Don't call me "Generation X," call me a child of the Eighties

by Bryant Adkins 
published in The Reflector 
January 20, 1995

I am a child of the eighties. That is what I prefer to be called. The
nineties can do without me. Grunge isn't here to stay, fashion is fickle 
and "Generation X" is a myth created by some over-40 writer trying to 
figure out why people wear flannel in the summer. When I got home from 
school, I played with my Atari 2600. I spent hours playing Pitfall or 
Combat or Breakout or Dodge'em Cars or Frogger. I never did beat 
Asteroids. Then I watched "Scooby Doo." thought Shaggy was smoking 
something synthetic in the back of their psychedelic van. I hated 
Scrappy. 

I would sleep over at friends' houses on the weekends. We played army 
with G.I. Joe figures, and I set up galactic wars between Autobots and 
Decepticons. We stayed up half the night throwing marshmallows and 
Velveeta at one another. We never beat the Rubik's Cube. 

I got up on Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. to watch bad Hanna-Barbera 
cartoons like "The Snorks," "Jabberjaw," "Captain Caveman," and "Space 
Ghost." In between I would watch "School House Rock." ("Conjunction 
junction, what's your function?") 

On weeknights Daisy Duke was my future wife. I was going to own the 
General Lee and shoot dynamite arrows out the back. Why did they weld 
the doors shut? At the movies the Nerds got Revenge on the Alpha Betas 
by teaming up with the Omega Mus. I watched Indiana Jones save the Ark 
of the Covenant, and wondered what Yoda meant when he said, "No, there 
is another." 

Ronald Reagan was cool. Gorbachev was the guy who built a McDonalds in 
Moscow. My family took summer vacations to the Gulf of Mexico and 
collected "Muppet Movie" glasses along the way. (We had the whole set.) 
My brother and I fought in the back seat. At the hotel we found creative 
uses for Connect Four pieces like throwing them in that big air 
conditioning unit. 

I listened to John COUGAR Mellencamp sing about Little Pink Houses for 
Jack and Diane. I was bewildered by Boy George and the colors of his 
dreams, red, gold, and green. MTV played videos. Nickelodeon played "You 
Can't Do That on Television" and "Dangermouse." Cor! HBO showed Mike 
Tyson pummel everybody
except Robin Givens, the bad actress from "Head of the Class" who took 
all Mike's cashflow. 

I drank Dr. Pepper. "I'm a Pepper, you're a Pepper, wouldn't you like to 
be a Pepper, too?" Shasta was for losers. TAB was a laboratory accident. 
Capri Sun was a social statement. Orange juice wasn't just for breakfast 
anymore, and bacon had to move over for something meatier. 

My mom put a thousand Little Debbie Snack Cakes in my Charlie Brown 
lunch box, and filled my Snoopy Thermos with grape Kool-Aid. I would 
never eat the snack cakes, though. Did anyone? I got two thousand cheese 
and cracker snack packs, and I ate those. 

I went to school and had recess. I went to the same classes everyday. 
Some weird guy from the eighth grade always won the science fair with 
the working hydro-electric plant that leaked on my project about music 
and plants. They just loved Beethoven.  

Field day was bigger than Christmas, but it always managed to rain just 
enough to make everybody miserable before they fell over in the 
three-legged race. Where did all those panty hose come from? "Deck the 
Halls with Gasoline, fa la la la la la la la la," was just a song. 
Burping was cool. Rubber band fights were cooler. A substitute teacher 
was a baby sitter/marked woman. Nobody deserved that. 

I went to Cub Scouts. I got my arrow-of-light, but never managed to win 
the Pinewood Derby. I got almost every skill award but don't remember 
ever doing anything. 

The world stopped when the Challenger exploded. 

Half of your friends' parents got divorced. 

People did not just say no to drugs. 

AIDS started, but you knew more people who had a grandparent die from 
cancer. 

Somebody in your school died before they graduated. 

When you put all this stuff together, you have my childhood. If this 
stuff sounds familiar, then I bet you are one, too. 

We are children of the eighties. That is what I prefer "they" call it.