The 80s

I miss the lost art of letter writing.

I remember sitting by the telephone waiting for the phone to ring.

Back when you didn’t know who was calling until you picked up the receiver.

Back when phones had cords and you were like a dog on a lease you could only move so far while having your conversation.

Movement was limited and the telephone cord would only go so far.

I spend many nights reading Christopher Pike books via the nightlight I had clipped to the headboard of my twin bunk bed.

Late nights of reading and anticipating each chapter.

There were no e-books.

I could literally smell the book I was reading as I turned each page.

Paper cuts from books were not only possible,

But they were common.

Rubber thimbles could be worn on your thumb to turn the pages without getting paper cuts.

I could feel each book page between my fingers.

I would have to change positions because my arm would hurt from holding my book.

My wrist would go numb while holding my book in bed also.

I caught fireflies in the inner city in glass mason jars that came from my parent's basement.

I would sneak out alone at night in the backyard to capture them, stare at them for a few moments and then release them back into the cool night air.

The street lights always flickered when they came on. It was never truly dark at night in the city.

The lights would make a dull humming noise when they first came on and then the sound would go away.

This is the moment when parents went outside and screamed their children's names to call them home from wherever they may be in the neighborhood.

No one ventured farther than where they could hear their parents voice.

No one went more than one block away.

This was an unwritten rule in the 80s.

The Wonder Years played on every television and The Simpsons were born and were birthed from a short on The Tracy Ulman Show.

The cable box was invented and the remote control.

I recall a brown box that was used to flip through channels on the television and how you had to pass every channel to get to the one that you wanted.

The box has a small clicker on it and made a noise as you moved it from channel to channel.

This era was much less technology-based and we saw the birth of MTV and the music video.

We still listened to the radio and would call in to win concert tickets to sold-out shows.

Radio personalities became our family.

We listened to top 40 countdowns to see what the song of the week was and we called in to vote and received a busy signal since everyone was calling in at the same time.

We memorized phone numbers.

Redial seemed fancy and there was no call waiting.

*This poem is featured in Peeling Sanity due for release in October 2018. Be sure to check out my other poetry collections on Amazon.

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