak for girls but growing up in a neighborhood full of boys was tough. We were often out in the woods on our own.

Changing topics - one thing that the 80's had that was awesome was packs of dogs roaming the neighborhood. Almost no one kept their dog on leashes when i was a kid. That started happening in the later 80's but for the most part you just had to be aware that vicious dogs could be lurking around corners or in neighbors backyards. I remember getting chased by dogs all the time when i had my paper route.

When I was in 2nd grade, a Great Dane stole my shoe and chewed on it forever. I never got it back. I was so pissed. But of course, that was the late 70's, so I don't suppose that it's germane to this thread. :/

[Prince of the North]

...pasture parties...

Ah, pasture parties or parties out in the country in general. I remember them well :cheers: Great places to "hide", so to speak, were out among the shelter belts of trees along the edges of the crop fields or even behind the occasional man-made windbreak for cattle.

We also used to do a little "Rural Surfing", as opposed to "Urban Surfing", on the country back roads. There but for the grace of God go I, indeed ;)

[Elder Sister]

Ah, pasture parties or parties out in the country in general. I remember them well :cheers: Great places to "hide", so to speak, were out among the shelter belts of trees along the edges of the crop fields or even behind the occasional man-made windbreak for cattle.

We also used to do a little "Rural Surfing", as opposed to "Urban Surfing", on the country back roads. There but for the grace of God go I, indeed ;)

Yep. Did that, too. And of course, I got sober in '89, so all of that hard partying I did in the 80's really paid off. :D

[lady narcissa]

The 80's was the decade where there was no social media or cell phones to capture your many embarrassing moments

Yes, I am ever so grateful that once I destroyed my diary and the photo negatives, I can be confident that evidence from these years has been destroyed.

[MercenaryChef]

MC WHAT WERE YOU DOING????

Me?

[Nichole]

I'm a little bit younger than Drawk, but damn, his post was like a trip down memory lane. So much I had just forgotten about. Such as, for a lot of people the first chance they got to see many movies was when a network station played it. We had so many of these edited movies recorded. I didn't see the actual versions of many until I was an adult. Many of our recorded movies also were missing the very beginning because we had failed to push record in time.

[maarsen]

This cannot stand. The 80s were the worst decade for music between now and the 60s. Hair bands. Rock almost died from that bullshit.

A misconception. Rock almost died in the 70's. I was there and I watched it happen as music I grew up with became turgid and dull. Punk rock was the saviour of music, and that came at the end of the 70's. The music of the 80's built on that. All kinds of experimental stuff came out then, There was the rockabilly revival, New Wave, new country, rap started breaking out, neo punk competed with old punk. Even the old dinosaurs of rock came out with new stuff, and then there was thrash metal. Live music was everywhere. Not all of it was great but it was fun.

[Prue]

I remember the massive shoulderpads. Not really flattering for most women. And the asymmetrical haircuts and heavy makeup.

Music-wise, I liked "Neue Deutsche Welle" songs in German because I wasn't able to understand/speak English yet. Well, I did sing along phonetically, at least the refrains. But it was total gobbledigook to me. Unfortunately that sort of trained me not to listen to any English lyrics, so I still hardly ever bother to try to understand what a song is about, even though my English has somewhat improved since. ;)

And of course I didn't have a computer or a mobile phone. I went to a friend's house to play Elite or text adventures though. Whenever the game crashed, we had to reload for 15 minutes by plugging in a 'datasette' where the data was somehow transferred in beep-noises. The computer didn't even have a floppy disk.

[Aemon Stark]

I was born in the 80s, but I don't think I remember much of anything until 1986 or so. Really I'm a child of the 90s, but that was as much an era of VHS and home video as the 80s. I grew up with 80s movies and pop culture - Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, The Land Before Time, Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, Star Trek: The Next Generation - but I really remember early 90s cartoons. My classic gaming system was the SNES.