A lot of my grade school memories still seem clear as day to me when I try to recollect them, images and sounds and smells and colors seared into my wrinkled brain mass like a series of uncorrupted data files. Bright. Vivid. Pristine. It’s amazing to me how easily I can recall completely random moments from 35 years ago, often with more clarity than something that just happened last week. The combination of sensory stimuli collide together into a kind of mental video, and I guess I’m stuck with it forever.
Pop cultural detritus is everywhere.
It’s those peripheral sounds, commercial jingles, TV show catchphrases, theme songs, radio deejay banter, and pop songs in particular that attach themselves to the memories, complimenting the actions and long ago still shots, and cementing them to our psyches. And I’m unable to separate any of it.
In 4th grade, I knew this kid named Alan. He was new to the Episcopalian private school I went to at the time (the birthplace of my atheism), and for some reason or another (because kids are jerks) my friends and I gave him a hard time. We weren’t so much bullies as we just talked a lot of shit to him which he then slung right back at us. It wasn’t long before we were all good friends, having bonded over our mutual interest in drawing monsters, and apparently talking shit. One night, Alan invited me over to spend the night at his house. I remember drawing in his kitchen, a bright room with white wallpaper that had thin, light blue vertical and horizontal lines on it that created a bunch of 4x4 inch squares. We drew on manilla paper. I drew a picture of a shark eating Alan. He drew a picture of shark eating me (his was better). We ate pepperoni pizza from Domino’s. We played with Madballs. We watched Chopping Mall. Def Leppard played from somewhere. “Love Bites,” a song so ubiquitous with the 1980's for me, that I can nary think of one without the other.
I guess to be fair, Def Leppard were everywhere in 1988, their ’87 album Hysteria spawning seven hit singles that the British pop metal act coasted on to close out the decade. And they’ve stuck with me, their #1 smash hit power ballad forever soundtracking that one time I drew a picture of shark eating my friend.
Pop music is glue.
Alan’s family moved away the summer before 5th grade, and I never saw him again. I don’t know where he ended up or whatever became of him, but hopefully he’s steered clear of the ocean.
HOT DAMN I Love this post!!!
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