Life of Brian

1991   

There comes a time in everyone's lives when they think to themselves, what am I gonna do this weekend?  You thought I was going to mention something whimsical or insightful didn't you.  Nah, that's for a much later blog.  My third year of High School was pretty much no different than the second year, minus not breaking any bones.  I would skip trying out for the football team this year.  Basketball for me would end this year, I would not play as a senior.  I wouldn't even finish out the entire season.  School was just ok.  The harder classes were sort of winding down for me.  Now I was able to take things like consumer math.  Consumer is kind of a code word for, well, you weren't smart enough to even get through Geometry, so here's some life skills math for you.  We'd learn about budgeting, balancing checkbooks, learning how to figure out your taxes, and more general everyday stuff that every human on this earth eventually needs to know to live day to day life.  Unless you are an Engineer or some other smart person, can you really say that Trigonometry helped you day to day, or even decade to decade?  I bet not.  School was just a nuisance for me.  Of course, it's mandated by law that you attend some form of school up to the age of 18.  So, it is what it is. I would begin and end a career at Double J market.  It was fun working at Double J.  I was a box boy, and when I worked closing shifts, I'd get to sweep and mop the entire store, pull down screens over the produce, and generally put the store to sleep for the next day of business.  I'd meet my first girlfriend here in the summer of 92.  She would come into the store from time to time.  I finally had the grand idea to give her my number on a piece of paper.  I followed her out of the store and told her she dropped something.  Didn't even put my name on it, just my home phone number.  To my surprise, she actually called it.  She had attended private schools and was the same age as I.  She planned on going to Nordhoff in the fall.  We dated for the entire summer and into the beginning of my senior year.  Then she dumped me.  Funny thing, she went to Colorado that summer for a month or so, and I would meet a girl my age in the campground across from my house.  Just walking up the creek one day, I would meet her and her friend.  We actually ended up kind of dating for a few weeks.  Now, you could probably say this was cheating, and in all actuality, it really was, I guess, but we were all in high school and dating is dating.  Not like it was anything more serious.  So, I don't feel bad about it.  Getting dumped was interesting.  All of the sudden, someone who was basically my best friend, wanted nothing to do with me.  Didn't want to sit with me at lunch, didn't answer my calls, almost became a stranger.  That's how I knew.  I don't recall any formal discussion about breaking up, no letter, no phone call.  She just became a stranger.  I had a couple of other interactions with females before all of this.  I would go to prom with a girl that to this day, believes I had very bad intentions.  I couldn't believe she was going to prom with me in the first place, and I was probably one the nicest, most naive young men at Nordhoff that she could have met.  I had no desire to do anything else with her than to attend Prom and have a fun time.  A few other friends of mine and myself rented a limo for the occasion.  We would all meet at my house last, because I lived up the canyon of course, and leave for Prom from there.  My parents very graciously provided some drinks and snacks.  One of those snacks was onion dip.  Our family LOVES onion dip.  My youngest sister can practically drink it!  I thought it was a great idea and was the only one to eat any out of our group.  This proves how naive I was.  They knew this dip would give them onion breath.  I was oblivious, plus had no intentions of sucking face, or worried about the onion breath sure to follow.  So, I happily indulged.  The first hour or so of the night was just fine and dandy. Basically, just the limo ride down to Mandalay Beach Resort.  After that, things took a turn. She seemed aggravated, didn't really want to dance, basically became non talkative, and looked like she was miserable.  After prom the plan was to go in the limo up to Frimples in Santa Barbara.  This was the restaurant that had the big tree growing in the middle of it.  We made it up to the restaurant, ordered our food and dessert, the others were having a good ol time.  Even they noticed my date did not look happy.  I wanted to be able to talk to her in private to ask what the problem was, so I asked her if she'd like to go out to the limo.  Of course I don't know this for certain, but I think maybe she thought I was trying to get her alone in the limo to do some other things that didn't involve words!  This was far from being true.  I was not that type of guy, not then, and not to this day.  It is baffling to me what happened.  I still had fun regardless, I was with all of my friends.  I felt bad for her, she didn't have any of her friends there and must have felt alienated.  I'm really good at ignoring people who don't seem to want to interact, so maybe that was it.  I happen to know that she STILL holds resentment towards me to this day!  That's a sad fact indeed.  If by chance she ever ends up reading this, I wish her and her family the best.

Halfway through the basketball season, I ended up quitting.  I did not like my coach.  I felt as if he didn't know what he was doing.  I also didn't like the fact that he didn't play me very much.  The guys on my team had played organized basketball together for years now.  We should have been a very good team, but something always held us back from a winning season.  When I decided I'd had enough, I simply walked away from the bench, went into the locker room and began changing into my regular clothes.  This was during a game.  The coach had no idea where I had gone to.  I was very mad at the time.  I gave him my bag of uniforms and told him I quit!  It felt good in the moment.  But I would regret it a little bit in the following year.  I don't regret quitting his team, I do regret leaving my teammates.   Before quitting, our team went to a tournament in Santa Paula.  I drove my parents' car and took a couple other teammates with me.  During one of the games, as I was lunging for a loose ball across the key, someone's knee hit me right in my left temple.  The last thing I remember was seeing a very bright white flash of light.  Then I woke up and was laying on the ground.  I didn't play anymore that evening, and I had my friend Brad drive us all home.  That was a scary experience indeed.  I relate it to shutting off your computer by just unplugging it really quickly.  Must be the same thing.  Luckily my processor came back on, but I do think my RAM was compromised.  

Late summer of 92, I would get fired from Double J market.  Kids make poor decisions sometimes, and I was fairly good at it.  All of my friends were going to the beach.  I really wanted to go but had to work that day.  My friend Mike had a fairly adult sounding voice, so I came up with a grand idea.  I'd have Mike call Double J acting like my dad and call in sick for me!  I made the call, Mike spoke into the receiver, and explained that his son Brian would not be in to work because he was ill.  It was going superbly until my boss asked what was wrong with me.  This made my 'Dad' Mike, stumble.  He couldn't think of anything else to say but... "Uh, I'm not sure, he's just sick".  Doesn't sound very parent like does it.  My boss knew something was up, and I was no longer given any hours.  When I asked about this, I was told I was no longer needed.   I was beginning to loath that job anyway.  I had a girlfriend, I was driving, I had good friends to do things with, why did I need to complicate my life with a job anyway!  I'm sure my parents are thinking to themselves... money.   

Drivers ed at Nordhoff was a blast.  The classroom learning stuff was fun, the driving lessons were a blast!  I had two other students who did the driving lessons with me.  These two girls were not really my friends, I just simply didn't know them very well.  They were terrible drivers!  As one would expect as they had never driven before I'm assuming.  When they'd accelerate, we'd get whip lash.  When they'd brake, we'd get whiplash.  When they drove curvy roads, we'd go on to the shoulder, over the white line and hit ruts in the asphalt.  They eventually got better, but it was exciting at times to say the least.  I don't know how our teacher/driving instructor lived soo long, but he did.  I 'd see him walking with his wife for years and years after graduating from school.  My friend Brian and I would drive to the beach on a regular basis.  He had a girlfriend, and he also drove an older car, his parents old Maverick.  I'm not sure how this started, but we loved to rear end one another with our vehicles.  At a slow speed mind you!  One of our favorite places to do this was coming up to an intersection stop light.  It was even better if there were a lot of other cars already stopped.  The look on the other drivers faces as I slammed into the back of Brians car were PRICELESS!  It didn't hurt the cars; they were both pretty heavy older style vehicles.  The noise was loud though, and people obviously thought they'd just witnessed a fender bender.  Brians head would snap back a bit from the collision.  This was soo much fun, we couldn't help ourselves.  Sorry dad, I don't think it caused any damage.  None that was noticeable any way.  I do remember my dad telling us how the car had quit on him one day, and when he took it into the shop, they told him that oddly enough the motor had come off its mount!  Hmmm.  Wonder how that happened?  lol.  Whoopsie !

We may have traveled out to New Mexico in the winter this year.  I can't really remember which year this occurred, but it was indeed during Christmas.  My mom had a little wiener dog name Tammy, and we brought her with us on this trip.  Tammy was old and she would spend her last night in my grandparent's trailer on this trip.  I recall my dad and I going back to their room they stayed in, and Tammy was in her little bed.  She was deaf as a doornail anyway, but she didn't respond to his calls.  He picked her head off the bed and when he let go, she just dropped, so we knew she was dead.  It was a hard trip for sure.  I would also learn how to shave at my grandparents.  My dad would show me the ropes.  To this day, I am able to grow facial hair very proficiently.  I think I remember one more trip to my grandparents after this one.  That would be the last time I'd ever make it out to their house.

In 1991, a little country called Kuwait, was being invaded by the country of Iraq.  The U.S. got involved and sent troops to protect this tiny little country of Kuwait.  I seem to remember this war lasting no more than a hundred days, and the casualties were almost nonexistent on the Americans side.  It was a decisive victory for the U.S.  I recall wanting to enlist in the Airforce during this time.  There were numerous videos of airstrikes being carried out, and joining the Airforce seemed enticing.  I was nowhere near intelligent enough to become a pilot, this I knew.  But I still wanted to be a part of our mighty military.  Luckily, I never carried through on these thoughts.  My Dad knew very well that war is hell.  I'm sure he would have discouraged me from joining, but if that is what I really wanted to do, he would have supported it. Gasoline was less than a dollar a gallon.  Median home prices in the LA area were at $222,829.00.  Minimum wage was at $4.25 an hour.  At that wage, Americans were making just under $200 a week, less than $9000,00 a year.   A VCR cost four hundred dollars.  A new car averaged in price at $15, 475.00.  Food prices did not rise that much in comparison to the previous year.

Movies out this year included City Slickers, Terminator 2, and The Silence of the Lambs.  T.V. shows included Home Improvement, ROC, Dinosaurs, and Hermans Head.  Cheers was one of my favorites.  Top songs for 91 were "Everything I Do" by Bryan Adams, "One More Try" by Timmy T.  "More Than Words" by Extreme, and "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M.  My mom loved Hall and Oats and so did I.  We had a couple of their cassettes.  

1991 was a good year.  I'd learn some life lessons.  Driving was a blast and opened up a whole new world of exploration.  Everyone in my family was working.  I only had one more year of school left!  We'd spend most holidays with family which was always fun.  My wood splitting abilities were unmatched, I think my uncle would move his trailer on to our property this year and live with us for a while.  I remember watching a co-worker of my dad's tow that trailer over a bushy hill and down into our back yard.  I was amazed that he even made it back there.  I was still taking care of rattlesnakes around our house.  My parents purchased a satellite dish.  Not the small ones we have today, but a big full-size dish.  We were able to watch lots of T.V. after installing this.  I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life after high school.  

"I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner."

-Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.

 

Life of Brian

1990

Only twenty-four years ago!  What's twenty-four years amongst friends.  Nineteen ninety was my second year of high school.  What are sophomores good for anyways?  My confidence levels would peak this year.  I tried out for the football team and made it on!  Well, they pretty much took anybody so not such a great feat.  Football practice started over the summer prior to the school year.  It would turn out to be a fairly warm summer.  The school had made a watering trough of sorts for the players.  Basically, a pvc pipe contraption with about twenty holes poked in it for twenty mouths to hover over and suck down some delicious hose water.  Did Gatorade exist in 1990?  If it did, I don't recall ever drinking any.  Of all the sports I ever played, and that equals three, football would make me sore in places I didn't even know I could get sore.  The arches of my feet for instance.  I was in really good shape from the daily activities of living in the mountains.  So conditioning wasn't too bad.  It was the hitting drills and wearing spikes for hours on end that made it special.  The day I got all my shoulder pads I remember coming home and trying them on.  My dad and I would test them out by him rapping on them with his monadnock about half strength.  My Dad was good for that kind of stuff.  I remember when he started carrying pepper spray, I excitedly volunteered to have some rubbed under my eye to see how well it worked.  This was actually called Mace, and it was the predecessor of pepper spray.  It worked well for sure.  When your eye closes tight without you even thinking about it and doesn't re-open until you rinse with copious amounts of water, I'd call that irrefutable evidence that it did what it was intended for.  Back to football.  As I mentioned before, I'd never played organized tackle football.  Only yard tackle where your biggest obstacle was not landing in a huge pile of dog shit when you got tackled.  Dog poop wreaks doesn't it.  When it came time for hitting drills, I was a total dummy.  There was a drill called 'Alleys'.  One player would run the ball, another would try to tackle said player.  The ball runner would choose one of three alleys to run between.  In this case the alleys were made up with cones.  The first day running this drill I would end up with a third elbow.  The guy on the other side of me hit me so hard that I flew up in the air and backwards.  It was a beautiful wakeup call not to run straight up and down while playing the game of football.  My elbow would swell just above my elbow and create another elbow!  If that makes sense.  I would also get this bruise that consisted of about six or seven little purple dots.  Definitely got my ass whooped that day, but never again would I let that happen.  My twin elbows would be sore for a long time.  Every time we did hitting drills for the next week or so, it would hurt tremendously.  Another drill was to lie helmet to helmet on our backs.  When the whistle was blown, both players got up and tackled one another.  My first round I got hit in my newly developed, purple polka dotted elbow by a kid's helmet.  It really hurt and I was seriously angry.  When I laid down helmet to helmet again with the next guy in line, I wanted to hurt him.  The other guy ended up being the smallest guy on our team height wise.  I got up so fast, spun around and hit this kid as hard as I possibly could.  Teeth gritting, full bore rage took over and I knocked this kid up in the air and backwards.  He was shocked and I'm sure it didn't feel good.  I didn't care.  Our coach could see I was mad and even said this out loud.  Little purple bruises are a bad thing.  I've never had that type of bruising again.  Second string quarter back and second-string free safety were my positions.  I'd complete one pass for the season, and I'd make a couple of tackles that made the highlight reels for our banquet.  I'd also get completely steam rolled on more than one occasion.  If you've never had some kids knee, who was running full speed, totally punch you square in the stomach with that knee, then you just haven't lived.  Only reason I ended up tackling that kid was because he tripped over my falling body as all the air in my lungs quickly shot out into the stadium.  Too bad we lose the ability to just bounce back from trauma as we get older.  Some point late in the season I would break my left ring finger at practice doing you guessed it, hitting drills.  I stuck my finger in the belt of the other guy's pad rig, and he proceeded to twist to get away from me.  My finger went along for the ride and was sticking out the complete opposite direction of all of my other fingers.  It was badly broken, and I ended up in the emergency room to get it fixed.  Dr. Menninger gave me pain shots in my finger and then twisted it back straight.  He then told me to make a fist.  As long as my finger didn't turn north again while making the fist, determined whether or not I'd need a pin inserted between the two bones.  It held tight.  I'd spend the rest of football season in a cast up to my elbow.  I'd spend the first few weeks of basketball season wearing a metal splint.  I can't even imagine what it cost my parents, but this was well before the Affordable Health Care Act, so it was probably pretty reasonable.  

Basketball season would go fairly well.  Our team could never quite get it all put together to come up with more than just a couple of wins.  But it was fun, nonetheless.  During practice the varsity coach thought it would be fun to let some of the varsity team members practice against us.  Well, of course these guys knew they were studs compared to us, so this one particular player started messing around.  I didn't like this for some reason and so when he was passed the ball, I ran up and practiced my football hitting drill skills on him.  My shoulder firmly planted on his chest, driving his jaw downward and his two very buck front teeth sunk into my shoulder like a victim in a Count Dracula movie!  I still have the scars to this day.  That kid didn't feel so studly anymore after that.  He never did anything to me either.  There is some good that comes from violence after all! (girls if you are reading this, NO THERE ISN'T!)  This is the incident that I now feel bad about.  He didn't deserve that, and I'm sure it hurt pretty badly.  I think he became a Dentist, so really, he owes me a thank you.  The last sport I'd play this year, would be baseball.  I still really kinda sucked at baseball because I was totally afraid of the ball.  There was a kid on the team whose mom used to love nothing more than to supply the team with endless donuts, punch, big league chewing gum and candy during our games.  Those of us that sat on the bench took full advantage of this!  One game the umpire actually stopped the game and reminded our coach that "This was a baseball game! Not a picnic!"  Our coach was a tad embarrassed.  We didn't get in any real trouble though, and I learned that Big League Chew-ing gum doesn't go well with donuts.  To my surprise, one of the kids I mentioned being in P.E. was on my team.  He was a pitcher.  This kid could have passed as a thirty-year-old.  He was big and muscular and had long curly blonde hair.  He led the season in hit batters, and you could almost see the joy in his face every time he hit a batter.  This included practices!  I'm telling you, bad apples those ones.

I do not recall if we traveled anywhere this year.  I don't think we did.  The house up the canyon continued to be a dream come true for me.  Hiking and biking and fishing continued.  My younger sister would begin driving.  She owned a car she bought from some old guy.  It was a total boat.  She'd sail down or driveway one day and discover that her brakes decided not to work!  WHAM!  Lucky for her my dad's car was parked in the driveway that day and stopped her nicely.  That poor car of my parents would take a beating over the years.  Wait until he reads what I used to do in it, in the next few posts!  HaHa.  My mom still cleaned houses.  My Dad was still adjusting people's bad decisions.  I think my oldest sister was attending Cal Poly.  My younger sister was managing to stay out of juvie hall, lol.  My cousin would continue taking me on trips riding quads etc.  My uncle took me on a few ocean fishing trips.  My aunt who loved horses would take us on horseback rides when there were stables down on Hermosa rd.  Now there's a million-dollar house that rich people can rent out.  I'd get in a hum dinger of a fight with my youngest sister.  She was in trouble over the summer and wasn't supposed to be using the phone.  Our phone was the style that you could disconnect the receiver from the base.  When she ignored my parents rule not to use the phone, I took matters in my own hands and disconnected the receiver and then promptly barricaded myself in my room.  After much banging on my door, and after many a threat, I decided to open my door whereupon she took the receiver from me and promptly hit me in the head with it.  This absolutely flipped my switch to destroy mode and I would chase her into the living room and pin her down, fist inches away from her face explaining that I could kill her if I wanted to!  We both ended up with some really nice scratches.  These would not go unnoticed by my dad who eventually asked what the heck had happened.  After explaining WHAT had happened, he just simply asked who had won.  lol.  Wasn't the only time I'd fight with my sisters.  After all, they thought they were my mother's when I was younger, I begged to differ and used my fists to do my talking.  You can only be called Tattoo so many times before words will never be enough retaliation.

Average home prices in Ca were around $194,300.00.  Rent amounts hovered around $500 a month.  Gasoline was less than .80 cents a gallon!  Found this on the internet: "The index for all items less food and energy rose 5.2 % in 1990."  "This following a 4.4 % increase in 1989".  "The 1990 price reflects the larger increases in prices of apparel commodities, up 5.0 % in 90 compared to 0.7 % in 89."  Yearly incomes averaged in the high fifties to low sixty thousand for California.  It cost an adult 31 dollars to get into Disneyland for a day.  Children were $25.  Movie tickets ran you around $3.60.  The Honda Accord was the most popular car in 1990.  Ford made the Fiesta and the Escort.  Lincoln Town cars were voted car of the year.  

I've seen all of the top movies listed for that year.  Titles like Dances with Wolves, Total Recall, Ghost, and Die Hard 2.  Ghost actually took the number one spot for highest grossing movie of the year.  T.V. shows included Blossum, Northern Exposure, Wings, Twin Peaks, and The Flash.  I remember watching Twin Peaks.  It was very odd for that day in age.  

I would discover the power of magnets this year, as far as placing them really closely to the T.V. screen.  Oddly enough, if you do this, it draws all color to one spot on the screen where you were holding the magnet.  My dad wasn't too thrilled over this.  Our T.V. luckily reverted back to normal after a few hours.  Could have been days, I don't really recall.  I still didn't care one bit about clothing.  My mom would cut my hair and it always looked fabulous.  I really didn't have any interest in girls yet, but I did start paying more attention to the Cheerleaders.  Next year I'd be enrolled in drivers training at my high school.  I think this may have been the last year the school offered this class to any students.  I was about to become a young driver.  Good stories ahead for sure.

Anyone catch the math error?  lol

"The nineties were a fertile period for the self-indulgent genius."

- Chuck Klosterman, The Nineties

Life of Brian

1989

Freshman

(A first-year student at a university, college, or high school)

Nordhoff High School.  The last campus on the roster.  The final four years of public school.  For me, this would be the last place I would set foot in a classroom where a teacher would try to embed knowledge into my brain.  Ninety-five-point eight percent of the time my brain was opposed to this notion.  School was boring, there were few subjects that sparked my interest, nor was my brain actually capable of retaining what it did find remotely interesting.  After reassuring myself that I lacked confidence, I decided to enroll in a P.E. class rather than try out for one of the high school teams. Football would have been the first sport of the year, and I had never played anything other than yard tackle football or flag football at Matilija.  Excelling at neither of the above mentioned, P.E. was my only path.  I made it one week in P.E.  I discovered on the first day, that it appeared all the boys in P.E. were kids who shall we say, didn't give a rat's ass, about much.  These were kids who I knew to be bullies in middle school.  Kids that didn't necessarily follow the rules.  Kids that like to swear more than use the common English language.  P.E. was a downright scary place.  This opened my eyes to the possibility of trying out for the Nordhoff basketball team after football season was over.  It was a great motivator to try my best to get on the team.  I did not under any circumstances want to be stuck in physical education.  Having dropped P.E., I was able to choose another elective.  I chose a combination drafting and architecture class.  This might have been my favorite class in my entire four years of High School.  The teacher seemed to be a cool guy, the drawings were fun to complete, and in the second semester we were able to create our own floor plans and design our own house.  I would end up taking this class all four years.  The last of which would end my desires to become an architect or draftsperson.  My senior year would see the introduction of auto cad.  Drawing on computers might have been the newest thing, but I hated it.  I'd much rather throw some scummex on a piece of paper and start penciling in lines with a real pencil, and a T square, and angles.  Another reason was I found out just how involved architectural drawings are in the real world.  Elevation this, cut out of that, substructures, blah, blah, blah.  I wasn't good at math either and it appeared I would need to be. Mr. Lepas was our teacher (forgive me if I spelled his name incorrectly) and he was indeed a little spitfire.  I believe he may have been of Greek descent, and he did not put up with shenanigans.  He was absent one week due to jury duty.  We had a sub who did not know one thing about architecture.  He was noticeably just there as a filler.  Some kids saw this as a green light for mayhem.  Pencils were thrown, scummex pads were launched across the room, the decibel levels inside the classroom reached ear bleed levels.  What the dumb kids didn't think about, was that this sub would surely write a report that Mr. Lepas would inevitably read!  It didn't take very many seconds of the first class upon his return to set us straight on what he expected of us from there on out.  I recall him mentioning things like, "First punch is free!"  This was a challenge to any kid who thought they were tough.  He proposed letting them take the first punch, and then he'd open a can of whoop ass on them, proposedly!  He loved his career so I highly doubt this ever would have happened.  He asserted himself nicely however in the eyes of the rebellion as they were good as gold anytime we had a sub thereafter. 

For dumb kids like me, algebra was split in to two classes.  Algebra A, and algebra B.  I did just fine in A, passing with a solid D.  My teacher in algebra B however was an actual grumpy individual.  His finger was crooked on his writing hand, and his attitude was crooked all the time!  He did not like kids to ask questions.  If he explained it once, there was no reason why you'd need him to explain it AGAIN!  Again was my middle name when it came to learning.  Again and again and again and again actually!  This may have been the first F on my progress report.  I don't know how I managed to pull out of the F and secure a beautiful D in that class, but I did.  My oldest sister had already graduated by the time I made it to Nordhoff, but my other sister was a Junior I believe.  I don't know why I felt like mentioning this, we never really interacted much as far as I remember.  I would try out for the basketball team and actually make the team!  Luckily there were three teams.  Varsity, J.V. and frosh soph.  I would make it on to the frosh/soph team.  As I had learned in middle school, being on a team was fun.  You got to travel to away games, which meant getting out of class early on occasion.  It also meant eating out, and it meant spending time with dudes you got along with and shared common interests.  So, the bus rides were always fun.  High School was by far, proving to be much better then middle school.  

The outside world was a scary place in the late eighties.  I'm sure many of you remember the events at Tiananmen Square.  I remember watching that man standing in front of that massive tank in defiance.  I really didn't know what it was about at the age of fourteen, I just knew that whatever drew that man to a display of defiance, to stand in front of a military tank and not budge, must have been something he felt very strongly about, strong enough to die over it.  I knew nothing of the communist government in China.  In the United Kingdom, 95 civilians would die at a sporting event.  These poor people were crushed to death at an overcrowded stadium.  The 96th death would come seven years later.  The last person to die had been in a coma for those seven years since the incident. President George Bush, and Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev met to discuss the end of the cold war.  The Exxon Valdez would run aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound spilling around eleven million gallons of crude oil into the ocean.  I remember seeing pictures of birds covered in oil. The Soviets would withdraw from Afghanistan after a nine-year conflict that resulted in a stalemate.  Serial killer Ted Bundy was executed in Florida.  

89 would be the year I went on a trip up to northern Ca. to visit my uncle.  This would be a multi-day trip with my dad and my Uncle Raymond.  We would use my uncle's truck, a single cab Mitsubishi standard transmission small truck.  My Dad being six foot two roughly, and my uncle being five foot eleven, made for a tight fit inside the cab of that truck.  It wasn't comfortable for sure, but I didn't care.  It was a fun trip in which I'd get to meet my dad's oldest brother and his son.  Along the way, we'd get to eat some insanely tasty, canned salmon that a friend of my Uncle Raymond had personally made.  I'd never been to Northern California before.  It's a beautiful place indeed with all the tree's everywhere.  We checked in to our hotel room upon arrival and then went out to have dinner and what not.  Upon return to our room, we noticed things were kind of out of sorts from when we had left.  I still don't believe my dad and uncle, but they claim that somebody had entered our room while we were gone and taken a shower.  They were adamant about this, but nothing had been stolen, so we remained in that same room the entire stay.  I'm not sure why it was just the three of us that went on this trip.  I wonder what my mom and sisters were doing back in Ojai.  

Our summer trip to New Mexico included my oldest sister's boyfriend this year.  I think his last name was Crappy, or something like that.  We camped at Zion National Park on this trip and my parents purchased us inner tubes to raft down the river on.  Myself, Mr. Crappy, and my sister were all having a grand time with this activity until I 'accidentally' ran Crappy over on some rapids.  He was a military guy and didn't like the fact that I had just pummeled him with my tube.  After re surfacing from the river, he was angry.  His precious sunglasses had gotten wet, and his pride had been dampened.  Surely, he understood it must have been an accident and not intentional.  I mean really, mother nature is in charge of flow dynamics of that river, not me!  He would end that trip accusing me of intentionally trying to drown him, as well as blaming my mom of intentionally breaking his sunglasses.  My mother would buy him a new pair because she is a nice person.  She had nothing to do with his glasses breaking.  Luckily, he and my sister traveled in a separate car, so we at least didn't have to listen to his bickering down the interstate.  I don't believe they dated much longer after that trip. 

Inflation was at 4.83%.  Interest rates were at 10.5%.  Homes on average throughout the country cost around $120,000.00.  The average American citizen was making just $27,450.00 a year.  Average rents hovered near the $400 a month mark.  New cars were in the ballpark of $15,000.00.  Gas per gallon, .97 cents.  A ham and cheese pizza set you back $2.59.  Rib Eye steaks averaged $3.79 per pound.

In researching movies of 1989, I actually don't recognize a single movie listed.  Some titles that came up include, Twister, Cousins, Roger and Me, and For All Mankind.  I may have watched For All Mankind in the past decade.  Movies really aren't an interest of mine.  Wait a minute!  1989 was the year one of my all-time favorite movies was released! National Lampoons Christmas Vacation!  I absolutely love that movie and watch it every year around Christmas.  Popular songs included Wind Beneath My Wings, Bette Midler.  Eternal Flame, Bangles.  Love Shack, B-52's, and Lost in Your Eyes, by Debbie Gibson.  There were some really good T.V. shows in 89.  LA Law, The Wonder Years, Family Ties, and Dynasty.

My freshman year was sort of the beginning of a time in my life where family was not as unified as years past.  My sisters had their own friends.  They had jobs, as well as my oldest sister attending college in SLO.  My parents were very busy with their jobs.  My mom would clean up to three houses a day, very hard work indeed.  This meant I had a lot of time to myself.  I'd hike in the mountains every weekend.  Sometimes I'd take the family dog with me.  I never felt the need to be around others.  However, people watching is something I enjoy taking part of to this day.  People are very interesting; I just don't like having to pretend I get along with the majority of them!  lol.  My cousin Mike would take me on trips to Pismo to ride quads.  That was epic fun!  I cannot thank he and Lynn enough for taking me on those outings.  He would also let me drive his truck on dirt roads up Quatal Canyon.  It might have just been once actually, but nevertheless, my first attempt at driving a stick.  He and I went on a 4x4 trip up around Lake arrowhead one year.  On the first day of the trip, as we started up a fairly narly road that definitely required four-wheel drive, we began hearing a very loud banging noise.  Like someone was using a sledgehammer against a piece of sheet metal.  We were both perplexed and our brains could not figure out what this noise could be coming from.  The noise kept getting closer and closer to us when eventually a tow truck emerged uphill from us.  Behind it was a VW van.  I don't believe there was ever a four-wheel drive model made for this particular vehicle.  This one was certainly just two-wheel drive.  The tow truck dragged it down that nasty road, bumping and clanging and banging all the way down.  That vehicle had to have been toast by the time the tow truck got it back to pavement.  We scratched our heads as to why this type of vehicle was up that road!  My Uncle would take me fishing on charter boats off the coast of Ventura.  As I mention constantly, I was very lucky to have family around to provide all of these opportunities. Times were a changing, that is for sure.  I'd soon have a job of my own.  I'd start driving.  Bones would be broken.  I'd even start dating soon.  Good stuff indeed.

"We can move on because we do weather here, not play baby doll house rumpity dump rump kisser waa waaa cabbage patch kids..."   

- Southern California Weather Force Guy 2023.