Category: GenX

BrianWilkins.org
April 23, 2022

The year 1980 is to the oldest of Generation X, as 1990 is to the youngest of Generation X (i.e. ME). Those years transitioned from one era to the next. I talked about Disco Demolition Night in another blog post and in a 2006 podcast I created while a student at Arizona State University.

Disco (circa 1972-1980) was one of the grooviest eras in music history; and the last truly creative genre of Black American music. Synthesizers came along in the 1980s and trivialized pure music talent, meaning people who played actual instruments. The 80s, by far, is my favorite decade of music. But it was nowhere near the most talented decade for artists. read more

BrianWilkins.org
November 26, 2021So the headline isn’t 100% true. The Facts Of Life Season Two debut aired on November 19, 1980. But it was a two-part series. “The New Girl: Part 1” aired on November 19. Part Two aired on November 26, 1980.

Jo Polniaczek (Nancy McKeon) joined Blair Warner (Lisa Whelchel), Dorothy “Tootsie” Ramsey (Kim Fields), Natalie Green (Mindy Cohn), and housemother Edna Garrett (Charlotte Rae) at Eastland, a private, upscale all-girls high school in upstate New York. read more

BrianWilkins.org
October 18, 2021

I implore every child to keep calendar journals starting right now. Because I couldn’t write these stories without my own journals from childhood.

1983 was a great year for me as an 8-year-old. I was making “good” money from my paper route (about $30/week) and another $5 to $10 per week from golf ball hunting/selling during the summer months. Sure I mostly bought Star Wars action figures, Legos and comic books (the first Transformers toys didn’t come out until 1984). But one of my paper route customers held a garage sale on July 8, 1983; and I bought a used walkman and a tape recorder. At the time, walkmans were still too expensive for an 8-year-old kid to buy brand new with his paper route money. read more

BrianWilkins.org
April 15, 2021

Damn I’m getting old! I remember so vividly playing Pac-Man at the bowling alley down the street from my house in Marshalltown, Iowa when I heard this for the first time. I got the quarters to play the arcade game from selling golf balls. We used to go golf ball hunting across the street from the golf course, and golfers would buy them. That’s Gen X economics for kids.

Some argue “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” is the greatest song of the 80s. Billboard ranked it #56 of all-time in 2008. It’s a classic for sure, with lots of childhood memories tied to it. But many people don’t know that Joan Jett neither wrote the song, nor originally performed it. Those honors go to 1970s glam rock band The Arrows. Lead singer Alan Merrill and guitarist Jake Hooker wrote the song and first performed it in 1975. read more

BrianWilkins.org
May 18, 2020

The summer of 1984 was a banner time for movies. See Ghostbusters, Sixteen Candles, Revenge of the Nerds, Karate Kid, et al. The Orpheum theater in Marshalltown, Iowa had a new movie playing called “The NeverEnding Story” (NOTE: last movie I saw at the Orpheum was Caddyshack II in 1988). I had $5.52 in my pocket from my paper route job. That was enough for a movie ticket, popcorn and pop in those days.

I watched “The NeverEnding Story” by myself, with only 40-50 other people in the theater. It shaped me forever. All I wanted from that point forward was to save my Childlike Empress (aka Moon Child). read more

BrianWilkins.org
February 15, 2020

I skipped school on Thursday, February 15, 1990. I’d met this cute eighth grader at Skate North in Des Moines the previous Friday and was going to spend the day at her house. Problem was that I was only 14 (no driver’s license) and she lived far out in Urbandale. The bus took me part of the way, before I walked the last three miles.

My journal is a bit illegible the rest of the way due to spilling something on it over the years. But her mom came home early and I ended having to hide in the closet and climb out a window when the coast was clear. In-school suspension was coming the next day for the truancy. But hey, she was really cute! read more