I have grown up at a seemingly pretty awesome time in history. Some will argue that the decade of peace and love was the best, others may have fond memory’s of flapper dresses and bootleg gin. But for me, the late 80’s and 90’s is what I know. As great as this time period was for me it occurs to me that some of the greatest things about it will be lost for my son. He will never get to experience many of the things that I found truly wonderful and inspiring. He is the list:
- Making someone a truly great mixed tape
- The genius that was the Ren & Stimpy Show
- Thundercats
- VH1’s Behind the Music
- MC Hammer Pants
- Saturday Morning Cartoons from 6 – 11
- Five Star Trapper Keepers
- Dunkaroos
- Knowing all the words to the theme song to the Fresh Prince
- Those first 80 minute CD’s
- Monster albums like Pearl Jam’s Ten and Green Day’s Dookie – seriously, who didn’t have those
- That box of video tapes with movies ripped off HBO from when you had that free 2-month trial
- How cool Napster was and how you could spend an entire afternoon downloading music over dial-up and not care
- When your summer consisted of just a Super Soaker and Crocodile Mile
- Being one of like 5 people at your high school with the Nokia 7610 cell phone, and letting everyone know you had it
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit
- Mortal Kombat for Sega Genesis
- Tear away Adidas pants
- Oregon Trail
- How Megatron could transform into a pistol in the Transformers cartoon
- Playgrounds made of wood and tires and other things you could hurt yourself on – not composite plastics
- For that matter – playing red rover at school and having it be acceptable
- When MTV played music videos – and when they were awesome
- Hitting someone as hard as you could with a Slap Bracelet
- Being sent out by your parents on a Saturday with nothing but your 10-speed and a pocket full of dreams
- A world before reality TV
- Reebok Pumps
- When Billy Idol taught you about sex with the video for Rock the Cradle of Love
- The life event that was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie
- When you found the 2 secret warp zones in Marion Bros.