School lets out at various points throughout the US: in Central Texas they’re out, in the Midwest, they have almost a week, I recall kids out East used to be stuck until mid-June. Universities are long gone and today is the first day of classes at ACC. Regardless, the vast majority of people agree on Memorial Day Weekend being the de facto launching point for Summer Vacation.
As the Alamo Drafthouse is celebrating 1982 through its selection of 20 movies, I wanted throw in my addendum about how it was also a fantastic Summer for me. It started with the mixed news regarding our inevitable move to Houston, followed by my graduation from St. Agnes (something even then I found comical to celebrate, grade school isn’t much of an accomplishment compared to high school, let alone university). Afterwards the fun and anticipation was underway with it ending in a two-day car ride South.
It all began with Reagan’s budget cuts cascading into the state governments and/or him dumping federal duties on to the cash-strapped states. Dad worked for the Illinois department of mental health as a systems analyst. He accurately predicted what would go down; services would be scaled to nearly nothing resulting in layoffs. I don’t think he gave much thought to part two of Gov. Thompson’s plan, giving all the former mental patients bus tickets to other states…where do you think a good chunk of Milwaukee’s homeless population originated from?
Anyway, as Dad was worrying over our collective fate, he found an ad in the local paper for a recruiter. This led to an interview, a trip to Houston and finally the offer which he accepted. It all went down within April 1982. Our favorite part was when the ‘rents left town. Brian and I got to be semi-on our own for about a week. Semi-? I was 13 plus we had school all day. We didn’t skip. This would mean missing out on the morning pickup game of kickball! Mom’s cool friend Caroline came by in the evening to check up on us too so it wasn’t anything resembling abandonment. My favorite night was when she took us to McDonald’s for late night sundaes while Queen’s “Body Language” played on her car radio! We were both boring kids as well; throwing a party or something stupid wasn’t in our collective DNA.
The news pertaining to the relocation went badly. Mom brought up how we bitched about getting out of Springfield. True, yet those were empty threats, wishful thinking. I know I was devastated. It meant I wouldn’t be attending Griffin with all my friends (who really were douchebags, as I discovered a year later). Looking back, what was upsetting me was the new factor of uncertainty entering my life. Things in Springfield/Griffin looked bleak for the foreseeable future (the Recession namely) but it was better to take the devil you knew than the devil you didn’t from my perspective.
I didn’t let Houston dampen my spirit on graduation night. I enjoyed the evening immensely. The majority celebrated at Chuck E Cheese. Keep in mind, the pizza/arcade restaurant was a different beast 30 years ago and catered to everyone. It was originally an Aladdin’s Castle with food not an exclusive place to ditch a pack of screaming kids on a Saturday afternoon. My graduation gift of binoculars from my grandparents was puzzling and disappointing. I wanted a Commodore Vic-20 computer. Getting to attend Strake Jesuit for a year compensated. I should’ve gone to public school and taken the computer!
With St. Agnes in the metaphorical rearview mirror, Summer got underway…living every day like it were our last in Springfield! Dad split to start his new gig in Houston. Mom, Brian and me would remain until the house was sold. Days were spent playing D&D on the front porch, cleaning up the place for very few realtors, we saw four movies in theaters which was a personal best, trips to Apple Tree Records, listening to the stereo and sleepovers. Mom actually started enjoying going to the arcade thanks to Ms. Pac Man; I remain the family champ at 52,000 circa 1983. I couldn’t wait to see the TRON game too. The news of its arrival was announced on WDBR with a tournament.
Another funny event involved a Playboy. Some classmate, I suspect Jimmy Valentine since his mother bought him the magazine all the time, filled out one of those bill-me later subscription cards with Brian’s name. How I laughed inside when Mom wasted the energy to write PEI a nasty response to the announcement about the magazine’s pending arrival. I’m sure the PEI sub people were like, “Great, another prankster!” Back in the early Eighties, things didn’t move rapidly so four issues hit our mail box. Mom intercepted and returned three. The fourth showed up while she was away at school (I think she was wrapping her master’s degree). We quickly went through it with two other kids from the neighborhood. At our ages, the material was more baffling than prurient. What made the incident humorous was the joint solution to keep Mom from discovering the magazine. We divided up the naughty pictures between the four of us and burned the rest in the backyard. Putting it in a neighbor’s trash can would’ve been easier. I remember that getting the centerfold entitled me to nothing else and there were still staples in this part. This “treasure” remained in my possession for five years, usually hidden somewhere because I honestly never had any use for it. I took it with me to college and unloaded the pages on my roommate Chris who immediately found a purpose for the photo spread.
It wasn’t the only R-rated event yet it was the funniest of the two.
The Summer of 1982 saw my musical tastes and love continue to blossom. It was off to a strong start over the Fall of 1981 courtesy of WDBR, the local freeform FM Rock station. I’m sure they followed a loose format/guideline but the DJs play a wide variety: the Police, Stevie Wonder, Genesis, the Go-Go’s, Human League, Paul McCartney, Rick Springfield, Pat Benatar, Journey, Asia, Scorpions, Queen…if it was Power Pop/Rock, they probably played it. Nothing too daring nor too mainstream. I felt I was ready to finally start collecting albums. I flirted briefly with singles (45s) a couple years earlier then lost interest as other things took up mindspace. I think the backlash at Disco had some influence. This newfound hobby led to me attending my first concert by July…Rick Springfield!
Around the Fourth of July weekend, we kids got to flex some of Dad’s recently acquired prosperity. He came back for an extended stay, gave us each twenty smackers (around $50 today) and dropped us off at the mall to spend the entire Saturday afternoon, by ourselves! This was unprecedented because we were accustomed to being “poor,” compared to what our classmates got to do. I know I took in another viewing of Wrath of Khan. Brian hated Star Trek and went to Megaforce.
My 14th birthday was pretty cool as we spent it at Chuck E. Cheese and seeing TRON at a downtown theater we never went to on a regular basis.
By August, the house’s sale looked improbable; my parents finally sold it in 1990. Mom had to investigate leasing possibilities, a tedious process she turned over to a realtor. Being children, we kept up having a great time with the routines I mentioned earlier. Maybe we thought this could lead to us staying put.
It wasn’t meant to be. Mom and Dad had a tentative arrangement for some prospective tenants by Fall. Besides, Dad wanted us all to be together; something he reconsidered when he had a prospective offer in South Africa. The moving company arrived (Bekins), spent two days packing up our belongings and headed off late on a Friday afternoon. Dad returned during packing-day two to help with the driving.
We had too much remaining crap to fit in the Buick so a second car was rented. Mom and Brian got to travel in this. I was trapped with Dad and our dog the whole way, it sucked since the Buick was from the early Seventies; not a long-range car in my opinion. Dad ran the AC at full blast to keep us awake all night. Good thing too. We saw Mom swerve at least once when she fell asleep at the wheel. The reason why our trek became hazardous was poor planning or optimistic estimates on adrenalin. We left Springfield at 5 PM Saturday, Dad had to be at work on Monday and he made a room reservation in Little Rock. Had we been piled into one vehicle I think we could’ve succeeded easily; I’ve driven from Bloomington-Normal to Memphis by myself twice. Coordinating a mini-convoy sans tag-team driving was a dumb idea. We did make it to Little Rock around 5 AM, took in about several hours of sleep and squeezed into Houston Sunday evening by 11 PM to start a new chapter.
The next few months were filled with stress, complaining, wonder, MTV, commuting and fighting but at least I had the greatest Summer of my short life. Had I known the following five were going suck big time, I would’ve spent more energy appreciating 1982. Still, I don’t regret a thing and will continue to remember the Summer fondly.