If you believe those folks who said that the new millenium didn’t begin until January 1, 2001 – then we didn’t officially enter the 1980’s decade until January 1, 1981, at which time we celebrated the holiday with a traditional jaunt to Bill and Dottie’s house in New Lebanon. As usual, we killed two birds with one cake by also celebrating Grandma Range’s 68th birthday. Since it fell on December 29, she never wanted to disrupt the Christmas holiday with any kind of celebration until we had crossed over into the next year.
Denise prepares a birthday cake for Grandma Range with the old Easy-Bake Oven
Mom gives her a hand with the icing
Denise tries to steal Grandma Range’s thunder
Dad and Bill kick back in the New Year
It’s hard to pin down a lot of certain events of the time period without the benefit of photos because there was no certain major activity that really stood out. I returned to school and life in the third grade with my full-fledged obsession with the Beatles. In fact, when Valentine’s Day rolled around and we were required to decorate a paper bag in which we could put our classroom Valentines, I adorned mine with the names of Beatles songs. Dad was particularly impressed when I put the names Brian Epstein and George Martin next to the song title With a Little Help From My Friends. Little did he know, it was purely accidental.
A snow fort over at Kenny Carroll’s house. Denise ruins our fun…
…but has her own fun in our front yard
Around this time I became fast friends with classmate Matt Swisher. He shared my love of the Beatles. In fact, he loved them first – and was an aspiring drummer like his older brother. He and I stood on the same side during music class when we had our day to bring in records to share with the class. While other kids brought in the popular tracks of the day, like tunes from 9 to 5, Celebration, Morning Train, or anything by Blondie, we had to endure the jeers of the kids when we played the Beatles.
Mom proudly sports her work shirt and poses with her unsightly children. Someone should have warned me that a long bowl cut didn’t work when you had big ears.
Historically speaking, I was rather irritated by the inauguration of Ronald Reagan on January 20. We had had a mock election in 1980 and I was one of only two or three in my class to vote for Jimmy Carter. Of course, this was based mostly on the opinion of my parents, who thought it was ridiculous as I did that we were putting an actor in the White House. But I do remember the thrill and the cheers of my classmates as we heard the news from one of the lunch ladies as we worked our way through the cafeteria that the hostages in Iran had been set free on that day of Reagan’s inauguration.
As it warms up a bit, Denise plays on our swingset with neighbor Laura Dehait
Grandma Range’s pride and joy
Mom dressed for a 50’s dance
No wait…NOW dressed for a 50’s dance
I’m hoping Dad was too. All that’s missing is a scarf around his neck.
Also on the school front, I won the Young Authors Award for Grade 3 at Fairbook with my tome From Worst to Best. Although purely ridiculous, I can completely understand why I won. The sheer creativity and imagination in that book astounds me even today. Although, it disappeared with all of my other stories when I loaned them to Christi while we were dating, I can roughly remember the storyline.
It concerned accident-prone Russian immigrant Snoily Baberya who came to the United States and had nothing but misfortune. I cannot recall how it happened, but at some point his luck turned and he became hugely rich and famous. He married Polly Holliday, who played Flo in the TV series Alice. Snoily and Polly were robbed of some of their possessions one night and it turned out that the robber was Vic Tayback, proprietor of Mel’s diner on the same show. I explained that this was why Polly Holliday left the show to go on to her own spin-off. It was interesting how I correlated real-life events with this work of tripe fiction. As the winner of the Young Authors Award, I got spend a day at some writing workshop somewhere I can’t recall and meet a real-life author who I also do not remember.
This was not the only award I would win this Spring as we will find out when we continue…
Rob and I were walking around the store and we walked through the pink isle and we saw an Easy Bake oven. Rob asked, “Are easy bake mixes edible?”
! LOL!
Amber
May 14th, 2008
These are great pictures and I don’t remember seeing any of them before.
The CONNELLY & COMPANY t-shirt really brings back memories. And Barb looks awesome in those pictures, so thin and trim; hair all curled and pretty. Fantastic!
Seeing your old swing set brought back great memories too.
Great job on your Family Antics of 81.
Bev
May 14th, 2008
The memories are fun! The thin and trim is even better. Too bad that part is only a memory – to be young and thin and trim again – ah!
Mom/Barb
May 14th, 2008
My easy bake oven was my all time favorite toy as a child. It was identical to Denise’s. I stayed home from school to play with that thing.
Jackie
May 20th, 2008