I often wish I had Now Up2Date back in the Eighties so I could have documented my past more accurately, especially with the bigger events from high school and university. Then again, maybe I should heed Mace’s wisdom from Strange Days, “Memories are meant to fade. They’re designed that way for a reason.”
However, I can’t change who I am and in honor of this trip down memory lane, March’s theme is the old San Diego Padres’ colors from the late Eighties. Back when sports franchises didn’t wear “marketable” gang colors and weren’t selling their venues’ naming rights to corporations (I can hear the Cubs’ fans bellyaching all the way down in TX).
On to the story…
Twenty years ago, I spent my second Spring Break in the more interesting San Diego. My parents relocated there when the Summer of 1987 was winding down. I got to help them pack up from Lansdale, PA before they dropped me off in Milwaukee. (I would never live with them again.) This move made me more livid than the previous ones. Through most of high school my family lived in lame places: Indianapolis (aka India-No-Place); Bloomington-Normal, IL; and Beulah, ND. Houston I embraced after the Summer of 1983 and my mother passed on Tampa. Now my square parents chose to live in the most desirable part of the country during the Eighties: Southern California. Just my luck I was over 18 and they found a place to stay put for five years, a Maggi record at the time. I’ll have to ask my younger brother why he never chose to move back in with them and remained in duller-than-dirt Bloomington-Normal with our maternal grandmother.
Throughout the Spring semester, I kept thinking about how sweet my second Spring Break was going to be. By March, the weather remained horrid in Milwaukee. The majority of my friends were returning home unless they had the beaucoup bucks for Florida. They got a week off in Winter without classes while I was flying to the warmer, sunnier and hipper San Diego, not the dirty, crack-laden and nasty Philly again. The prospect of a pleasant climate definitely made the terror of flying palatable; I had only flown twice before and never on a non-stop four-hour flight.
Dad foolishly didn’t think I could get a ride to O’Hare so my ticket had me doing the ridiculous up-and-down flight from Milwaukee to Chicago; this is slated for an hour yet it takes less than 10 minutes. San Diego was better. I experienced the luxury of a 767 with a full-length movie and dinner (something they don’t do anymore). The plane was as large as they appear in films or TV. I don’t know how I suppressed my jitters since I was pretty far from the window. Could’ve been the nice engineer next to me who let me have his dessert!
Mom and Dad met me at SD’s surprisingly small airport. They were glad to see me but the usual grief started within minutes:
- Why did I bring a suitcase full of dirty laundry?
- Why didn’t I shave?
- How could I have eaten meat during Lent?
- Whine, whine, whine.
They at least mellowed out while eating dinner in some seafood joint. I was just relieved to be on solid ground again and not having to be bundled up in a heavy jacket or coat. Teddy and Mewsette (our family cats) were in friendly spirits upon my arrival. Not having pets around was always something I missed in the dorms. Dad showed me the guest room and then I badgered him for a radio. He thought it could wait but I explained to him the importance of checking out 91-X; one of the premiere commercial Alternative stations. I know Dad found something because I remember kicking back to the new INXS single (“Mystify”) and the New Order tune for the movie Salvation (“Touched by the Hand of God”). Those were definitely songs to the “soundtrack” of the time. The other three would be “This Corrosion” by The Sisters of Mercy, “Route 66” by Depeche Mode and “Shattered Dreams” by Johnny Hates Jazz. I didn’t say it was perfect.
The week there was a dull blur. They did take me into the city on Sunday for an animation festival at the local museum. I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time. It was too cold to go swimming nor did the ‘rents want to; SD in March is rather cool and wet in the morning. The rest of the time Dad went to work and I hung around the house, bored while Mom did her routine. I’m sure I caught up on all the TV I could tolerate, annoyed that Pacific Time followed the same schedule as Eastern. California had the highest car insurance rates in the country, worse than Pennsylvania, so I wasn’t allowed to drive again. Miramar Naval Base was nearby (where the Top Gun training school resides) which gave me a great view of numerous fighter jets from their back yard. At least I relaxed. No enormous term paper to turn in when I returned unlike the previous Spring Break. Dad also tutored me in the stats class I was failing. He hadn’t taught Math in over 15 years yet he brought me up to speed in 90 minutes on something Dr. Braunschweiger failed to do in eight weeks. I still dropped the class before the grade became permanent as did Helen. Paul is the only one of about 12 (out of the original 30) who finished Braunschweiger’s disastrous course.
My first time in San Diego wasn’t fantastic yet it whetted my appetite to return while I had a relatively free place to crash. I wouldn’t until the following Christmas Break due to a change of plans at semester’s end, namely recalling how my parents “demoted” me in 1987. It was nice to have somewhere warmer to spend school breaks if I chose. I chalked up the trip as experience with seeing another section of America and an opportunity to take back notes on 91-X’s programming habits for the other staff members of WMUR.