Time travel would be nice....

Part 1

Before Pandemics. Before Mandatory and self imposed Lock-downs, and before the World had gone into complete and utter madness, there was a time,( I know that seems hard to believe), when life was simpler, easier, and not so connected through Social Media, or the Internet for that matter. Where a home console games graphics were a pathetic 8 bit or lower, but we loved them anyways. And the really good games that had even better graphics (by those times standards), were located in a video arcade or corner convenience store, and required a pocket full of quarters to launch you into a new and flickering world that made you forget about your daily life. That is, until you used up your last “life” and then it was Game Over. This was the Totally Awesome and Unforgettable 80’s of course, and I’d give everything to be able to teleport back to that Age. That was my Childhood.

The music was incredible, and even now in the next Century, bands are trying to replicate that magic and bring some “New-OLD” sound back into the mainstream, with sometimes good results. But you know that nothing will EVER beat hearing it on your Analog Stereo receiver or on the Radio or Cassette Player/Boombox. That was living! No electronic Mp3’s existed then. No Sir. You had to work for your music. Searching through your cassette holder box for the band you wanted, inserting it into your player of choice, and God forbid you wanted to hear the first track, On side “A” and had to rewind that whole side back, like waiting for a rocket countdown and watching your tape players counter (if it had one) slowly count back until the tape reached it’s beginning and a “Click” as the rewind button popped back up. Now you were ready to “Jam”. Instant gratification didn’t exist. Everything, and Just about everything was a waiting game. Unless it came on the radio right then, you had to work for your entertainment. No downloadable Mp3 music at your computer fingertips to “Save As” and listen to in a few seconds. If you wanted to save a song that was brand new, it was on the Radio first. And you would lie in wait with your blank cassette like a predator stalking it’s prey, hoping the Radio DJ would announce your Song coming up and after several mis-Records of the wrong song, or commercial, you MIGHT be able to record that song perfectly from the first note, and hoping the DJ didn’t start talking over the song beginning. (I hated when that happened). But hey, that’s 80’s life. You take what you got. And maybe some other time, you could catch that song in its’ entirety and get the whole thing. And when you had that song, or an actual album on Cassette, it wasn’t always Sunshine and Rainbows. If the stars and planets didn’t align up perfectly that day, (kidding of course), or dirt, dust or just because your Cassette player was being finicky or just didn’t like you at the exact moment, you were about to have a world of hurt. Your music would be clear and loud and suddenly it became muffled and garbled, as the cassette player demanded your tapes’ soul as tribute. The players’ spinning rubber tape wheels instead grabbing your precious iron-oxide coated tape and then proceeding to “eat” it and wrapping it up inside the machinery. If you’re lucky, you catch it early. Opening up the cassette door and pulling out the tape with it’s tape hanging out like entrails. Maybe some minor damage to the tape, or even some places in the song that will be forever scarred with silence, or even pops or muffled places. That there is 80’s life. And that part sucked! But at least you didn’t break the tape. That would be another nightmare skill, that every child and teen of the 80’s would soon become skilled at: Tape Repair Specialist! But that’s it’s own entire story in itself….