30 May 2006

Proustian Years in Review

Part 2: 1984



Tonight, in a moment of video store panic, looking for some serial television narrative to consume on DVD, put finding no Curb Your Enthusiasm to be had in the store, the WS cracked and rented Season 1 of Miami Vice. Predictably, the show's uber-cool and wet-street neo-noir didn't hold up well from what I remembered watching as a mesmerized ten year old. Don Johnson's pastel suits look now, well, about as chic as a pastel suit. (Worse than Don's outmoded sartorial style is his ridiculous acting. Crockett, we're told, is a former college football star, and accordingly, DJ delivers every line like a quarterback shouting an audible with the crowd baying all around him...) Revisiting this piece of crime-kitsch from my youth did send me deep into the nostalgia bank again. And so, it's time for another Proustian Year in Review.

For me, 1984 was:
  • A Detroit Tigers t-shirt (with the old logo), that featured the slogan "Bless You Boys" on it. This slogan was, of course, the catch phrase from their World Series championship run that season.
  • A paperback copy of an Enid Blyton book that a friend brought back from a trip to England, and which I read on the train, coming back from visiting family friends out of town with my mother and my sister.
  • Comic books bought on Saturday afternoons from the skeezy guy who ran a comics and magazine stall at the flea market in the neighborhood.
  • Olympic medals cut out of poster board, which my friends awarded ourselves for various athletic events in our own neighborhood Olympics in the heat of summer. (I won more silver than anything else.)
  • A copy of Michael Jackson's Thriller on vinyl, naturally.
  • Seeing Ghostbusters at a multiplex on the other side of town, and enjoying the long bus ride (sans parental supervision) each way.

And what, may I ask, was 1984 for you?


2 comments:

Paperback Writer said...

1984: Visiting my cousins in Virginia Beach, I believe I was highly into My Little Pony as well.

Oh, I did start my first diary that year as well.

The Whining Stranger said...

I didn't start being a really serious diary keeper till 1987 but have been pretty fastidious since then. I have a lot of diaries taking up closet space!