Nothing makes you feel older than when you mention a popular song from the ‘80s to someone in their 20s and they have no idea what you’re talking about.
May 3, 1983
1. Beat It, Michael Jackson
2. Flashdance, Irene Cara
3. C'mon Eileen, Dexy's Midnight Runners
4. Jukebox, The Flirts
5. One on One, Hall & Oates
6. Little Red Corvette, Prince
7. Der Kommissar, After the Fire
8. She Blinded Me with Science, Thomas Dolby
9. Solitaire, Laura Branigan
10. Shadows of the Night, Pat Benatar
Thirty years ago today I started my Top Ten. It’s one of the few things I still have from this time. In 1983 my Great-Great-Aunt Irene, the woman who taught me how to play Canasta, passed away and left my mother some money, which my mother then used to buy my sister and me bedroom furniture. Until this time, my room was furnished with a twin bed, an old kitchen table that I sometimes gnawed on and used as a desk, and a cardboard dresser for my clothes, the kind of thing that comes folded flat, meant to be assembled in three minutes and hidden away in a closet for extra storage. A pale moss green color with faux quilting and plastic pulls, this was some fancy shit for a closet. As bedroom furniture, not so much.
I never minded the cardboard dresser, though. It made rearranging my room a breeze.
I never minded the cardboard dresser, though. It made rearranging my room a breeze.
My new furniture was white Techline. Two dressers and a drafting table, because I had always intended to be an architect. I accessorized with yellow. A pillow for the bed, a swing-arm lamp that clamped to the table, a bucket for trash, and a big jar with a thick yellow lid, because what 12-year-old kid doesn’t need a big jar? I used mine to hold my collection of ribbons, part of my factory of art supplies that I used to make greeting cards.
The dressers eventually got replaced, the pillow fell apart, and the yellow lamp fell out of favor, but I still have the jar, the bucket and the drafting table, on which I wrote my first Top Ten chart. Over the years the jar has held spare change, marbles, sugar and, currently, nothing at all. As old as it is, it never makes me feel old. Not like those 20-somethings who don’t know the ‘80s.
I recently said the words Debbie Gibson to a 24-year-old and he looked at me with zero recognition. “Shake Your Love?” I said. “Lost In Your Eyes?” Nothing rang a bell. Not even the black hat.
Not long ago, I met a person who had never heard of Cher. Cher. This person, not without a head, has fully functional eyes and ears along with unrestricted access to the internet, television, radio, newspapers and magazines, and not once, during the entire course of his nearly 30 years, had he ever even heard of...Cher. "Cher," I said. "Sonny and Cher? 'I Got You Babe?'" Didn't know it. "'If I Could Turn Back Time?'" Never heard it. "'Moonstruck?' 'Mask?' 'Silkwood?' She won an Oscar!" I cried. None of it was clicking. I gave up the fight when I was reduced to mentioning the infomercial for Lori Davis hair-care products.
I get that everyone has a different reality. I just assumed that all realities included at least one version of Cher.
I get that everyone has a different reality. I just assumed that all realities included at least one version of Cher.
This likely happens to every generation, this feeling of old when your pop cultural icons, once household names, become meaningless to the next generation. And so I wait anxiously for the day when the 20-somethings become 40-somethings and have to explain Justin Bieber.
