If You’re Lost You Can Look and You Will Find Me

I’ve mentioned that I was alive during the Apex of Civilization, as depicted here.

This is a pale shadow, of course, of what the 1980’s really were.  The ’80s were a singular time and place, when rising in the morning to the sounds of Tiffany and climbing into a pair of fluorescent-flecked Keds was considered an acceptable way of life.  An awesome way of life.

I’m not exaggerating when I tell you this was the apex of Western Civilization.  Booming economy, singing Ewoks on the movie screen, Planter’s Cheez Balls on the table,  space shuttle in the sky, Clearly Canadian in the fridge, glitter on the eyelid, Smurfs on the television,  MicroMagic in the freezer, and actual talent required for a career as a country-western musician.  And, according to the  historical document The Cosby Show, racial tension was at an all-time low.

When I grade papers, I stream sitcoms from the era.  They have a soothing effect, the plastic hair clips and belted sweaters banishing the comma splices and heartfelt analysis of “the notorious ancient author, Robert Frost.”  Over the course of about two and a half weeks, I experienced the entire seven-year run of Kate and Allie, which I missed the first time around, for the timelessly artistic reason that it aired after my bedtime.   And at one point I looked up from a run-on sentence and saw the following:

MY SWEATSHIRT.  From 1987.  On my computer screen.

Note the velor!  The scrunchability of the sleeves!  This particular model is red with gold piping, which were my school colors, but I failed to execute quite the accessory puffiness exhibited here without an assist from a plastic headband.  It’s inspiring, but there are still better glories to be found on Newhart, on which I once saw a sweatshirt with shoulder pads.

I saw a lot of little girls and boys dressed in ’80’s garb this Halloween, which, while initially a delightful revisiting of painter’s caps and plastic chunks of earrings, gradually became a source of a horrifying revelation.   So… the ’80’s are now merely a long-ago old-timey decade of costumization occurring sometime between hoop skirts and last week.  It is now like a short fringed skirt or a wide riverboat brim:  An era distilled to a trinket or two purchasable at Claire’s.

The shoulder pads may yet revisit us.

banana clip at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

I Got a Rock

I now have more nephews than arms, and that’s okay:

As you can see, Sam The Newborn Nephew is kind of smushed and lumpy, but as his brothers started out the same way, I’m sure he’ll unfurl at some point.

Here you can see part of his bib collection, and also his chic Tiny Flannel Mittens look.  It is fierce.

One of Julie The NephewMama’s neighbors captured this on the security cam:

When I was asked to help with Halloween, I initially thought this was a sop to a pathetically incompetent aunt, one who still cannot discern Annie from Clarabel on sight.  But Jim and Will were hitting the neighborhood with their cousin Max, and as soon as they reached the end of the sidewalk, they immediately dispersed in three different directions.  Jim tried to cross the street, Max trundled down the hill, and Will, still not clear on this whole trick or treating concept, headed for his own garage.  Clearly, a man to man defense was required.  I took Thomas the Tank Engine in hand.

The first house was the one next door, the very one Julie and Country The Brother-In-Law used to inhabit when they were first married.  (This is how we do things, on the West Side.)  Jim and Max performed admirably and came away with M&M’s.  Will made it halfway down the driveway and stopped dead.

I encouraged him forward a step. “Come on, Will!”

Another step.  He stopped dead.

I moved forward another inch so that he could understand that all of a sudden it was all right to leave the house after dark and go to a strange person’s house in search of food he’s normally told he isn’t allowed to have.  “See what James is doing!  Come on!   It’s okay!”

I got maybe another millimeter out of him, and then the neighbor took pity on both of us and  hurled the candy in his general direction.  “Oh, Will, wow!  Look at that!” I said in tones normally reserved for a lunar landing.  “What do you say?”

Will stooped down, collected the M&M’s and ran in the opposite direction.  Perhaps he knew that I was about to have my first sighting of a Snuggie in the wild.

Country The Brother-In-Law, meanwhile, was collecting beer.  (This, also, is how we do things on the West Side.)  He started out with Miller Lite, then graduated when another family down the street saw the Miller Lite, scoffed, and insisted that he take a can of Yuengling.  I was vastly disappointed in this.  First of all, aunts weren’t offered beer.  Second of all, in my day, the Greek Orthodox family who lived at the top of the cul de sac used to distribute shots.  (This escaped my notice until I was told about it after I reached my thirties.  I suppose I was too busy somehow managing not to burst into flames in my plastic Cowgirl Barbie mask and matching vinyl smock.)

The stunning differences between an in MY day Halloween and what currently passes for Work for Candy didn’t stop there.  It was obvious that a Sam’s Club was part of the local landscape; several homes offered full size candy bars, formerly only rare, a set-aside treat for cul-de-sac kids.  Do you know how many Bit-O-Honeys, Mary Janes, and generic Pez I had to sift through to get to the occasional mini-York’s Peppermint Patties?  DO YOU?!

One house offered an array of Hershey’s delights and Butterfingers; when Will was encouraged to choose, he announced, “I want the yellow one.”  Thus Mommy had a full bar of one of her favorites before bedtime went down.  James, meanwhile, fully conscious of his peanut allergy, chose Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Snickers, Paydays, and Reese’s Pieces.

If you’ve never been to Cincinnati, allow me to clue you in that in addition to featuring alcohol-based neighborhoods, it’s also really, really hilly.  Will enjoyed going down a hill well enough; in the picture you see above, he was just starting to run, prompting the group behind us to observe that I had a runaway train to manage.  Going up the hill?  Not so much.  On the Thomas the Tank Engine DVD’s, the engines are forever breaking things, smashing cars, hurting feelings, and in general creating an OSHA nightmare, but on this night, Thomas went on strike.

“I don’t like the hill,” Will announced.

When we returned home, he burst in the house with the news that “I did it!”  What he did not mention was that Aunt Beth carried him the rest of the way, and that Daddy had used Jim’s plastic pumpkin as a beer courier so as to share the yeast wealth with Poppy Ron.

The division of candy involved removing everything peanut-based, but as Jim was left with a bounty of Ring Pops, he was pleased with life.  Will carried a piece of candy to his grandmother, along with the happy news that he now had chocolate in his posession.

It was a Milky Way, and it did not please him.  He abandoned half of it on the kitchen table, and went hunting for Skittles.  Blasphemer.

been tipped worse at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com