I loved the 80’s! Yes, I said it out loud. It was a great time to be young. Great music, cool cars (mine was a black ford mustang), big hair, crazy experiences and some memories to last a lifetime!
If you were lucky enough to experience the 80’s in Ontario during your college or university years, then you may remember pub nights, house parties, and care boxes of canned goods from home which helped you survive and kept dollar bills in your pocket for Thursday night on the town (that was pub night in our city!).
Recently, a group of my friends spontaneously decided to “relive the 80’s.” To prepare for the event, unlike the golden days, we verbally did not speak to each other! Instead, texts flew fast and furiously back and forth deciding on where we would meet, where we would go, how we would get there, and what will the kids do!
Without one spoken word – everyone arrived to begin the adventure. The kids were left to have their own freedom together in 2010 style which included renting a PPV movie, networking on Facebook, downloading the top 10 tunes of the week on the iTunes, and prank calling their buddies. (Ok, some things haven’t changed).
Now, all in our 40’s this group of 80’s lovers hit the town! On the grown ups 2010 tour of reliving the 80’s, we found ourselves:
1. Searching online for the top 10 rated hot spots to visit
2. Texting each other when we got split up (“where r u?”..... “Around the corner, wait up…..lol”)
3. Taking instant cell picts of our old digs (to prove to our kids that we were still cool)
4. Phoning home to check in (6 of us all with cells phones not knowing who is phoning home – we probably all called and drove them nuts!)
5. Making a pit stop after receiving a text from another friend who was “Just around the corner”
6. Sending instant pictures of our nite out
7. Online access to book a cab home
This leads to the question - How did we ever survive in the 80’s?
No phone (not that you could carry with you),
No text
No web
No instant pictures
No debit
WOW!
Here are some more technology changes from 1986 to now!
1986 – bag phone
2010 – iphone
1986 = beta video recorder
2010 = pocket digicam
1986 = boombox (the bigger the better)
2010 = iPod™ (with blow your mind out earbuds)
1986 = Cash
2010 = Debit
1986 = Madonna, Bananarama, Glass Tiger, and Prince
2010 = Lady Gaga, Rihana, Justin Timber…..and some little Bieber boy.
1986 - Polaroid pictures
2010 – Instant cell phone picts.
1986 = Phoning your friends – common practice
2010 = Texting your friends – common practice
1986 = Atari
2010 = Wii
1986 = postcards sent from vacation destination
2010 = Facebook – instant vacation update.
1986 = black and white ad in newspaper, radio or tv ad.
2010 = multi media advertising
After visiting some of the same old watering holes (and some new ones) our tech’d up eighties night on the town came to an end with only a few embarrassments, no pulled muscles, and a slight headache.
We came to the realization that... well.... we’re no longer in our 20’s but going back in time every so often and revisiting the past might keep this group of eighty lovers young at heart (after we recovered)!!!!!
We had a blast and plan to do it again…..maybe next year!
(p.s. – with DSI’s in hand, our children secured their Christmas list by capturing our descent from the cab and our recant of the evening events, while our older children captured our stories on video phone in case we needed a reminder in the future. BIG Christmas gifts will ensure that you never see these images online!!!)
