It was Nineteen Eighty Somethin'

So I grew up wearing biker shorts under the t-shirt dresses that my mom made me so the boys on the playground wouldn't see up my dress when I was hanging upside down on the monkey bars (not to brag, but I was the champion backward and forward monkey barist at Settler's Way Elementary School). Isaac Fox (the unrequited love of my elementary school life) wore the coolest New Kids on the Block hat sideways that coordinated perfectly with my awwwwesome M.C. Hammer Pants. That was just after I stopped wearing the banana clips and wire bows that my mom made me. When I wasn't wearing a t-shirt dress, I would get the biggest and brightest t-shirt I could find, put it over my stirrup pants, and tie it over to the side and accented with a t-shirt clip covered in rhinestones. Classic.

Hairspray. Hairspray. Hairspray. The bigger and fluffier the bangs the better! Who didn't want the D.J. Tanner (please google "Full House" if under the age of 20) wave of bangs flipped over their face?!

Me and Jackie Taylor had competitions to see who could dance to and lip-sink Mariah Carey's Hero the best. Jackie was a tiny little girl who had a lifetime of dance lessons. I was a squatty little soccer player who washer her hair once a week. You can guess who won most of those competitions. If not lip-sinking, we were trying to see who could hit Mariah's high note, I could whoop her on my worst day. I have always had a freakishly high-pitched voice (came in very handy at my first New Kid's concert).

The classic shows were Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, Sesame Street, Care Bears, Rainbow Bright, Strawberry Shortcake, Duck Tails and Fraggle Rock. Then The Price is Right, The Andy Griffith Show, The Munsters, The Adams Family and The Beverly Hill Billies. And then came Charles in Charge, Silver Spoons, Family Ties, Full House, Urkel (a.k.a. Family Matters), Saved by the Bell (one question...Zack or Slater?), The Cosby Show (Jelloooo puddin' pops then later Jello Gigglers), Days of Our Lives circa 1986 when it was still really good and Marlena was possessed by a demon. Back when times were simple...before Japanimation, before reality TV, before CSI when the extent of a murder mystery was Murder She Wrote and Matlock.

FOCUS, KRISTIN....

Is there a point to this? Not really...is there ever? But I have two concerns. 1.) Turner will never be exposed to all of these classic shows and styles and traditions that I grew up with. and 2.) What will he grown up on? What will his Fraggle Rock be? Who will be his creepy Mr. Rogers?

I will do my best to avoid Pokemon, Sponge Bob Square Pants,Teletubbies and Barney. But believe me when I say that my kid WILL know every word of Old Yeller and Savage Sam if I have anything to do with it. He will have watched Yankee Doodle Dandy,John Wayne's The Sons of Katie Elder, and Meet Me in St. Lois a few times before he reaches his 5th birthday. Now THAT you can count on because some things are too good to let slip through the sands of time!