Tag: 80’s

I Love Christmas

I know it’s been a while.  It was not my intention to keep my readers hanging for the next post.  Too many other things came up, including a job transfer, school events for the kids, and other little things that have kept me exhausted and away from the keyboard.

Those things have also kept me from something else.  Decorating the house so it can be seen from outer space.  I’m nowhere near the people who burn out the power grid lighting up their house – I would like to be – but my salary won’t allow it.  I had my Christmas tree up pretty much on time, just after Thanksgiving.  The outside of the house got decorated a week late because of a wedding I attended.  Now I find myself trying to place the 4 or 5 crates of indoor Christmas decorations all over the house.  I don’t think it’s all getting put up this year.  Unfortunately.

It’s too bad that Christmas just doesn’t hold the same amount of excitement as it did when I was 10 years old.  We all go through that though.  Now we get the thrill out of making it memorable for our children.  Something that sticks out in my mind from when I was younger, was that you had one chance to catch the Christmas Specials on television, or else you had to wait an entire year to see them again.  If I didn’t catch Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer on CBS, I was screwed.  Frosty, same thing.  If I ever missed A Charlie Brown Christmas, I don’t know if I could concentrate for the next 364 days.

One thing I remember though.  I never missed a Christmas special.  At least, I don’t remember ever missing one.  I was always told by one of my parents when it would be on, and I would be ready, already in my pajamas, when the show started.  We didn’t have programming guides on the TV back then.  We used a book which had a chart in it and looked like this:

wpid-img_48191.jpgNow this is a more modern version of the insert that came with every Sunday newspaper.  I’ll try to find one from the 80’s but right now this will have to do.

I don’t know what it is about Christmas that stirs up memories.  Maybe it’s the musty smell of the Christmas tree box.  It could be the special ornaments that you only see for about a month a year.  The joy in finding a new decoration in a store that reminds of you of a decoration you had in your house as a kid.

The one thing I can’t seem to recreate?  The feeling of anticipation on Christmas Eve.  The desire for that new toy.  The eagerness to open the next present even though it’s your brother’s turn to open one.

I can’t get that feeling back.  I can however, watch my children experience that feeling.  And that’s okay with me.

I’m Totally Frustrated. I Want my Bean Bag Chair.

I am completely frustrated today.  We had a semi-busy day in the office today.  A lot of unscheduled projects and issues came up.  Nothing too crazy, just a lot of nonsense.  I wasn’t project lead on any of the assignments today, but I got pulled in a few different directions to help out.  I don’t mind helping, trust me.  I guess I just get a little stressed with the way some others decide to run their projects.  I understand it’s not my place to insert my ideas in another person’s work, so I just go with the flow.

I then had to make some personal phone calls due to another issue I am having. It’s nothing bad, and not worth describing here.  Just another item on the to-do list.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t have too many friends that I can just go “hang out” with.  Most everyone I know is married with children.  On the way out of the building today I ran into one of my really good friends from work.  I haven’t seen him in a long time because he moved to a different division, but I run into him in the hallways every once in a while.  We caught up for a few minutes before we both had to go our separate ways.

I then figured I may call another friend of mine and see if he wanted to hang out.  Apparently tonight is “movie night” at his house, so we can’t hang out.   Apparently I’m having trouble finding something to do.

So all those things, plus the fact I’m overly tired, has caused me to feel frustrated.  Just run down.  Yes, I know.  This blog is not my personal diary.  I am not posting about my day-to-day activities and my moods.  Here how this all fits in:

I no longer have a personal escape to go to.  I no longer have “my room.”

My house isn’t big enough for a man cave, and I am married so the room isn’t mine along by any stretch of the imagination.  It got me thinking about how we used to have a place to go to.  Someplace you could go and shut the door and do (pretty much) whatever you wanted to decompress or get away from it all.

I shared my room with my brother, which was kind of a pain, but I do remember we had the bean bag chairs, and the brand new SEGA Genesis hooked up to our TV.  I could spend the entire day up there and for the most part be left alone.  If I didn’t want to bother with anybody I could go in and just close the door.  Our room was also kind of cool because at one point we actually got a cable box to hook to our TV.  It had a wired remote, push button switches, and a toggle switch because each push button had three possible channels.  You selected the row of channels by selecting the row on the toggle switch.  It looked similar to this one:

Push button cable box
Anyone remember that?  Also, you had the option of watching the scrambled channels and hoping the purple scramble would briefly organize itself into something recognizable.  Yes, that was entertainment.  You can’t imagine the freedom this little box gave a 12-year-old kid in the pre-internet days.  Especially watching shows like USA Up All Night.  For those who don’t know what that was, it was a late night B-movie that played on the USA Network, with host Rhonda Shear having segments in between commercial breaks.

You have to remember.  There was nothing else to do in those days for entertainment at home.  No texting, computers were rare, no video on demand.  You could watch television or play video games.  Or, go outside and play.  Those were good times.

I really wish I had my own room with the bean bag chair and my cable box right now.  Sounds like a great way to relax.

That’s What The “M” Stands For

To be honest, other than my aches and pains I get a lot more often now than before, I don’t really feel like I’m in my late 30’s.  Mostly since my maturity level is about the same as when I was 22 years old.  When I hang around with my friends, or start joking around, my maturity level drops to near 15 years old.  One thing keeps reminding me that I am at the age that I used to consider “old” when I was in high school:  My 11-year-old daughter.

She isn’t doing it intentionally, but it’s really hard not to notice when she asks “Dad, you were alive in the 20th century, how did they [fill in the blank]?”  Seriously, she recognizes that I was alive in the 1900’s, which to me, sounds like I was born before electricity.

A few nights ago, my wife was watching a documentary on one of the On Demand channels we have.  The show was about the awesome music group, Genesis.  If you don’t know who they are, you will probably learn a lot about the “20th century” from my blog, but also, here is a video to help you catch up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIBMpHl-1WU

Where am I going with this?  During the documentary, the narrator talks about the launch of MTV.  My daughter happened to be watching and she says “Wow, they had MTV back then?” I just had to take a moment to myself and process the question.  Sure, she’s only 11.  She thinks everything was invented yesterday.  But then I realized… she has NO IDEA what MTV was.  Today its a channel full of pregnant teenager shows and – okay – I don’t know what is on MTV anymore, I can’t stand watching it.  I do, however, know for a fact that it sure isn’t the 24/7 Music Video Channel.

I remember watching MTV all the time.  I remember watching all day waiting for “Walk Like an Egyptian” to play.  Remember that?  Oh, good times.

MTV had hosts called VJ’s.  Video Jockeys.  How awesome was that?  They also had countdown shows, MTV News, and MTV Spring Break, which all revolved around MUSIC.  As a young MTV viewer you got to know your VJ’s :  Kurt Loder, Martha Quinn, Tabitha Soren, Downtown Julie Brown, and many others.

A lot of the stars we know today were on MTV back in their early years.  Jon Stewart, Colin Quinn, Pauly Shore, and Carlson Daly to name a few.  Of course there were my personal favorites: Jenny McCarthy and Daisy Fuentes, for obvious reasons.

All that is gone now.  I now have access to everything they have ever had on that channel, but it’s not the same.  I hate to say things come to easy to us now, but sometimes I think they do.  There’s no wait.  No anticipation.  No impatience.  No thrill.

Now I find myself looking at my daughter, realizing she will never understand what it was like not being able to watch a music video with a simple search on YouTube.  She believes that MTV has nothing to do with music. She’s right.  It doesn’t have anything to do with music anymore.  She doesn’t even understand why it’s called M TV!  She probably just thinks it’s 3 random letters they decided to put on the channel.

So, feeling as old as my chronological age, I sigh and tell her.  “Yes they did.  It played music videos.  That’s what the “M” stands for in MTV.  Music Television.”

“Oh.”  She replies, turning back to the TV to watch the show.  No big deal to her.  Just another interesting fact in her young world.

At least she likes Genesis.  That’s daddy’s girl.