The Life of Brian
Nine! Achtung! Of course I am not German. But I was the age of nine in 1984. Interestingly just a few years ago, Sarah and I spit in a tube (each of us) and sent it off to people who can supposedly track down your ancestry simply from looking at your spit! Ok, maybe it's a little more involved than that, but you get the gist. We won't discuss how boring hers was. Mine, however, came back with some pretty cool results. Turns out, my spit is 24% Navajo Indian. Also, 1% Indian from the region of India. That one percent explains my uncanny ability to speak with an Indian accent. I've also spoken in clear audible Navajo. It's true! Just ask my sister and my nephew. There was alcohol involved, and we were camping on a really remote, majestic mountain top, and it just came out. Back to me being nine, I apologize for getting off track.
Nineteen hundred and eighty-four. My home was still on Oak Street. I still attended Topa Topa elementary school. My teacher in fourth grade was Mrs. Bell. I have a book that we made in fourth grade, kind of a journal of sorts. One of my complaints in that journal, about my school, was not being able to play suicide. I'm fairly certain this is in reference to the game of tetherball. But it could have also been for handball. Either way, apparently my good spelling abilities began after fourth grade because I spelled suicide as suaside. I would do pretty well in the annual spelling Bee's in fifth and sixth grade. Looking at this journal, I find it interesting that one page was dedicated to what my opinion was on four different subjects. Pollution, Cheating, Smoking, and Stealing. Now what would a fourth grader know about smoking? At the age of 48, I'm thinking this may have been a sneaky way for your teacher to know whether or not you lived around people who smoked. Who knows. I did not mention the explosive sticks we used to put in our family and friends' cigarettes. Your welcome mom and dad! Snitches get stitches, is that the term? lol. I wrote: Smoking is bad for your lungs. You can die from smoking. Does anyone know if cigarette vending machines still existed in 1984? Those were a great idea. Any kid with a few dollars could easily purchase a pack out of those vending machines. I never had any interest for some reason.
For stealing I wrote: If you steal something, you could get into a lot of trouble. Of course, I knew this firsthand. My mother caught me stealing a little toy pop gun from Ben Franklins and made me return it and apologize. My response to cheating was a little puzzling. I wrote: I think cheating is the worst thing to do because then if you forget to write it down, you're in trouble. That sounds a little shady doesn't it! After my swap meet bike, I don't recall having a bike of my own. I think my interest switched to skateboards. We had various types of skateboards. The first few being the little skinny ones. I think they may have been called Penny Boards. I would ride them on my knee. Using my other leg to push off and propel me down the sidewalks. No helmets mind you. Many a crash and burn occurred on these little boards. My favorite thing to use to stop myself in a crash was actually my face. More accurately, my mouth. I got some really big fat lips from this, and not all of these occurrences were my fault. I seem to recall someone stuck their foot in front of my wheels sending me flying through the air, and you guessed it, face planting on the asphalt lips first, slowly sludging to a stop. I still remember the pain from this. Ouch. Plus, I then looked like a nine-year-old who'd had a bad collagen injection in my lips. My parents would eventually spend some pretty decent cash on me and buy me a big skateboard from Mervyns. I remember going there with David and looking at all the cool skateboards on the shelves. They had neon coloring and skid stops. It was a dream come true when my parents bought me one. Definitely got their monies worth out of that purchase.
Memories that are etched in your brain are interesting. Why is it that some things stick, and you can visualize them as though they just happened yesterday? I had a friend in fourth grade who lived right across the street from Topa Topa. He had asthma, and so he needed an inhaler. I'd never seen an inhaler before, but I found one on the floor of his room and I vividly remember depressing it and spraying the medicine right into my eyes. Don't remember if it burned or not, but it's definitely stamped in my brain, the spraying part.
Anyone remember Mary Lou Retton? She was a gymnast in the 84 Olympics in Los Angeles, Ca. I remember watching her on T.V. I totally had a crush on Mary Lou for some reason. I even cut out a picture of her in the newspaper and saved it. I probably still have it somewhere. I was not interested in girls in the fourth grade so it's even more surprising that I took so much interest in her. Who knows. I'm pretty sure the only other event I watched during those games were the rowing events. No other memories come to mind in regard to the 84 games.
I don't remember how this came to be. But in fourth grade someone came to our school and asked for volunteers to do a sort of square dance that would be filmed and aired on the local channel in Ventura County. This was that channel that had multicolored bars running from top to bottom of the screen most of the time until there was a local broadcast. I somehow volunteered. Or maybe was volun-told to take part in this dance. I remember not being overly happy about it. Holding another girl's hand was not something I was too keen about in fourth grade. Nevertheless, I would learn this dance, and it did in fact air on the local channel. Did my parents have any way of recording this? I doubt it. Heck, I think that us kids were still the remote when my dad wanted to change channels.
1984 was yet another good year. I still push that these early years may in fact be the best years of our human lives. If you look at terms of worry, and stress. They are virtually zero at this young age. I did suffer from pretty bad bronchial asthma as a young kid. It would send me to the emergency room a time or two. Had to drink some nasty medicine as a result when I would have flare ups. This could have also been the year where I threw a baseball bat down at the ground after my sister Vicki struck me out. The
Scooby Doo, He Man, and Inspector Gadget were some of my favorite cartoons. I wrote down that my favorite movie was Raiders of The Lost Ark. A hobby of mine oddly was collecting little ceramic figure reins. Pic N Save had a ton of these. I specifically remember one of Donald Duck. These were easily breakable too. I don't believe I have a single one left. Also, pretty sure Pic N Save didn't have the highest quality items anyways. It's right there in the name now isn't it.
I wrote down in my school journal that I was scared after riding the Colossus at Six Flags. My brain however doesn't recall a trip to Magic Mountain in the fourth grade. I wonder if this is when we went with the Kruthoffs who were visiting from S. Dakota. All I remember about that trip was some adults drinking in the back of my U. Gary's van on the way home. And I bet we were not wearing any seatbelts. I do remember going to Disneyland. Thunder Mountain terrified me, and I ended up bawling my eyes out after riding it. This could be the trip I'm remembering the van incident. Remember when Disneyland used tickets to get on to the rides? You only had so many tickets. When you were out, you either had to buy more, or not go on any of the rides. I also remember the big cable car ride that is no longer there. It went right over the Matterhorn roller coaster mountain. There was a special show where Tinker Bell would fly around on a cable from the top of that snowy peak. It only took one dead Tinker Bell to end that! Just kidding, I'm not sure why they discontinued it. I so seriously miss the Bear Jam Country Jamboree. Not sure why they got rid of those big fake dancing bears. Remember the snoring bear in the cave as you approached that section of the park? I can. Now they have a Winnie The Pooh ride that is actually painful to experience if you aren't a kid, or a kid at heart. And a water ride that the woke community decided needed to be changed because it had racist themes in it. Another page in this journal was titled, The Sad Me. This is fairly comical, so I'll share the entire page.
The touch of: "Somebodies wet cold hands" makes me sad.
The sight of: "My sister" makes me sad.
The sound of: "Somebody crying" makes me sad.
The smell of: "My other sister" makes me sad.
The taste of: " My mom's cooking, sometimes" makes me sad.
Boy o boy did me and my sisters get into some hum dingers over the years. I listed the day my grandpa died as one of the saddest days I could remember. Did we find out he had passed upon return from that magic mountain trip! Anyone of my family members recall?
Anyone remember me talking about my Ghostbusters shirt? I drew a picture of me wearing it in the fourth grade. That's the drawing at the top of this page.
The cost of homes by the end of 84 were at $112,472.00. This required a minimum income of $38,400.00. Joel Singer, who was vice president of planning, research and economics for the Ca Association of Realtors stated that a major factor in home prices rising was the increase of 5 to 10 percent of household incomes since 1978. New car prices: A BMW 633 CSI coup cost you a whopping forty grand. That thirty-eight four a year income doesn't seem like a whole lot after hearing this does it! A Cadillac Cimarron ran around $12,600.00. A Chevy Blazer, $8478.00.
Minimum wages in Ca were around $3.50 an hour. That means you were earning $124.oo a week. $6448.00 a year. Well below the amount needed to be able to purchase a home. Rent amounts hovered nationally around $300.00 a month. Found on the internet this info. Average rent prices have increased 8.85% per year since 1980. Consistently outpacing wage inflation by a significant margin. In the year 2021, the average rent would increase over 18% in one year.
Food costs. Retail grocery prices increased 3.8 % in 84. Compared to a 2.1% rise in 83. Freezing weather around the country ruined fruit and veggie crops driving up the price. Slow consumer spending on poultry caused reduced production, and inevitably, higher prices. A new T.V. cost you around $700 dollars. As you can see, we never looked back. The cost of living just keeps going up, and up, and up. A funny side note. Our local lake has been victim to a ten-year drought. People have been asked to conserve water, which was actually achieved. Now, the lake management is proposing a rate increase of up to 50% in five years. Why? Well because of the low demand of course. Seems absurd, doesn't it!
"Where there is equality, there can be sanity."
- George Orwell, 1984
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