Celestial Musings

As I was driving to work along Kitsap Way this morning, jamming to the tunes of KC and the Sunshine Band and lamenting the news that there may be a big-screen version of “The Dukes of Hazzard” in the making, I realized something: I do believe I’m hopelessly lost in the 1980s.

Not the early 80s, mind you, which nobody enjoyed even when they lived in them, but the mid- to late-80s. The COOOL 80s.

The 80s in which we could look back at the Rubiks Cube and a Flock of Penguins — or maybe it was a Flock of Seahawks ... whatever — and be thankful that we were out of that phase.

Why? What is it about the 1980s that won’t let me go? Was it a simpler time? In my mind, yes. People actually put paper to pen and wrote letters instead of dropping e-mails in the days before Al Gore started the Internet.

Sidenote: I was almost certain that the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Minnesota had something to do with that whole Internet thing. I could be wrong.

In the 80s, you could go to a restaurant with someone and not have to worry about their cell phone ringing while you were trying to order a chocolate-chip cheesecake for dessert.

Easier. Simpler.

Families were a lot closer then; brothers and sisters who were forced to spend time together had to beat each other up instead of beating up video game characters on Nintendo. We only had Atari. You could only play Pong and Frogger for so long without getting bored.

Almost every family had a fake Christmas tree instead of a real one, and flocked trees were all the rage. And, of course, every little girl wanted to wake up on Christmas morning and find a Cabbage Patch Doll under the tree.

TV shows and movies were better in the 80s, too, because not every movie had a one, two, three or 10 in the title and TV shows actually involved scripts and not just following people around with a camera. The 80s produced movies like “Top Gun,” “Sixteen Candles,” and “The Natural.”

Nowadays we have to sit through scripts like “Gigli” and the 20th Terminator sequel.

Of course, I’m probably looking at the lost decade through rose-colored glasses because that was the decade of my youth. I mean real youth.

The one where I lived at home with mom and had no responsibility whatsoever.

Back then, a Friday night meant staying over at my best friend’s house, listening to Depeche Mode, eating pizza and fretting over my latest crush.

Now a Friday night means dinner with my husband and my son, eating popcorn and watching Veggie Tales and fretting over bath time and bed time.

Ummm ... wait a minute ... . Life is a lot better now.

What was I thinking?

Celeste Cornish is the editor of the Bremerton Patriot.

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