80s nostalgia: The best decade to come of age

As a child of the 80s, I'm 100 percent confident it was by far the best decade in history to come of age. Really. No question about it.

And when I think back to those times ... well, I mostly feel bad for kids today. Those kids today. Pfffft. I mean, they'll never know the pure joy of ...

Emergency breakthrough: You had to call Lauren to tell her Steve told Jill that Mark likes Tara but Tara likes Steve but when you called Lauren, there was a busy signal. After all, call waiting costs big money! So you dialed the operator, say you needed to make “an emergency breakthrough' to Lauren's number, and next thing you know, you're in Lauren's phone call as a third party, the operator says “You have an emergency breakthrough from ...' and you quickly say, before the operator disconnects you, “StevetoldJillthatMarklikesTarabutTaralikesSteve!CallMeBack!'

Discovering rap music: Back in the early 1980s, rap music had yet to explode into the national consciousness. And then, all of a sudden, it did. Run-DMC hit, and nothing was ever the same. From there, it was just a short hop to the gangsta rap coming out of Los Angeles. Which led to a certain 15-year-old suburban white boy (let's call him “Geoff') purchasing the debut CD of N.W.A. And speaking from experience, there may not be a more ridiculous sight in the world than the same white suburbanite teen jumping around his bedroom singing along to “Straight Outta Compton.' Nothing can be more ridiculous. Nothing.

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Not knowing what time it is: Used to be people had no idea what time it was. And even if you wore a watch, it was reasonable to expect yours to be up to five minutes different than someone else's. Today, with cell phone satellite overlords setting the time, we no longer have any excuse to be late.

Passing notes: I still possess notes from high school. My parents still live in my childhood home, and so I still have that one drawer where all sorts of school-age paraphernalia ends up. Notes exist there. Going to be very hard to store texts for 20 years.

Not knowing who won Fantasy Football games: Know this: My Fantasy Football league started in 1986. Same league, going on our 27th year. Great league. But when we started, there was no Internet. Which meant you had to wait for the morning paper to find out all the stats. In some cases, things weren't settled until Wednesday morning, because the Monday Night game ran late. Box scores in newspapers, people. Now that's fun.

Being excited for MTV video debut: Listen, when Adam Curry said the new Def Leppard video was going to debut at 3 p.m., you ran home from school. Sprinted, if need be. And don't even get me started about the moment “November Rain' hit from Guns 'N Roses. If I remember correctly, President Bush declared it a national holiday.

Hanging at the arcade: There used to be a thing called an arcade that housed video games. You'd play them, but the real thrill was hanging around, smoking cigarettes and hitting on girls. Make no mistake: The neighborhood arcade was not a squeaky clean all-America place; it was dark and dangerous and fun.

Hating a country, not an idea: My generation was brought up to hate the USSR. They were the bad guys. But consider: Kids who are 18 years old today were 6 when 9/11 happened. They've been brought up to hate an idea, namely violent radical Islam. I don't know, but it sure seems better to hate geography.

Quitting a job: Kids, listen to this craziness: There used to be a time when people who hated their jobs would just up and quit, confident in their ability to get an equal or better job within a few weeks. Can you imagine? Someone quitting a job? I know. Insane.

Being disgusted by sushi: Eat raw fish instead of cook it? That's gross. And what's that? Seaweed? It's wrapped in seaweed? Barf. Today, of course, even craptastic grocery stores carry fresh made sushi. In another 10 years, you'll be getting it at McDonald's.

Not knowing stuff: Let's say you're having an argument with someone over some arcane fact. If you wanted to settle the matter, you had to go to a library, shuffle through the card catalog, hope to find a dusty book that contains the knowledge you seek. In practice, this actually never happened. You just gave up. But today? Takes all but .2 seconds to find out where Babe Ruth used to eat breakfast when he played for the Boston Red Sox. (Place called Landers.)

Not seeing puppies and balloons: I'll explain: When my boy was 18 months old, he was sitting on my lap while I was on the computer. He had a few words at this point, one of them being “pupas' (for puppies). So he pointed to the computer and said, “pupas pupas pupas.' I took this to mean he wanted to see puppies. So I YouTube'd “puppies,' and of course I got tons of puppy videos. After a few minutes, he started saying “pupa balloon,' which I took to mean he wanted to see puppies playing with balloons. Well, there's videos of that also as it turns out. But consider: If you were born at any point in human history and died before 2005 or so, and you spent the entirety of your life wanting to see puppies playing with balloons, there's a good chance you never witnessed it and died a sad, sad man.

Not having to always look your best: No cell phone cameras lurking in every pocket, ready to take a shot of you and be posted to Facebook. As a result, we used to not shower for days and be proud of it.

Being excited by the mail: I used to, and still love, getting the mail. There might be word from the outside world! Magazines, letters, catalogs! The Internet ruined it. Bleh. Now go follow me on Twitter, please.

Jeff Edelstein can be reached at jedelstein@trentonian.com, facebook.com/jeffreydelstein and @jeffedelstein on Twitter.

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