I was nine. Likely trading baseball cards, looking forward to Doc Gooden pitching his next start. Pretty sure I was really into a game called Crossbows and Catapults right around that time.
C&C was friggin AWESOME.
I was in 6th grade... I was really discovering music for the first time.. up to that point it had been old twangy bluegrass from my dad and folky (Dylan, Simon & Garfunkle) and the Beatles from my mom.
"Footloose" really spoke to me.. that was my town. Seriously.. dancing was sin, music was sin, everything that had anything to do with anything even remotely fun was sin. I started "collecting" tapes... anything and everything I could get ahold of... Van Halen, ZZ Top, Tina Turner, Phil Collins, KISS, Culture Club, Duran Duran, Laura Branigan, Hall and Oates.. a whole smorgasbord of genres and styles..
I rode my bike EVERYWHERE, was always out playing in the woods. My neighbor and I were still friends at that point and we built forts and bunkers and at one point attempted to build a cave...
The world was so huge and so magical. Every closet had a hidden passage to Narnia.. Xanth was just a day's walk away..
Night Court
Miami Vice! EPIC.
A View To A Kill
I remember there was a lot of nuclear testing going on. Rumors flew that Loring AFB in Limestone, Maine would be the first target the USSR would hit. "Duck and cover". Really?
It was also the year that I figured out that mom and dad were miserable together. Mom would jokingly say that they'd never get a divorce because neither of them wanted custody of my sister and I. But after awhile, she said it so much that I started to believe her... you really can't bullsh*t kids.
All-in-all, it was a great year. And I would give pretty much anything to be back there.