25 nostalgic things you remember from a specific year or decade!

[claws]

Wow, I didn't know you were going through that. Hope it gets better!

My final surgery was in March. I'm good as new now except for all the scars on my stomach.

[claws]

2021: Covid & Colitis, part 2

(January - June)

1. I'm 18 months on sick leave. Feeling depressed, and the lack of sleep ain't helping much. My doc won't give me strong sleeping aids in fear I get addicted. The plant based stuff doesn't help at all though.
2. Because I'm not allowed to do anything (physical activities) I struggle walking up the stairs to my apartment. I always have to take a break halfway up.
3. Spending most of my time on the internet until my butt hurts from sitting. I then lay down to rest and sleep at odd hours. I'm usually wide awake after midnight.
4. Various family members, friends and co-workers have covid throughout the year.
5. I'm not getting used to having an artificial anus. It looks gross, and I hate to change my poop bag. I have to apply a new one every 2-3 days. Very annoying. I get artifical anus supplies every month from my artificial anus dealer. Costs me 5 Euros each month.
6. Been sleeping on my back since September 2020. Can't lay on the side because of my aa (artificial anus). Whenever I go to bed I make sure my poop bag is empty. I'm constantly in fear it might leak while I'm sleeping.
7. I'm in another town at a clinic specialized in removing my cancerous cyst from my kidney. I feel like I'm in the movie Hostel when they roll me into the section for surgery.
8. Surgery went well. This huge hospital doesn't let you choose your meals unlike the small hospital in our town. Food is good though and I'm discharged early after one week because pandemic and overcapacity.
9. Daily self injection into my upper thigh at home for 28 days so I don't get thrombosis.
10. I've re-discovered nuke's top 5 on youtube. He has the best paranormal videos, and some of them are actually very creepy. Love his channel.
11. I'm at the hospital again in my home town. After pre-surgery prep I lay down and fall asleep. A nurse wakes me and tells me they had a few emergency surgeries and if it would be ok if I came back in one week. Sure. No problem.
12. Done with surgery, aa removed. However, the part of my colon didn't widen as they expected even though they knew about this from x-rays before the surgery. Whatever. I'm told I need another surgery for a new aa so one week later they cut me open again. I spent another total of six weeks at the hospital. Fun times.
13. Bladder infection because of dodgy catheter.
14. Just like my first time at the hospital last year, they struggle to draw my blood because I have rolling veins and/or "hidden" veins. The guy trying to take my blood apologies for stabbing me like 60 times with a needle.
15. Discharged. The final surgery appointment is scheduled for October 2021 that is, if my surgery wound heals in time.

(July - December)

16. My surgery wound is not healing in time. This means I have to see my doctor three times a week for seven months. He has to clean and bandage my wound until it's completely healed.
17. Not much going on in the final half of 2021. My October surgery was cancelled because of my wound.
18. November appointment at the Radiology out of town. They call me the next day saying they weren't able to capture certain important images from my insides and if I would return next week to do it all over again. Like, filling my colon with liquid again that made me squirt hard from my real anus? Sure. No pronblem.
19. My wound finally healed in January 2022. Hallelujah. Final surgery appointment March 2022. Everything went well. Goodbye artificial anus!

[retrorussell]

Wow, I didn't know you were going through that. Hope it gets better!

My final surgery was in March. I'm good as new now except for all the scars on my stomach.
It was so nice to use a toilet again after the artificial anus was removed  

Good to hear you're better!

2020:
1. The first news I heard of Covid.  I had not heard we had to start wearing masks at work until I tried entering the door without one.  I was not thrilled to have to breathe back in my own breath all day.  Still sucks.
2. Also at work they were continuing to try to pair me up with an assistant but they were all incompetent and/or had behavioral problems.  They guy working with me this year was definitely off-- from what he told me his mom had him when she was like 14 or so, which might have accounted for his mental state.  He would go on a smoke break where he wasn't supposed to, play with RC cars where he wasn't supposed to (this is a hospital for Christ's sake!), and blurt out non-PC things to the wrong people and think nothing of it.  Oh, and he would flat-out refuse to do some things he was asked to do.  Real POS.
3. This was the year we got a new Facilities Management boss-- basically my bosses' boss.  They were without a doubt the worst people in any kind of supervisory position I have ever seen.. it was clear they didn't give a damn about you, that they could say whatever they wanted in front of you, they could completely undo anything you were doing or take your equipment and either replace it with something totally inferior or just get rid of it without telling you, etc.  One of them was the 2nd in command and wasn't quite as bad as the other, but still went along with their b.s.  I am so, so glad they left (I think they saw the writing was on the wall).
4. Got my first vaccine (Pfizer) at the end of the year.  I went early and grabbed some schwarma while waiting for the next bus.  Was hoping to be done with the jab on time for work but didn't account for the waiting time after receiving a shot (15 minutes).  Oh well.  Did get a little bit of the chills that night at home (vaccine side effect), so I wore pants and a sweater in bed.  It passed in an hour or so.
5. Joe Biden is elected the 46th President of the United States.  Some say it was a stolen election, and I think some elements of it are suspicious, but I feel it's too late to really get into it.
6. My Buffalo Bills, on the arm and legs of QB Josh Allen, made the playoffs again.  They fall in heartbreaking fashion to Deshaun Watson and the Houston Texans 22-19 in overtime (at one point they lead 16-0).  In the 2020-21 season, however, they would improve quite a bit.
7. We were the victim of the annoying "Hail Murray" throw at the end of our game with the Arizona Cardinals, as Kyler Murray just chucked it downfield and our defenders were not positioned well, allowing the winning TD to fall in DeAndre Hopkins' outstretched arms.  As much as it ticked me off, we would go on a big winning streak after that and we would tie our best franchise record at 13-3!
8. SUPER BOWL LIV: Sensation QB Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs win the franchise their 2nd Lombardi Trophy (almost 50 years since the first one), with a 31-20 win over Jimmy Garoppolo and the San Francisco 49ers.  The Chiefs earlier in the playoffs faced the Texans team that took out my Bills in the playoffs-- whom the Bills lead 16-0 and lost-- and the Texans led the Chiefs 24-0 and blew that game!
9. NBA FINALS: LeBron James wins another NBA title, this time with the LA Lakers, in 6 games over the Miami Heat.  Sports with very few fans in the seats (due to Covid) just isn't sports to me.
10. My brother and I started our restaurant reviews!  He and I took his Jeep on the road for the first one, and it was a doozy-- a long 300-some mile drive out to the Boise area for a review of the burger joint Culver's, and it was pretty good.  Kind of cool trip (VERY expensive with 2 full tanks of gas) and we went up near the Boise State football field (gates were locked but we could still see, and took pics).  Drove by fields FULL of hopping bugs that splatted constantly on our windshield.
11. My brother also wanted to get serious about recording and set up a mic in the corner.  But he basically wanted me to do all the work in getting it set up and contacting a sound manager to visit us and help set it up-- I had nothing to do with this idea from the get-go!  I was pretty p*ssed at him and let him know.  He did back off but this is still kind of a dumb dream project of his.  We did eventually record some Elvis karaoke but now the mic isn't working and we're not sure how to fix it.  Eh, not my problem.
12. World Series: The LA Dodgers win their first title in 34 years, beating the Tampa Bay Rays in 6 games.  The MLB season was shortened to 60 games (and other sports also had their seasons cut down) due to the pandemic.
13. Stanley Cup: The Tampa Bay Lightning win their 2nd Stanley Cup, defeating the Dallas Stars in 6 games.
14. A Ukrainian airliner is shot down by Iranian forces shortly after leaving a Tehran airport.  All 176 passengers are killed.
15. Donald Trump is acquitted after the first impeachment trial.
16. The stock market crashes due to fears of Covid spreading.
17. The 2020 Summer Olympics are re-scheduled for Summer 2021.
18. Confirmed Covid cases reach several tens of millions.  Over a million infected with Covid die (though other afflictions are sometimes chiefly responsible for the deaths), and lockdowns are executed in many countries across the globe.  Masks are commonplace in many gatherings, outdoors and indoors, and social meetings are often conducted via computer.
19. Severe flooding hits East Africa.
20. While arresting criminal George Floyd, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneels on Floyd's chest, eventually killing him after Floyd complains he is unable to breathe.  Destructive protests and rallies across the US break out over racism and police brutality.
21. A new outbreak of Ebola is released in the Congo.
22. The US exits the Paris Climate Accords.
23. The first successful trials of Covid vaccines are announced.
24. Top movies: 365 DAYS, A QUIET PLACE PART II, DOLITTLE, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, NOMADLAND, PIECES OF A WOMAN, TENET, MINARI, BIRDS OF PREY, THE INVISIBLE MAN
25. TV debuts: FBI'S MOST WANTED, THE OWL HOUSE, STAR TREK: PICARD, LEGO MASTERS, DUNCANVILLE, SLOW BURN, BREEDERS, THE MANDALORIAN, SOLAR OPPOSITES, STARGIRL, LOONEY TUNES CARTOONS, STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS.

[retrorussell]

2021:

1. The CDC announces multiple Covid variants over the year (Omicron, Alpha, Delta, etc.).
2. With people continuing to get Covid even after vaccines, the CDC suggests "booster shots".  I never got one, since even those with the booster shots can still get Covid.
3. Got my 2nd Pfizer shot right at the start of the year.  That's enough for me.
4. January 6, 2021: Protestors of the 2020 Presidential election advance on the Capitol building.  Lax security allows them inside, and $1.5 million in damage is dealt out.  Fortunately, only 5 die (2 protestors from heart attack, one protestor from drug overdose, one protestor shot to death by police, and a cop who died of a stroke.  Though only 5 died the event has been compared to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, somehow.
5. A major winter storm strikes the US, with at least 136 dead.  With the Veterans Hospital where I work having high elevation, it often gets very cool, snowy and icy in the winter and can be a real bugger going down the hill.  Buses even with chains may not go up the hill.  If that's the case I may have to take a handy lift to OHSU (Oregon Health & Science University) next door and walk.  At the very least, patient flow will be severely lessened, making a shorter work day likely.
6. The US rejoins the Paris Climate Accords.
7. Billions of vaccines are administered worldwide.  Lockdowns/mask requirements/etc. continue over the year.
8. Hideki Matsuyama is the first Japanese man to win a Major golf championship, taking the Masters.
9. Israel and Palestine war over a property dispute in East Jerusalem.
10. Nearly 100 die in a condominium collapse in Southside, FL.
11. The Summer Olympics are held in Tokyo.  The US wins the most total medals and golds.
12. Over 2,000 die in an earthquake in Haiti.
13. The Taliban capture Kabul. The Afghan government surrenders to the Taliban.  Hundreds die in an airport suicide bombing, including 13 US servicemen and women.  The US responds with an airstrike that kills 10 civilians, not terrorists.
14. The last US troops leave a Kabul airport, with Afghan civilians clinging to a jet in fear of Taliban rule, and falling to their deaths.
15. The trial of 17-year old Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot 3 young men (2 fatally) in Kenosha, WI during racial unrest over the Jacob Blake shooting 2 days prior, ends when he is declared Not Guilty of murder, after pleading self-defense.
16. SUPER BOWL LV: Tom Brady, with his new team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, wins a 7th Super Bowl title and the franchise's 2nd.  They whup the favored Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9.  It is the first Super Bowl with the host city being represented by the Super Bowl champion (held in Tampa, Florida).
17. NBA Finals: The Milwaukie Bucks, led by the "Greek Freak" Giannis Antetokounmpo, win their 2nd NBA title in franchise history, topping the Phoenix Suns in 6 games.
18. Stanley Cup: The Tampa Bay Lightning win the franchise their 3rd Stanley Cup title, beating the Montreal Canadiens in 5 games.
19. World Series: The Atlanta Braves win their first Worlds Series championship in 26 years, beating the Houston Astros in 6 games.
20. My Bills had such a great year, finally breaking through in the playoffs with not only one win (versus Indianapolis) but two (versus Baltimore).  One of the longest pick sixes you'll ever see, courtesy of Taron Johnson:

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Getting to the AFC Championship for the first time since 1994 was sweet, but Kansas City continues to have our number..
21. The LA Clippers reach their first Western Conference Finals!  They fall to the Suns in 6.
22. Top films: SPIDER MAN: NO WAY HOME, NO TIME TO DIE, HALLOWEEN KILLS (saw it in the theater, boy was it dumb but to me "funny bad"; saw it with my renter), GODZILLA VS. KONG, VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE, BLACK WIDOW, THE BATTLE AT LAKE CHANGIN, HI, MOM, DETECTIVE CHINATOWN 3, DUNE, WEST SIDE STORY, CODA, THE POWER OF THE DOG
23. The Korean Netflix show SQUID GAME debuts:

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24. My birth city of Portland was reaching a record high in homicides over Black Lives Matter protests.  The Pioneer Courthouse, among other landmarks and businesses, is vandalized by the protestors.  Also, homeless tents and drugs are all over the place.  Yuck!  Seattle also has similar problems, with occupation protests taking over parts of the Capitol Hill district.
25. 2021 film trailers:

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Plus:
Many longstanding presidents/PM's around the world are killed, retired or overthrown during elections.
Popular Vermont senator Bernie Sanders meme of Bernie masked and huddled in a chair:

[retrorussell]

Adding to some older years:
1980

1. One of my favorite arcade games CRAZY CLIMBER was released!  It was originally released by Nichibutsu but also licensed to Taito (the one I'd seen at our local arcade Malibu Gran Prix).  Play the hell out of it and was never good at it back then, but still really enjoyed it.

2. Great jammin' songs of this year we had on 45 or I'd hear on the radio:
STOMP!- Brothers Johnson
GIVE ME THE NIGHT- George Benson
TIRED OF TOEIN' THE LINE- Rocky Burnette
DREAMING- Cliff Richard
CALL ME- Blondie
MISUNDERSTANDING- Genesis
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU- The Romantics
RIDE LIKE THE WIND- Christopher Cross
ROMEO'S TUNE- Steve Forbert
3. Some AM radio-friendly hits I enjoyed:
SAILING- Christopher Cross
LET ME LOVE YOU TONIGHT- Pure Prairie League
INTO THE NIGHT- Benny Mardones
LOST IN LOVE- Air Supply
ALL OUT OF LOVE- Air Supply
HEY NINETEEN- Steely Dan
LITTLE JEANNIE- Elton John
DRIVING MY LIFE AWAY- Eddie Rabbitt
BIGGEST PART OF ME- Ambrosia
MORE THAN I CAN SAY- Leo Sayer
HIM- Rupert Holmes
4. I used to love watching Tic Tac Dough even though the dragon scared me.. this champ, Tom McKee, won a boatload of cash and his final episode was on 9/22/80.  He finally lost, but took home $312,700-- a startling figure for a game show of that time!

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5. I remember my hometown team the Portland Trailblazers signing a shooting guard with a lot of upside and hustle named Billy Ray Bates.  The fans loved him and he had some great moments his first couple years in Portland-- I even remember him making a guest appearance at our school.  Unfortunately drug problems derailed his NBA career, though he had a fantastic career overseas.  This is one of his more memorable moments-- a great tip-in with one second to play against the 76ers.

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6. WHO SHOT J.R.?  On the prime time soap DALLAS, J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) is shot and America is glued to their sets wondering whodunit!  The episode draws record Nielsen ratings.
7. MIRACLE ON ICE!  The US men's hockey team knocks off the mighty Russians in the Winter Olympics, and goes on to win gold!

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8. Women swooned and got all hot and bothered over Richard Gere's performance (and body) in AMERICAN GIGOLO.  I was too young to know what a gigolo was and got the word confused with "Jello".
9. A violent coup in Libya ends with the killing of the Libyan President and 26 others, effectively overthrowing the entire government.
10. Iron Maiden's debut album is released.
11. Rosie Ruiz apparently wins the Boston Marathon, until it is revealed that she didn't run the entire race.
12. The word "yuppie" is first coined.
13. The LA Lakers, despite missing injured star center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, lean on their rookie Magic Johnson and win the NBA championship (Magic wins MVP honors).
14. The NY Islanders win the first of 4 straight Stanley Cups.
15. 2,000 pro-democracy protestors are killed in South Korea.
16. A massive heat wave kills 1,700 in the US.  I remember all fans blowing in the house and lots of Otter Pops for us kids to keep cool.
17. Bon Scott of the hard rock band AC/DC dies of alcohol poisoning.  Later in the year Brian Johnson replaces him as lead singer and their new album BACK IN BLACK is released to great acclaim.
18. Haiti's Hurricane Allen kills over 200.
19. Playboy Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten (who earlier in the year was in the dumb comedy GALAXINA) is murdered by her creep husband Paul Snider, who then kills himself.
20. Saudia Flight 163 catches fire, killing 301 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
21. Thousands die in a 7.1 earthquake in Algeria.
22. The Philadelphia Phillies win their first World Series championship.
23. A major fire at the Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel and Casino kills 85.
24. Thousands are killed in an earthquake in Irpina, Italy.
25. Terry Bradshaw and the Steelers win the Super Bowl, becoming the first team to win 4.

[ER]

1995 Part II: Not A Year If You Want An Uneventful Life

Really a bunch of personal memories, so skip it: you’ll find it boring. Truly, go play with your cat.


1.   The same week The Far Side ended---leaving me bummed and unable to imagine life without it---I went back to school for the first time in two months, following my brush with death. It felt like jumping into cold, dark water. No one on campus made the big deal about my return that I was worried they would, and the people who mattered were nice to me, with one of the most encouraging being my in-home tutor from the last semester, an education grad student in his late twenties. We were still in touch after his assignment of tutoring me at my house ended, and sometimes would meet to talk in the public library or at a nearby diner. He said many nice things and did seem to honestly care about me, and I still can’t decide if he was a manipulative pervert or a decent man who misread things and went off the rails, but in one stupid moment he ruined the mentoring friendship he’d spent months establishing. I probably should’ve reported him, and hope he never did that with anyone else. He’s still a teacher today.

2.   When Rose Kennedy died at 104, they had a memorial service for her at my school, which we HAD to attend, even though my generation barely knew who she was. It was the only time I remember that we were allowed to not wear our uniforms to school, because we were all told to show up wearing black. I wore my standard black dress---all my life I’ve always had at least one black dress since my mother said every woman should---and I thought it was modest, but it was the same one I’d have on to wear to my grandma’s funeral later in the spring when my aunt viciously scorned me, saying I was trying to look like “a babe,” which was as far from true as something could be. She hurt my feelings on one of the worst days of my young life, though I think in her mind she believed I had a smack-down coming. (More on that later.)

3.   In January things got strange at home. People who weren’t my mom started driving me to and from school, plus some in my family and even neighbors started acting like they felt sorry for me, and one afternoon my cousin Allie, who was three years older, picked me up after class and seemed like she was pitying me, and asked if I wanted some Clonopin, and I inquired what that was, and she said sleeping pills, and I said uh, no, thanks, why would I want sleeping pills, and she said, in case you can’t sleep right now. I was SO clueless, or at least mono-focused elsewhere, but very near that same day, after sitting in her car in our driveway til late in the night talking to a priest, my mom came in and packed a suitcase and said she was going to be with her family for a while. (Her family, yeah, well, what were we?) Somehow I managed to be blindsided by this despite weeks of apparent signs that the sky was falling. Eventually, sounding ashamed and apologetic, Mom called me from across the ocean, and I sat backward on a bar stool with my elbows on the counter while I talked to her, two things she’d never let me do, and she said I could come over with her if I wanted, but I said no thank you, Ireland sucks, and since you’re there, why would I want to be there too? I was furious with her, mostly without a whole lot of right to be.

4.   In a very dark mood after listening to my mom try to explain herself that afternoon, I left my dad a note on the kitchen counter and went to the apartment of the young man I’d one day almost marry, someone I was crazy in love with, and stayed til it was later than I said I’d be back in my note. I’d left the apartment in a defiant, self-justified mood that deflated by the time I got back, and as I came in I saw my note crumpled on the counter, but instead of being worried I realized how tired of everything I was, the sneaking around of the past couple years, the problems at home, school, just everything, so I told my dad I wasn’t going to lie about my life anymore, and he said well isn’t that a first for you these days, and I said it was his fault I had to lie anyway, and he said what, if I just let you do anything you want to do you wouldn’t need to lie to me? So I told him where I had been and said nothing had happened, which was simultaneously a total lie and an absolute truth, depending on how you looked at it, and I ended up telling him a lot of things about my life that he likely already knew but which I had never openly said, and at the end of this intense monologue all he did was asked if I’d gotten my homework done, and that banal question  after everything that’d happened that day and everything I’d just told him seemed unbearable, so I fell backward onto the lowest stair and laughed myself silly from emotion, something I have long done in certain serious situations: like when life was crumbling. What a day….

5.   To practice my driving my grandpa took me on so-called Death Hill on I-75, this notorious high-speed S-curve that had been the site of all number of fatal wrecks going back decades, saying if I could drive that I could drive anywhere. I thought I did great handling the Hill in my grandpa’s Lincoln, but when we got to the bottom Grandpa said to turn off, he needed a beer. I looked across and saw he’d balled his hands into tight fists, ha.

6.   To add to the torments of Great and Terrible 1995, my grandma, whom I loved without limit, had a stroke that sent her into a coma, and my dad’s second-oldest sister, a formidable woman, arranged a special intentions Mass for her in this posh suburb called Hyde Park, which means she paid out of her own pocket to essentially rent out a church for a private service to be held honoring my grandmother, and prayers were to be offered for my grandmother’s recovery and her soul. All the family were there, family friends, my aunt’s lawyer co-workers, neighbors, some high-ups in the Archdiocese, even the Archbishop’s personal representative. It was a big deal. Well, in a supremely unwise, unplanned, outburst on my part, I, in my sixteen-year-old emotionally-charged illogic, told my aunt in front of all those witnesses that I thought she was a hypocrite and was showing off, making my grandmother’s stroke about herself, and if she cared about her mother she’d go visit her, not put on a show event and make it all about her. My rude words shocked everyone so badly they just sat there in an otherwise dead-still, echoing church til my dad and my Uncle Lark ushered me outside, still ranting this hysterical, out of control diatribe that I couldn’t believe was coming from me. Maybe I was past my own ability to keep absorbing the serial tragedies of the time---my own near death, my mom going away, my grandma becoming a vegetable, problems and problems and problems---but there was no excuse for me to verbally explode like that and humiliate my aunt, my family, myself, and to this day my aunt very much holds what I did and said twenty-seven and a half years ago against me, and no amount of apologies or demonstrations of humble contrition have quite erased how livid I made her that horrible day.

7.   Life went on, though, and nobody sent me to the Magdalene Sisters for what I’d done in church, and despite being appalled by my behavior, my dad shielded me from his vindictive sister, telling her if she came after me she’d be “hurting.” (He didn’t make empty threats and she knew he could open a floodgate of “hurt” if he wished, so she didn’t move against me, just stayed furious for years.)  In fact things were so stressful and sad that late winter that my dad and I were always trying to cheer each other up, and one evening I was shopping with him in this store which at least for back then was huge, it was even called bigg’s, and we kept daring each other to do or say things there, and I dared him to jump up and hit this aisle sign, and right in the middle of a mall–size grocery store, my dad of all people ran down the aisle like it was a basketball court and leaped up and smacked this overhead sign that was about ten feet off the floor, hitting it so hard it rocked on its chains for about the next minute. People were staring, and it was awesome. Sure, Dad and I had a lot of strains in our relationship during early 1995, and that spring he more or less took away my whole life for about a month, but we had some great times too in the wake of my mom’s desertion.

8.   But my dumbassness continued unabated, and on the phone I dumped the boyfriend I’d spent the best part of three years trying to get. I did it without even exactly meaning to, more like I was emoting and moping and my words got out of control like a rock rolling down a hill. (If you notice that was a recurring problem for me in 1995….) On the phone I told him I knew I was a s**t girlfriend and he should be going with someone his age, and he was trying to calm me down but I hung up on him mid-sentence and unplugged my phone. I only realized later what I’d done, and he took my semi-unintentional dumping of him seriously and it wasn’t an easy thing to repair. I don’t know about all teenagers but at sixteen I had moments of complete idiocy. I don’t know if I can blame the stressed-out state of my life or if it was just me making one moronic mistake after another, but I, formerly a good-as-gold type kid, made a lot of them.

9.   Finally I did repair things with my boyfriend, you might say I really did, and on the Ides of March I came home with my brain a-whirl wondering why the world was still stubbornly the same as it ever was, to find my dad was waiting there in our house, back from downtown much earlier than usual, and he asked if I wanted to play him chess. I stood in the foyer paralyzed for a second, thinking chess? Chess then? Chess right then? It was too weird to be a coincidence. Or was it? Well, in all my life I had never beaten my dad in chess, it was like tilting at a windmill, the dizzyingly-high IQ of this professional strategist against poor sub-genius me, but since my mind was running in overdrive at that moment, wondering if this was a psych-out, I played a particularly bad match, wanting it to be over, sitting there with each second stretching out, feeling like the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart, and I wanted to tip over the table and yell out a confession about what I’d done that day. Not for a quarter-century would I finally find out it really was a garden-variety coincidence, not a mind game, but you couldn’t have convinced me of it that guilt-plagued afternoon.

10.   A few weeks later life seemed calmer, not exactly better, just you get used to living under stress, and I introduced my boyfriend to my dad’s oldest sister, my Aunt Christie, and they really hit it off. Her own son, my cousin Adam, was horrible to her, and I think she latched onto my boyfriend all the more readily because of that, but they also had many shared interests, both were even English majors. I almost got jealous at how they got so close and how she even stayed that close to him during a time I wasn’t in his life, the first half of 2000, when my work had kept me away and he said he couldn’t handle those uncertain separations anymore, so we were apart in multiple senses of the term. (We would have gotten back together….that’s a cruel irony.)

11.   In the days of long distance charges, our phone bill around this time was over $200.00, a lot for 1995 considering it was usually about twenty bucks. All those lengthy calls to Ireland between my parents added up. What they talked about, I don’t know, but they talked a lot. Me, I decided I had nothing to say to my mother. She’d hurt me and so I was trying to hurt her in return, though all I really wanted, of course, was her to come back so we could hug it out. Missing her, loving her, being mad at her, it throbbed like a deep bruise.

12.   No matter how great things could be between him and me, I had an interesting dynamic with my boyfriend’s family. By that I mean I wouldn’t meet his mom for more than a year, and wouldn’t come to know his sister, who has gone on to be such a good friend of mine, until the next century, because those two had recently relocated to Florida so his sister could attend a school with a great dance program. Very strange, I know. But I did meet his father in the summer of ‘95, and discovered to my surprise that I disliked him on a somewhat visceral level almost from the first moment, something I didn’t understand and tried hard not to show. I wasn’t sure why I disliked him since he went overboard to be nice to me, still does, but dislike him I did. One of the strangest things his father ever told me, and not for over twenty years, was that as a teenager I intimidated him. I asked how on earth I could have intimidated him, being the powerhouse of projected self-confidence that he was, and he said all he knew was when he was around me he felt like he had to constantly be trying his best, because he wanted me to approve of him. I certainly wasn’t aware of that back then.

13.   I did a report on AIDS for a science class, and focused on “Patient Zero” a Canadian man who ignored and denied his HIV-positive status and infected at least two-hundred other men with the disease before his own death. I think there’s a picture of him in the dictionary next to the word “selfish.” I liked that science teacher, though, and he was influential in inspiring me to get one of my degrees in biology. He was a looser teacher than most at my school and in his class girls could actually relax their legs, which is not a joke, many teachers enforced the rule that girls had to keep their knees close together when at their desks, even though as most Catholic schoolgirls can tell you, that meant you’d come home each day with sore legs. (I think this is why so many Catholic girls have better muscle tone in their thighs than their public school counterparts.) Teachers at my school were so obsessed with us not showing too much of our legs in those dreadful plaid skirts that they’d monitor how we ducked and covered during tornado drills, and it was possible to wind up in detention if you hit the deck too immodestly. (And people ask me why I didn’t send my girls to Catholic school….)

14.   Every year during the annual Right To Life Day we were told we had to be there to attend all these brainwashing presentations, or else if we were absent for any reason we had to volunteer for a day at an RTL center, or we would be ineligible for re-admission the next fall. (Wow, what a shame…) The boys weren’t let off the hook on RTL Days, but they really went to town on us girls. The same obese red-faced lady even came every year to rant at us and show us close-ups of dumpsters filled with aborted children, and to ask us to think of how every one of those babies was murdered by its own mother, and to ask ourselves if we would one day be a mother who would do something like that. They threw everything but the kitchen sink into these presentations, and mostly succeeded in desensitizing many of us, since you can only see so many lurid slides before your brain starts humming the theme to The Andy Griffith Show. Well at lunch that particular RTL Day, ’95, some boy from one of my AP classes read this morbid transcript he’d printed offline of what was claimed to be the cockpit recording of the Challenger astronauts as they fell toward the ocean---if you’ve never read it, do yourself a favor and don’t---so that afternoon I had disturbing thoughts in me and disturbing material all around me, and to top it off, for the first time in my life I also suddenly thought of how I actually could get pregnant, no hypothetical Charlotte Flax-level BS anymore, I really could, and it made for the worst RTL Day ever! And where was my darn cousin with her Clonopin then, huh?

15.   It seemed to rain constantly that summer. One of the local weather anchors joked that he saw the sun and thought it was a UFO, it’d been so long since it put in an appearance. (We had a lot of strange weather in 1995: snow, ice, storms, rain, droughts, smoke from an Appalachian forest fire, we had it all.)

16.   Except for the thirty-minute chapel we had to attend at my school, I quit going to church altogether, something done partly to hurt my mom, and partly for genuine reasons, but it was liberating to be free of that. I could give you a dozen reasons why I didn’t think there was a God, and took almost every chance to do so, sometimes inventing the opportunities just to make sure people knew I was rejecting the values of my upbringing. I shudder to think how I sounded then, young, knowing everything, and smugly bashing God, and I think the embarrassment of recalling that is why today I have so little patience for when rebellious atheism is weaponized for shock value.

17.   I often went to see my grandma at her care facility. Though she was in a coma I liked to think she could hear me we I talked to her, and feel me holding her hand. It was there on one visit that I had possibly the only full-on supernatural experience of my life, when I saw a sleeping (or dead?) woman in a room as I passed down the hall to visit Grandma, and when I passed back up the hall that woman and her bed and everything that had been in the room, flowers and cards and a rosary draped on the bedframe, just all of it, was gone, and yet when I mentioned this to the nurse at the floor’s check-in desk, she said no patients had been removed that week and no one had been in the room I pointed out to her. She gave a look that was part quizzical and part freaked out, and I wondered if maybe she’d had her own odd events there. Me, I tried to science it out and thought about time slips more than ghosts, but whatever, I did see something. When my dad told me at the end of May that Grandma was dead, it felt like all the air was ripped from my body, and despite her being comatose and slipping away for a quarter of the year, never in my life did I ever cry so much or so hard as I did when I got that news, and I kept crying for days. Yet sometimes I thought of that vanishing woman in the empty room and wondered if that vision was some sort of sign that life continued after death, though a sign from whom, I didn’t know. Then I rejected the idea, decided my grandma no longer existed, and felt very sad about that, so I cried some more.

18.   I wasn’t aware then as I would be later, that my grandpa, who was a good-looking man with great charm and force to him, had been serially unfaithful to my grandma for most of their marriage, or I am sure I would have felt terrible negativity toward him, but as it was I just had deep pity for his loss and spent a lot of the summer with him: the only one of the grandchildren who did. I was the youngest of the generation and he didn’t make much secret that growing up I was his favorite---shudder-worthy admission yet also true---but I think that summer he appreciated me being there with him, and the fact that in five years he’d leave me his house and most everything he owned had its roots in that time. My family lives in his (and Grandma’s) house to this day, and I hope to pass it down to one of my children. My grandpa changed my entire life.

19.   Though she loved me and made me her sidekick in life, my cousin Dana always had a cruel streak too, probably inherited from my aunt, and one day she invited me to her “bungalow” near her college campus, knowing I was meeting up with my boyfriend that weekend, and then she proceeded to try to trick me into drinking so much I would have been on the far side of wasted and out of commission for days. Since I thought of her as a mentor and mostly trusted her, even knowing her occasional devilishness, I think I may well have walked into her trap and wound up blind, blotto drunk except I got rescued from her machinations by my boyfriend showing up early, and whispering to me, “Don’t drink any more, OK?” Mean stunt for Dana to pull, really, but it ended well, since I was only lightly toasted, not rolling in my own puke on the floor. You know, even though I expected they’d get along great, Dana and my boyfriend never particularly liked each other, and maybe that weekend was the cause.

20.   That year I also got to be friends with a local boy from a public school I’d known of for a while but never paid much attention to. His name was Rob and I still know him today. I kind of disdained him, to be honest, condescended might be a better word, but in mid-1995 I did spend an amount of time around him that astonished me and made me wonder why. One day it dawned on me that I plain and simple liked him in this non-romantic just hanging out way, and realized I was fine with that. He was a nerd but from the branch of the nerd tree that wasn’t all that geeky. He liked Viking weapons and I think he was the first person to tell me about how the world will end at Ragnarok. Anyway, I watched a lot of “Japanimation” with him that summer, which he mostly got by being in a club that traded VHS tapes back and forth across the country, and it was also with him I went to my first and last game of D&D late at night in someone’s basement, and was later told it was too distracting to have a girl there, so don’t come back. Sexism in action, y’know? But the funniest thing was that summer Rob nailed his bedroom door shut from the inside, hacked a hole in his floor with an ax, and started using a ladder to get in and out of his room. His mom half-killed him but wouldn’t repair the hole in her ceiling til the 2000s.

21.   My best friend, Gina, turned seventeen on August first, and for the first time in the six years I’d known her I was able to be there for the day, because for the first time in my life I wasn’t in Ireland for the summer. My friend’s little brother, Mark, who was thirteen and a half then and is still my friend today, had a thing for me and so was a real dick to me the night of Gina’s birthday, jealous that I had someone in my life when he wanted to be that someone. He was truly plssy to me, and he walked back with me after the party giving me all this attitude. But a couple nights later he asked if he could come watch Killing Zoe with me, and I said OK, but then my boyfriend showed up and Mark went into this offensive mode to me, my boyfriend, the world, which bothered me but amused my boyfriend, and his amusement made Mark madder still to the point of wanting to fight my boyfriend, who had over seven years on him and a lot more strength. After my boyfriend left, Mark was still at my house, and I don’t know why, I guess he just caught me in a high-stress moment in a high-stress year, but I started very quietly crying, which freaked Mark completely out, and he began pleading please don’t cry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings! He actually sat down on the porch in front of me looking up at me with hurt, terrified eyes, and somehow it was so sweet to see him trying his best to make things up with me that I did feel better, and because I appreciated him caring that way, it changed how I was to him after that, making us almost like contemporaries who understood each other, instead of me thinking of him as my friend’s annoying little brother. (Teenage boys are not as cluelessly heartless as people say.)

22.   That fall, in her senior year in college, Dana got pregnant with her daughter McKenna, a future world traveler who is currently in Australia, and finding out Dana was up the spout floored me, because….well, I don’t know why, but it did, that she was pregnant, my cool, perfect, always in complete control, attitude-spewing twenty-one-year-old cousin, accidentally pregnant? OK, the girl had been a sex machine since she was barely thirteen, but still… Although it shouldn’t have been, it was a paradigm shift of my entire universe to suddenly think of her as somebody’s mommy. Welcome to The Twilight Zone, young me.

23.   My boyfriend spent Christmas in Florida with his mother and sister, and while there this smoking-hot red-haired girl from his sister’s gymnastics class came onto him REAL hard in a dark studio. He resisted…after a minute, and told me about it the same night, not making excuses but also underscoring that much more could have happened than did. So I told him in return that this geek-god of a boy named Roger (his nickname was Captain Morgan, I kid you not) who was in almost all my classes had just come over to give me a Christmas present, and kissed me: and not just a peck. I said I didn’t know he was going to do that and didn’t kiss him back, and my boyfriend more or less said oh, well, I don’t feel so bad then about the girl. I thought wait a second, someone hauled off and kissed me to my surprise in my front yard on a holiday, you gave in for a lusty couple minutes with someone out to roger you silly, putting your hand up her shirt in mid-flaming makeout, and that’s “even”? Ah, whatever, I didn’t care much, but I still think the math on his equation was off. The fact we were still good left him summing it up dismissively by saying of us: “We survive everything together.” I swear, in retrospect that boy made the most ironic statements.

24.   I saw the movie Nixon with my dad on one of our rare nights out together late that year, and coming home asked if Hoover was really a drag queen who surrounded himself with boy-toys and all else that Oliver Stone implied of him, and Dad said Hoover was a man who’d made enemies for decades and would never have lasted if things like that were true. Which made sense. Thing about my dad is he’s kind of  a myth-buster, slicing through life with Occam’s Razor, once telling me at five when I asked him if Santa was real: “Does it seem logical to you that someone can slide down millions of chimneys in one night?” My dad would’ve made a good Vulcan.

25.   On the final day of the year, the last-ever Calvin and Hobbes appeared in papers. The Far Side had ended on January 1, 1995, and to bookend it Calvin and Hobbes ended on December 31, 1995. How in the world have we survived without them all these years? And how did I survive 1995? It was quite a year.

Hey, I told you not to read this….

[indianasmith]

You have lived a very interesting life, ER!

[retrorussell]

More 1981:
1. Jason gets his start as the primary antagonist in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART II.  Critics trashed it (especially Siskel & Ebert) and they're not wrong.  I remember seeing a bloody axe on the poster and wondering why the murder weapon in the first movie's poster was switched (from hunting knife to axe).  Like the first movie, I didn't get to see this till the later 80s since I was too young.  Warrington Gillette got all the credit as Jason, though he was only in it at the end.  Steve Dash (rip) was mostly playing the masked killer-- with a potato sack instead of the iconic hockey mask from part 3 and beyond-- a nod to THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN.
2. A surprise hit at the theaters this year was a dumb (I would assume; never saw it) sex comedy called PRIVATE LESSONS.  Sylvia Kristel (of EMMANUELLE fame) starred as a maid seducing a teenage boy in a scheme to get at his family's riches.  The most memorable thing about the film (apart from a great soundtrack) might be that game show producers Jack Barry and Dan Enright helped finance this film!
3. Went back to regular grade school at Garden Home elementary school after a year of a "special" (ugh) school.
4. Blondie's "Rapture" was released; we though it was a dumb song even then.  Man from Mars?  Eating cars?  And eating bars and guitars?  WTF!
5. A couple big hits involving Stevie Nicks:
LEATHER AND LACE (with Don Henley)

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STOP DRAGGIN' MY HEART AROUND (with Tom Petty)

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6. Started tagging along with my dad (as did the rest of the family) for his Monday night league bowling.  I didn't care for the bowling, I was there at the alley (Kellogg Bowl in Milwaukie, OR) for video games, soda and candy (Sweet Tarts and Boston Baked Beans were my favorite)!  I would bring my remaining homework with me to finish.  Sometimes we'd have dinner at Pietro's Pizza next door, which had terrific thin crust pizza.  Sadly, Kellogg Bowl is now defunct.
7. I think it was this year that my dad and I took a shuttle bus from Johnny Wong's (a terrific Chinese restaurant by Burlingame Fred Meyers department store) to a Portland Trailblazer game.  I think it was a preseason contest with the Denver Nuggets that ran a whopping FOUR OVERTIMES.  We lost thanks largely to bumbling refs.  My dad and I were stunned it ran that long!  It was around midnight by the time we got home.  I was wiped out and I had to go to school the next morning!
8. One of my favorite songs of the year was a surprise hit theme from the tv show GREATEST AMERICAN HERO, by Joey Scarbury.  I used to crack up watching "Mr. Hinkley" (William Katt) try to fly and yell "Damnit!!!" when he'd eventually crash.  Amusingly, the show had to change the name to just "Mr. H" due to the same name of the guy who shot Reagan.
9. A bit of controversy was caused on the set of the show FRIDAYS when Andy Kaufman starts a fight with Michael Richards, by splashing a drink in his face.  This awkward skit was later revealed to have been staged.  Perhaps to boost ratings; though the show was cancelled the following year.
10. We bought the 45 of Weird Al Yankovic's ANOTHER ONE RIDES THE BUS.  We thought it was hilarious!  Al would appear on Tom Snyder's tv show to play it, with his friend and bandmate Jon "Bermuda" Schwarz.  We liked the B-side too: GOTTA BOOGIE.
11. I remember watching the intensely stupid tv movie THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS ON GILLIGAN'S ISLAND.
12. A players' strike cancels dozens of games of the MLB season.
13. HALLOWEEN airs for the first time on network TV (NBC) with new scenes inserted, which were filmed during the making of HALLOWEEN II released earlier this year.
14. Cable stations HBO and SHOWTIME now air programming for 24 hours.
15. Chuck Woolery leaves WHEEL OF FORTUNE over a salary dispute with producer Merv Griffin.  New host Pat Sajak debuts shortly after.
More to come..

[retrorussell]

16. CHARLIE'S ANGELS, SOAP, THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW, and THE WALTONS all conclude their series.
17. Some product debuts: ACT II popcorn, The BBC Micro, Better Cheddars, the Mattel Children's Discovery System, Deely Bobbers, Kibbles 'n Bits, Lean Cuisine, Mrs. Dash, the McRib, Prego sauce (does it make you pregnant if you eat it?), and Skor candy bars.
18. Jim Plunkett won the MVP award in the Super Bowl-- his name always made me think of the strategy game KERPLUNK.
19. An extremely rare (the only one I know of) 3-way MVP award is given in the World Series: Ron Cey, Pedro Guerrero and Steve Yeager win it for the Dodgers.
20. Mercurial coach Bobby Knight and his Indiana Hoosiers win the NCAA Basketball Championship.
21. John McEnroe wins the Wimbledon and US Open Men's Championships.  During a Wimbledon match he has one of his most famous outbursts.

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22. Jelly Bellys debut!
23. Tex Avery's final cartoon work is the awful KWICKY KOALA SHOW, produced by Hanna-Barberra.  I remember watching and thinking how much it sucked.  It was thankfully gone by the end of the year.
24. The classic kids show YOU CAN'T DO THAT ON TELEVISION is brought to America from Canada, airing on the cable channel NICKELODEON.
25. THE HOLLYWOOD SQUARES ends its initial run.  It will return 2 years later as THE MATCH GAME-HOLLYWOOD SQUARES HOUR, with host Peter Marshall replaced by John Bauman.

[retrorussell]

1982:
1. Late Night With David Letterman debuts!
2. Andy Kaufman gets booted off SNL with his weird Elvis skit; he takes off his wig and apologizes to the audience.  Later a poll of SNL fans stating they prefer him leave the show leads to his dismissal.
3. Andy also gets in a scrap with pro wrestler Jerry Lawler (after a brief wrestling match in which Lawler "breaks Andy's neck") on Letterman's show.  Lawler slaps him and Andy loses it and swears at him.  All was later revealed to have been staged.

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4. "The Catch"!  Dwight Howard's legendary catch for the 49ers helps put them in the Super Bowl as they squeak past the Cowboys.

5. The great cartoon block USA CARTOON EXPRESS debuts!  I liked seeing various cartoon stars riding the train with the kids.
6. Another debut was the cool arcade video game show-- the first of its kind-- STARCADE!  This was on WAY too early in the morning for me to watch, on WTBS.  Had to watch it at my mom's house later on (finally did catch it just once) since I didn't have cable.
7. Big hit on AM radio at the time: LEADER OF THE BAND- Dan Fogelberg
8. Some scary movies I remember seeing in the papers (I sometimes got to see some on cable, but I was easily scared): VISITING HOURS, SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, HALLOWEEN III, THE SENDER, THE ENTITY, Q, PARASITE, CREEPSHOW, PIECES, BASKET CASE, HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW, THE THING, SILENT RAGE, DEATH VALLEY, THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD, THE HOUSE WHERE EVIL DWELLS, HUMONGOUS, X-RAY, MADMAN, XTRO, and a couple local horror films: BLOOD SONG (shot in Coos Bay and Coquille, OR at the coast) and UNHINGED (shot around Portland's Pittock Mansion).
9. The awesome POLICE SQUAD! debuts, and America unfortunately doesn't get the brilliant humor in the show.  It only lasts 6 episodes (!) but it spawns the hit movie THE NAKED GUN years later.  I loved how the show's announcer gave a different episode title than what was shown onscreen, how the "guest star" would be killed immediately during the opening credits, and how the show would not freeze frame going into the closing credits, but the actors would just try to freeze in place.
10. Other TV debuts: CAGNEY & LACEY, TJ HOOKER, FAME, AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE, JOANIE LOVES CHACHI, CAPITOL, FAMILY TIES, TALES OF THE GOLD MONKEY, SILVER SPOONS, KNIGHT RIDER, MATT HOUSTON, SQUARE PEGS, CHEERS, REMINGTON STEELE, VOYAGERS!, CBS MORNING NEWS, ST. ELSEWHERE, NEWHART, and TATTLETALES returns after a 4-year hiatus.
11. Also, with video games still super-popular, this cartoon was inevitable: Hanna-Barberra's PAC-MAN!

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The cartoon was stupid as F but gotta admit that theme was catchy.  Got used in the later arcade game PAC-LAND.  This show aired as part of the LITTLE RASCALS/SCOOBY AND SCRAPPY DOO/RICHIE RICH cartoon block.
12. Daughter of the wacko Klaus Kinski-- Natassja Kinski-- grew up real good in CAT PEOPLE.

13. Other notable flicks of 1982: ANNIE, 48 HRS, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, GANDHI, TOOTSIE, POLTERGEIST, THE SECRET OF NIMH, TRON, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, BLADE RUNNER (also overrated IMHO), THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER, FIRST BLOOD, THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS, THE VERDICT, KOYAANISQATSI, FITZCARRALDO, THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY, AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN (overrated IMHO), NIGHT SHIFT, MY FAVORITE YEAR, VICTOR/VICTORIA, KING OF COMEDY, EATING RAOUL, DINER, PERSONAL BEST and the dumb GREASE 2.  I also remember the bad movie THE TOY with Jackie Gleason and Richard Pryor (!) back in the day-- my mom and I watched it a lot on cable and we loved it!
14. After bouncing around a few apartments that I visited her on weekends at, my mom finally found a nice house in Vancouver WA right across the freeway from the awesome Vancouver Mall.  They had an Aladdin's Castle-- great arcade where you got 6 tokens for a buck!-- and an Orange Julius with great hot dogs.
15. Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy are great in one of SNL's classic skits-- this one a spoof of the hit song EBONY AND IVORY.

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More to come..

[ER]

All right, Russell, these are great! Good job keeping this thread going. 

[retrorussell]

16. The basis for the later film REVERSAL OF FORTUNE: Socialite Claus von Bulow is convicted on charges of attempting to murder/paralyze his wife Sunny.  The initial verdict of guilty is eventually overturned.  Jeremy Irons won an Oscar for his portrayal of von Bulow.
17. A medley of 1982 commercials:

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18. The long-running Christmas McDonald's commercial with Ronald skating with a bunch of kids begins.

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19. The Emmy-winning animated special THE GRINCH GRINCHES THE CAT IN THE HAT airs.  Yep-- I remember this one for sure.  And yes, the Cat In The Hat and The Grinch lock horns!  Character actor/voiceover artist (especially for Smuckers) Mason Adams plays The Cat In The Hat.

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20. Tennis: Bjorn Borg retires at only 26!  He does, however, have 11 Grand Slams under his belt.  Speaking of which, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert win 2 Women's Grand Slams each.
21. A major boxing event: Heavyweight champ Larry Holmes takes on white boxer Gerry Cooney in Caesar's Palace, NV.  The bout surprisingly is close and lasts to the teens but Cooney eventually tires and the fight is stopped as Holmes defends his championship.
22. Big year for great arcade games: TIME PILOT, BAGMAN, DONKEY KONG JUNIOR, DIG DUG, MR. DO!, BURGERTIME, PENGO, POLE POSITION, SPACE DUEL, XEVIOUS, POPEYE, JUNGLE KING/HUNT (renamed "Jungle Hunt" and changed heavily from Jungle King due to the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate taking offense to the "Tarzan yell" in the game), Q*BERT (my sister and I laughed at the alien swearing), ZAXXON, ROBOTRON, JOUST, TRON, MOON PATROL, SUPER PAC-MAN, FRONT LINE, KANGAROO, REACTOR, BUMP 'N JUMP, BUCK ROGERS: PLANET OF ZOOM, ZOOKEEPER, SINISTAR and MILLIPEDE.
23. A couple home console games achieve notoriety for being bad/poorly received/poor home conversions: Atari 2600's PAC-MAN (which I still kind of enjoyed-- we got too good at it and had to play on the highest difficulty or we'd be on it too long), and E.T., which was so awful it kicked off the "buried in the New Mexico landfill" thing the following year with other unsold games and consoles/computers.
24. The awesome Colecovision debuts!  It was tops for arcade conversions.  I didn't play one till well after it was discontinued (I still had enough good titles for the Atari 2600) but it was still pretty cool.  Crap controls and lack of much good outside of the arcade conversions, plus the home computer dud the ADAM helped sink it, though it still finished 2nd in 3rd generation home console sales behind the Atari 2600.

25. Home console classic games: PITFALL!, TRON: DEADLY DISCS, PICKAXE PETE, ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, and CHOPLIFTER.

[retrorussell]

1983:

1. Started Jr. high school at Whitford.  I was never an outgoing kid and tended to stay away from others if I could help it.  A personality that continues to this day.  I don't feel like changing; people suck in general.
2. The US Embassy in Beirut is bombed; 63 die.
3. Israel withdraws from Lebanon.
4. The Nintendo Famicom is released in Japan.  A modified version is released 2 years later in the US, called the Nintendo Entertainment System.
5. The Sri Lankan Civil War begins.  Thousands are killed in riots and fighting.
6. A bomb explodes on board Gulf Air Flight 771, sending it crashing into the Emirates and killing 117.
7. A very possible war between the Soviets and US is averted when Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov correctly identifies what is thought to be American missiles as a false alarm.
8. The PM of Grenada, Maurice Bishop (among others), is assassinated in a coup.
9. The USMC barracks and French Army barracks in Beirut are bombed; over 300 die.
10. Some animated films: ROCK & RULE, FIRE AND ICE, FINAL YAMATO, BAREFOOT GEN, TWICE UPON A TIME, and GOLGO 13: THE PROFESSIONAL.
11. More big albums: METAL HEALTH- Quiet Riot, SHE'S SO UNUSUAL- Cyndi Lauper, HOLY DIVER- Dio, SYNCHRONICITY- The Police
12. The VIOLENT FEMMES debut with their eponymous album.  Renowned song BLISTER IN THE SUN is included.  TEARS FOR FEARS also debut with their album THE HURTING.
13. Legendary college football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and Chicago Bears founder/coach George Halas die.  Legendary boxer Jack Dempsey passes as well.
14. Major Golf Championships: Masters- Seve Ballesteros, US Open- Larry Nelson, Brit Open- Tom Watson, PGA Championship- Hal Sutton.
15. Martina Navratilova wins the Australian Open, the US Open, and Wimbledon in Women's Tennis.
16. Nearly 20 years prior to pitcher Randy Johnson killing a bird with a pitch, Yankee outfielder Dave Winfield kills a seagull with an errant throw.  He is actually arrested and charged with cruelty to animals!  The charges are eventually waived.
17. Wendy's introduces their baked potatoes with toppings on their menu.
18. The Jenny Craig weight loss program is founded.
19. President Reagan unveils his "Star Wars" plan to intercept enemy missiles from space.
20. Guion Bluford is the first black astronaut in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.
21. Jim Henson's FRAGGLE ROCK debuts on HBO.
22. The first mobile phones debut.
A few more later.
But first, one I missed from 1982: HBO IN SPACE intro debuts!  This is the full version; most of the time it was shorter.

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[retrorussell]

23. McDonald's McNuggets are officially released!

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24. The last episode of M*A*S*H* airs.  It is a made-for-tv film that sets a then-record for most watched broadcast in television history.  "Goodnight, Farewell and Amen" is its title.  Sad scene:

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25. Another big song of that year I liked: MAJOR TOM- Peter Schilling

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Also, Wheel Of Fortune introduces their new theme:

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[retrorussell]

1984:
1. The crazy McDLT debuts!  Somehow it was a big deal to separate the ingredients of a burger.  I love Jason Alexander's energetic performance in this commercial.

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2. Top albums: 1984- Van Halen, LIKE A VIRGIN- Madonna, BORN IN THE USA- Bruce Springsteen, PURPLE RAIN- Prince, PRIVATE DANCER- Tina Turner, DIAMOND LIFE- Sade, STOP MAKING SENSE- Talking Heads, MAKE IT BIG- Wham!, BUILDING THE PERFECT BEAST- Don Henley, HEARTBEAT CITY- The Cars, THE UNFORGETTABLE FIRE- U2, FOOTLOOSE- Soundtrack, RECKLESS- Bryan Adams, CHICAGO 17- Chicago, EMERGENCY- Kool & The Gang, INTO THE GAP- Thompson Twins, I FEEL FOR YOU- Chaka Khan
3. Some great arcade games: KUNG FU MASTER, CIRCUS CHARLIE, GAPLUS, KARATE CHAMP, PUNCH-OUT!!, SPACE ACE, DO! RUN RUN, VS. EXCITEBIKE, TIME PILOT '84, 10-YARD FIGHT, CHEYENNE, HYPER SPORTS, 1942, RETURN OF THE JEDI, PAC-LAND, BOMB JACK, MARBLE MADNESS, SNAKE PIT, PAPERBOY, STOCKER, DEMOLITION DERBY and VS. ICE CLIMBER.
4. Game series KING'S QUEST and DRAGON SLAYER debut.
5. Heisman winner Doug Flutie throws a miracle Hail Mary as his Boston College Eagles beat the Miami Hurricanes.

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6. The Miami Hurricanes open the year with a national championship victory over the Nebraska Cornhuskers 31-30 in the Orange Bowl.  Oddly enough, the 1984 college football season's championship is also played in 1984.  It is won by the BYU Cougars over the Michigan Wolverines 24-17 in the Holiday Bowl.  Many pundits felt BYU didn't deserve the championship due to their soft schedule.  They are the last team from a non-power conference to win it all.
7. Patrick Ewing and the Georgetown Hoyas deter Houston's 2nd consecutive attempt at a NCAA basketball title.  Houston's "Phi Slama Jama" players  Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon were great but just couldn't bring their college a title.
8. Golf Major Championship winners: Masters- Ben Crenshaw, US Open- Fuzzy Zoeller, Brit Open- Seve Ballesteros, PGA Championship- Lee Trevino.
9. 1984 commercials:

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10. Eddie Murphy's star appeal continues with the smash hit BEVERLY HILLS COP at the end of the year.  Hit songs NEUTRON DANCE and THE HEAT IS ON are on the soundtrack.  Eddie's laugh used to crack me up.  "Hiiihh, hiihhh, hiihh.."
11. The toy line of TRANSFORMERS debuts.  Collected my share of them at Toys R Us.  Man, do I miss that place.  It was magical for Transformers toys and home video game shopping.
12. My friend moved much further from where he used to live.  I would ride my bike several miles on the weekend just to meet him partway (usually at 7-11).  Kinda nerdy kid that was really into Japanese anime way before it was cool in the US.  Plus, he knew where his stepdad's stash of porn mags was kept. :)
13. It was either this year or the previous year that my folks rented a laserdisc player for a couple years.  We watched lots of CREEPSHOW and STUDENT BODIES on it.  My oldest sister got VISION QUEST the following year and at some point my folks rented THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS and THE GROOVE TUBE.
14. Product debuts: Canfield's Diet Chocolate Fudge Soda, Air Jordans, Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal,  Depends, Discman, HP LaserJet, Pop Secret popcorn, Power Wheels, Slice (which I loved-- especially Cherry Slice), the Tandy-1000 and Velveeta Shells And Cheese.
15. Oh and also:
CLAP ON.. CLAP OFF..

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and Extra Gum-- with NUTRASWEET!

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16. WHERE'S THE BEEF??

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17. The Ferrari Testarossa debuts!
18. I was never a huge fan of Madonna but I do like some of her songs.  One of my favorites was her first really big hit: BORDERLINE.  Before she got *really* slutty.
More later..