The 80s

(1989-9th grade Healdsburg High)

The 80s are coming back to haunt me everywhere I turn. This has been happening for some time now between the clothes I see at the store and with Gwen being in junior high. I had to gag when I saw some of the wretched clothes on Gap's website (below). Can you say ugly? Am I back in the 80s or what? And then some of the jeans at J.Crew really brought me back as I was reminded of all the guys in Jr. High and their tightly-pegged jeans. I don't care how good they look on a model, I say no thank you! I was just talking to my little sister the other day as we were shopping at the DI about how far fashion has come. As we glanced at all the high-waisted pants, short shirts that don't come anywhere near your hips, and just plain ugly, unflattering clothes made us grateful for those clothes designers we have now out there who have finally gotten it right.

But this isn't just about fashion. A while back I took the kids to the skating rink for one of their birthdays. It was on a Friday night and I couldn't believe how much it took me back to "Star Skate". The clothes the junior high kids were wearing, the way they'd hold hands skating, young puppy love--everything was the same, even the hokey pokey. Deja vu. Gwen very often shares with me the things that are going on at her school, and I find it interesting that those same exact things were going on at my junior high in California in the late 80s. Luckily, and very gratefully though, they are not nearly as bad as they were in California. Kids, or at least all the ones Gwen knows, aren't doing drugs, smoking, drinking, and getting pregnant like the ones I knew in 7th grade. But they seem to behave the same way, say the same things (Gwen has informed me that her and her cousins are bringing back the word "fine" when referring to a guy instead of hot which I think is "totally rad"), and yes, we even still have the ones who cut themselves, or "carve", and give themselves eraser burns. We didn't have a name for those kind of people, but here and now they are apparently referred to as being "Emo", whatever that means. Do you ever find yourself saying things from the 80s? I have found myself tempted to say "Face!" a couple times to Ryan to be silly. For some very odd reason, I can still remember Dominic Urimini yelling that to someone as we'd all be playing dodge ball or bombardment for P.E. in 5th or 6th grade, as he'd put his hand in front of his face. We'd even say "Facial scrub!" sometimes too. How silly, yet I miss those innocent days in elementary school.

But man, just thinking back on my junior high years (1987-89), I sure am glad that's over and would never want to do that again, EVER. And high school wasn't any better in the early 90s. Good riddance I say.

PS-If there's one song that reminds me of junior high, it is the one playing--"True Blue" by Madonna. I once did a lip sync to it in Frog Hall. Yikes.


(Okay, so this outfit is actually cute, but I still cannot picture Ryan wearing pants rolled up like this unless we're walking on a beach somewhere barefoot)

(I loved my "newspaper print" outfit so much that I kept the tags! I got the outfit on the left for one of my birthdays. Oh how I miss it!)

(1988-8th grade-nothing like a kinky perm and a bottle of peroxide to make you look just plain hot)

(8th grade graduation-a little immodest, I know, but there were no dresses and this was modest compared to what my friends were wearing. And now the peroxide is growing out. Horrid.)