Living in the 80s
Our childhoods were pure freedom. The video above hits the mark and brings back so many good and bad memories.
I can remember sitting beside my best friend, Nanette, and waiting to see MTV go live. She was the only kid we knew that had a massive satellite dish in her yard. Plus her parents didn't mind us taking over the TV - a slumber party!
It was the hot summer of 1981 but temps had cooled enough for us to throw open her sliding door to catch a breeze. And then it started. We saw the Space Shuttle Columbia launching followed by the walk on the Moon. I don't remember the VJs introducing themselves. Our exciting screams probably blocked out everything. And then... "Radio Killed the Video Star". We really didn't "look at music the same way again".
We did have seat belt laws in California by time I was in high school. As a toddler, I can remember sitting in my car seat. I was licking an ice cream cone when we were rear-ended. My head rocketed forward, straight into that ice cream. And I had to wear my seat belt when I was a kid - a family rule - but nothing stopped my mother from smoking like a chimney as she drove me to school.
Mothers smoked in the movie theater too. There were ashtrays in the arm rest. Most kids would pool into the front and middle rows to separate themselves from their parents. My mother didn't allow me to do that, either. Still, the Larwin theater holds good memories.
Outside of that theater, I harbor much hatred towards Larwin. They developed the land. They built the homes we lived in. They never told anyone about the 1959 Santa Susana Field Lab nuclear disaster. before or after land development.
The Field Lab was a reactor and rocket-testing facility in the mountains between the San Fernando and Simi Valleys. America’s worst nuclear disaster happened right in L.A.'s backyard. It was a near-meltdown and massive radiation leak. MASSIVE. The site has never been cleaned, to the best of my knowledge. None of us knew about the incident. Unlike Three Mile Island, the leak was kept secret from the world.
In 1979, we showed pictures of broken fuel rods on the bottom of the reactor core. Documents reported that the heat measured 1465 degrees Fahrenheit and was thought to be even higher. Splitting uranium atoms had melted both the fuel and the metal cladding, and highly radioactive gases were being released. It was an accident that wasn’t supposed to happen, and it continued for 10 days until engineers finally shut the reactor down. New equipment, including special cameras had to be developed to remove the melted fuel, and the video has been used to train nuclear plant operators for the future.
But, despite our revelations, the secrecy and denial continued. I was allowed onto the site and given a tour of the reactor building, which was being torn down. But when I asked about radioactive emissions, an executive for the Rocketdyne subsidiary Atomics International told me, on camera: “The potential hazard of major release into the environment was just not there.”
That was a flat out lie.
The Field Lab’s experimental reactor had no containment structure like the big domes at Three Mile Island. While it was out of control, radiation levels went off the scale and doors had to be opened for worker protection. Clouds of highly radioactive gases and particulates were released.
There were also three other accidents at the Field Lab’s 10 nuclear reactors [PDF Link].
In addition, the Field Lab conducted some 30,000 tests of rockets for
NASA and for military ballistic missiles before it closed down in 2006.
Throughout the period, operators illegally burned radioactive waste and
toxic rocket-fuel in open-air pits.
"WHY IS THE SANTA SUSANA NUCLEAR ACCIDENT STILL BEING COVERED UP?"
WARREN OLNEY, ZOCALO
I was 8 in 1979. Some kids that were conceived and still lived in Simi Valley had a higher chance of leukemia. My friend Patty certainly had it. Many of us developed thyroid cancer as adults; we played in those contaminated places. Anyway, the full article is interesting.
Of course, we wouldn't have played there if we had the same rules as today. Our Boomer and Silent Generation parents unleashed us upon the world. We had to come back when the street lights came on. Considering how late it gets during the summer, we went full-throttle well past the bedtimes inflicted upon us on school nights.
Bed meant bed. No smartphones back then. Some of us had a landline in our bedrooms. I remember reading with a flashlight under the covers. Most of us had a radio or stereo. We made mix tapes. Ha! But those school nights meant bed before 10 PM for a lot of us.
(We did sneak out in the middle of the night if something was important enough to risk getting caught and facing parental wrath. And we sneaked out at night for stupid reasons once we became teenagers.)
I'm shocked that kids aren't allowed outside anymore. Way to go! Let's stunt their ability to be responsible.Our parents sorta thrust that skill on us. Kids did come home to empty houses. We didn't have babysitters beyond the age of 10. Sometimes kids with older siblings didn't need babysitters at all. Almost all of us learned cause and effect, responsibility for one's self and others, and to not set the house on fire by cooking marshmallows over the stove's open flame.
We did get into epic levels of stupidity. I will always remember the time my parents went out to dinner and I filled the kitchen with soap bubbles.
We were out of dishwasher soap so I opted to use Dawn for dishes. I came out of my bedroom to suds leak leaking out of that machine. They coated the kitchen floor and spilled into the family room. That's what my parents came home to. I got in trouble but I heard them laughing their asses off in the backyard after I was sequestered in my room.
Do any of you remember when "go to your room!" was actual punishment?
The video also brings up physical punishment. Yes, our parents spanked us. My situation was different, however. My mother has mental health issues. There was a period in my life when I was spanked with a wooden spoon daily. Sometimes my dad would come home from work to be confronted by my mother. She blew things out of proportion, angering him. And I would get spanked again. The flat of my dad's palm hurt way worse than those spoons.
Spoons. Plural. She broke several over my ass.
Abuse was never talked about back then. Not in polite society. And many kids and adults didn't see spankings and sharp reprimands as abuse. True child abuse happened behind those closed doors. We never knew which of our peers was on the receiving end unless we were friends with them. My spankings paled in comparison to a drunk father throwing his son across the room.
"Toni, how did you break your arm?"
"I jumped off the swing set."
"Randy, how did you break your arm?"
"..."
"Oh. I get it. I'm sorry."
Sometimes abused kids would also make up lies to cover the abuse up. I know they still do that today.
Being paddled was a real thing carried out at many Christian schools. I would get paddled for my math homework, and then come home to the spoon. Lovely.
The mall was a wonderful outlet once we were teens. These massive buildings pandered to just about everyone. And there, amongst all the glitter and water fountains, we could just be ourselves.
We were judged by our peers of course - hair, clothing, whatever - but that's just how life goes. There were bullies. Kids dealt with them sans a parent. It wasn't as extreme as now. Social media has become the breeding ground of stress and harassment that drives kids to commit suicide.
Teens committed suicide back in my day. There were child predators. Kids killed themselves doing stupid stunts, or exploring where they shouldn't, or a host of other ways. But I think we were better prepared for life's challenges.
We didn't experience life in a plastic bubble. I think maybe that's the best thing about being Gen X. We bridged the gap between Boomer and Millennial.