All aboard. Travel back in time.
This is probably not the healthiest thing for me to do (since I already live too much in the past). But to try and pass some of the time until I leave the family’s house, which will now be after Christmas, I thought I’d blog about every year of my ’80s childhood here. It’s hard not to reminisce when you’re in the house where you grew up.
1980
All anyone wanted to do was listen to “Funkytown” on the radio. We had just moved a few streets down to a new house, so I was getting used to all the kids there. One of the first things to happen was the girl two doors down charging me a dime to come in her clubhouse.
(living here was gonna be quite expensive for a six year old, eh)……
And that wasn’t my first introduction that year to the upcoming challenges of childhood.
I was in first grade, and my teacher brilliantly came to the conclusion that because I could read, do math, and shoot hoops well, that meant I could do anything right. So whenever I did something wrong or stepped out of line, I was punished like I should do better (I couldn’t) or know better (I didn’t.) Despite the fact that I was not a kid who got in trouble much at all.
Apparently she thought that a six year old with some potential should already know everything about life. Not exactly the hallmark of a wise grade school teaching veteran.
Soooo, I got to know the area behind the “screen” pretty well. This was where you were sent as punishment. Once this even happened after another kid flat-out lied about me running around the room while she was gone. Without even listening to me or believing my side (and one thing I did NOT do back then was lie), there I was behind that damn thing again.
That may have been the first time I thought “what the hell??”. When it came to experiencing how unreasonable people could be, I learned pretty early.
But things would improve. The following year would bring my first crush.
To be continued.
Mister A's domain 