1986

I was 15 when it began.  A year that changed so much.  A time when I began to find out who I was and broke out of the mold I set for myself.

A time for BHTL…

A time for friends…

A time to be happy…

A time to win…

A time to be young…

A time to pretend…

A time to panic…

A time to appreciate…

A time to look away…

A time for heroes…

A time to pray…

A time for dreams…

A time for love…

A time to look to the future…

A time to run…

It was 1986.  I was a high school sophomore and junior during this year.  We lost a teacher before she ever entered space.  We joined Hands Across America.  The Police got back together for the Amnesty International concert.  The beginnings of Glasnost led to the end of the Cold War as fallout fell around Chernobyl.  Ferris took a Day Off while Molly got Pretty In Pink.  We wasted our time watching Geraldo find a bottle of moonshine but we were obsessed with Max Headroom.  Bill Buckner let a ball slide between his legs while we watched a Refrigerator do a Shuffle.  For myself, it was a reawakening that changed my life forever, where the bizarre met the future.  Howard and Phil told us No One Is To Blame.  I was a short-lived Drammie.  A lady rose in stature once more.  The term “going postal” was born in Oklahoma but we lost a couple good ones at my school.  Lindsay Lohan entered the world while there was some affair going on between Iran and Contra.  I worked at a comic store and helped out with a magazine about comic books as well as the local pharmacy.  I spent a lot of time that summer in Ridgefield where I left my heart for a while.  I played football in Vermont one weekend and was an Antassawomack Beach Bum another.

To truly get this article, you had to be alive at the time, and probably into some of the same stuff I was at the time.  Alternative music, comics, Yankees, and movies!  The Cold War was still going on but we could see the beginnings of a warm-up.  I walked out of my own shadow and became… something!  It was a chrysalis but I didn’t find out what came out of the cocoon until many years later.  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  It was 1986…