My Tradition
Hey, anyone remember the 80's? Life before 9-11? Before AIDS, gay rights, Islamization, before cell phones?
Before the internet?
Remember ska? Devo? David Bowie? Madness? The B52's, The Cure? Sweet Dreams made of this? Remember how much fun everything was? No one cared about anything, particularly and no one really expected anything. I know I didn't. Except for my hair. I really cared about my hair.
Between about 1984 and 1989 I Paid Attention to pop culture. (Some day I might post a photo of myself at about 21 with a haircut like the blonde guy above.)
My own version of it was blonde enormously spiked hair wrapped with various scarves. Long jangly earrings, oversize pink t-shirts and narrow-legged matching pink jeans (ankles so narrow they had to have little zippers at the hems to get your foot through) with a little pink bandanna wrapped around one ankle and a long string of pearls wrapped around the wrist. Jellies for shoes.
I am happy to say that I find this stuff cringingly embarrassing now, which is, I believe the correct reaction to one's youthful enthusiasms. Unlike the previous generation that clings to them to this day. But if we are talking about our genuine "tradition" and deciding that we are not entitled to anything not strictly from our own lifetime, or directly handed to us by our parents, then it's back to the Cyndi Lauper/Molly Ringwald look for me!
If you need help remembering, this oughta bring you back.
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