my 1989

10-30-99

Beware! Run-on sentences ahead....

John and I spent part of the evening listening to this special "retro" program on the radio. "Retro" is the term being used for music from the eighties. I guess the term "oldies" is reserved for the pre-disco era. I'm glad the "oldies" aren't from my childhood.

I dig eighties music; it brings back the nights I spent with my Fisher Price turntable and my Disco Duck carry-case of 45 rpm vinyl records, and Saturday morning Top Forty Countdowns with Casey Casem while I was grounded in my room until I cleaned it.

Eighties music also reeks of the junior high dances that were held in the gym from 2:30-5, four times a year. The ones where I'd scamper in and out of the gym with my "friends" and tell Tim Hutchinson that Rebeccah Shierson wanted to dance with him, just to see if he'd go up to her at the beginning of Bon Jovi's "Never Say Goodbye" and make a fool of himself. (He did, and I feel horrible to this day.)

And I'd wear my Guess? denim mini-skirt with my pink high-top sneakers with two pairs of socks (pink over blue on the left foot, blue over pink on the right,) and the pink turtleneck under the pink-and-blue collared shirt under the huge pink sweater, and three or four pink and blue ponytail holders in my hair.

And Amy and I would stand by the bleachers and discuss the difference between "going with" someone and "going out with" someone, and what the significance was of intertwining one's fingers with a guy's if you happened to be holding hands with a guy. And we'd dance in a circle, and dancing meant stepping from side to side and clapping on the 2 and 4 beats, and wishing we were the good dancers who could step from side to side in the middle of the circle, and also wishing we were in the big circle in the middle of the gym where girls and boys both stepped from side to side.

By eighth grade, it was just me standing by the bleachers watching Amy in that big circle where the cool kids were. Sneaking out of the gym when the slow sets started so I wouldn't have to stand by the bleachers, or even worse, so I might have to dance with someone. And by the end of the year I caught on and quit going to the dances.

I haven't cared yet, and it's been ten years. Ten years! Ten years since I was a dumbass with my hair shorn on one side and chin-length on the other. Ten years since I gave up on ever having tall bangs like Rebeccah Shierson. Ten years since Amy lied and told me Brian McAnally wanted to go with me. (That, in retrospect, was what I deserved for those mean tricks I played on Tim Hutchinson.)

Is there anyone in the world who has fond memories of eighth grade?