Growing up in the 80’s
I am biased but there was no better time then the 1980’s and 1990’s. I forever will be grateful I was raised in the 80’s!!
Memories that stick out from growing up. The site is really a journey for my kids, my memories, and ideas/thoughts just in case I am not alive to share with them at some point they will have something. I often wonder if I were gone what would they know and remember about me. This I hope gives them information about my life growing up, memories with them, and my thoughts about life, people, and events. My dad passed away and I wish I could talk to him more and hear about his life, thoughts, and anything else he felt like discussing.
I recall after my dad passed away; we found some papers about him that he had written for a college course. It was kind of a self-biography about him in his own words. I loved reading it and was fascinated by it when I read it and learned more about his life in his own words. Hopefully my kids enjoy hearing about my life in my own words.
I remember growing up in my early years. We lived in a ranch in Grand Rapids, Michigan out in the country. I remember the house as this long, big ranch. My brother and I would run down this long hallway to jump into our beds. At least it seemed long for my little legs back then. We had a basement with a playroom and a good size yard out in the country. The house seemed so perfect. Thirty plus years later I was in Michigan and drove by this huge old ranch home of ours…. As I pulled up to the house it was about as big as a three-car garage at most. I guess when you are little things seem so much bigger and different in your eyes. My memories of that home are great, and I still think it was a perfect mansion.
Growing up we played outside all the time. We lived out in the Country, and we would climb our apple tree and throw apples at semi-trucks driving by. This is back in the days when parents did not have to watch their kids. Throwing apples trying to get them to land in the back of semi-trucks sounds fun. In today’s world no parent would let their Four-year-old and my Seven-year-old brother climb trees, pick apples, and throw them in the back of trucks passing by. Then to make it slightly more dangerous we would run across the road into the ditch to get the misfired apples. This was a two-lane highway in the country with cars and trucks moving fast. With my kids we barely let them cross a street in a cul-de-sac looking both ways Twenty times!
Then for additional fun my brother and I would jump in my dad’s car pretending we were bank robbers and burning things with the cigarette lighter from the car. Not sure kids would even know what that was at this point. Once again, no parental supervision (this was normal back then).
Growing up in the 80’s parents did not watch their kids like parents do in today’s world. We are no different as parents. We always keep close tabs on our kids, never out of sight and not allowed outside in our fenced backyard without me or their mom right by them. We were afraid the wind would blow and knock them over. They would skin their knee heaven forbid. Raising kids
now is much different than back in the 1970’s,80’s, and even 90’s. We do live in a much different time, and it seems like there are way worse things happening and some bad people in this world.
Growing up was fun. We would get on our bikes and explore, ending up at a construction site play for hours eventually making our way home so we could eat some dinner. My brother and I would go down the street (on a busy country road) to our neighbor’s farm and go through the hay bales as his older brother shot his bow and arrow at us. Once again unbelievable this went on and was “normal”. I am shocked all of us kids that grew up in the 1980’s made it to adulthood.
I would wake up early on Saturday to watch the Justice League or my favorite cartoon. (We did not have hundreds of channels on TV- No record feature- no pause feature – we watched shows when they were on) I remember in elementary school getting home from school to watch HE-MAN!!
I liked collecting football cards. I would set up and play a football game with my cards. I wish someone would have shared the information with me that in 2020 I could have retired if I was not smashing my cards together and destroying them playing. Who knew I was slamming a Joe Montana rookie card into Walter Payton rookie card for fun.
I cannot believe how much money old toys sell for now. We sold all our stuff in garage sales for .25 and now it is worth $5,000+ for these same toys!! If we would have kept all our Star Wars figures, He-Man figures, my sisters Barbies, and so many more toys we would be wealthy and retired. One super fun toy was our Sho-gun Warriors!! They were big giant robots that fired missiles
from arms. Almost like a modern-day transformer but way cooler!
We played board games like Dark tower and Axis and Allies both were favorites growing up.
I remember my parents’ telling stories of their childhood and how we were so lucky to have all the amenities we had. They told us stories of no soda-pop, walking to school in snow in temps below zero. (Uphill into the wind both ways!!)
I used to think wow that is terrible. We were lucky to stand outside and wait for a school bus! It might be cold, but it was only Five minutes we had to withstand negative windchill temps standing there in our moon boots! Compared to today when kids get school cancelled for the possibility of a snowstorm, cold temps, wind, ice, and anything that might throw off a normal day. If it is 30 degrees parents drive their kids to the bus stop and they sit in the car until the school bus arrives. Oh, what a difference. Parents
(Me/wife) sit in car line to pick up our kids after school every day. This never happened to me as a kid, we all rode a bus home. We were home by ourselves after school playing with our neighborhood friends until Mom arrived home and we had to eat dinner.
Dinner: How many families still sit down and have a family dinner? I bet not many. Growing up we had one every night we knew when my dad pulled in from work, we all had to come in and get to the dinner table to say prayers and eat as a family. Ironically, we do this as a family now which is challenging and some nights we just cannot with kids and sports. Jenette really cooks often, and we sit down, and all eat together whenever we can. We take turns who says the prayer each night. I give Jenette a ton of credit for cooking so much and making breakfast for the boys, lunches, and dinners. Other than love this might be one of the only things that is similar for both of us in our childhoods growing up. Our Parents made dinners and we ate at home often.
I don’t want to sound like my parents did in the 80’s but……. I see what my kids have, and I could not imagine the luxuries they have growing up. I thought it was a huge deal when we got a remote control for the TV or finally had cable TV. Another big event in high school is when we finally got call waiting on the house phone. (My parents would not answer it, but we had the beep!) We
would stretch the phone cord so far to get some privacy.
If we needed to research something we had to go to the library to read a book/ take notes. Who would have thought my kids have all these super smart people they can ask anything to and get the answer immediately. Hey Alexa – Hey Siri- then they get the answer to the question. I had to ask my parents and they would say go get the encyclopedia and look it up and read about it. Technology is convenient for my kids, but it sure has its negative than we realize.
We did all the stuff boys do growing up. Walking in the creek, catching tadpoles, staying out late during summer talking with neighborhood friends, playing tag, bike rides up to the store, camping in tents in the backyard, and playing sports all day. All great childhood memories.
We try to give our boys so many experiences. Even in the very different times and world we live in raising kids. I always hear and I have thought it myself. We want our kids to have a better childhood then we did and experience so much more and have a better life. I wonder now that is probably impossible.
I wonder if my parents (my dad) thought this? Did he think the same way? I want my kids to have a better life growing up then he had. I think I had an amazing childhood- I wish my kids could have the same childhood I had without so much technology and everything at their fingertips. What will it be like in another Thirty years when my kids have kids? Scary.
Growing up watching the Jetsons I felt like by 2020 we would all have flying cars and moving sidewalks in the sky or spaceships! We have no flying cars yet or sidewalks in the sky. It seems like we are getting much closer to having a Terminator walking around with all these robots and Artificial Intelligence.
Some other fond family memories. Camping- Vacations. The vacation we went out west for three weeks driving across the United States. Each family member picked out a favorite place to see. We saw Dallas Cowboys Stadium (My pick), We saw the Grand Canyon, Redwood Forest, Las Vegas (My dads pick), and so many more places on our RV trip. My dad always had to be doing something. We went to Cedar Point, Sea World, sometimes we were tourists in our own town, Florida, Elvis’s house (Grandma picked this TWICE), Disney World, Mackinaw Island was a family favorite, Smokey Mountains, and many other neat places we saw. My family loved football. I attended my first game in the Silverdome the Lions vs Tampa Bay. For years we would go to see University of Michigan play. We would also attend a Michigan State football game each year with Uncle Nels and Aunt Karen. When we moved to Ohio my parents ended up getting Browns season tickets when the team came back into the NFL. Football was the families favorite sport for sure.
I had my brother (Uncle Jeff) always outside trying to tackle me. A simple task of taking the garbage out to the curb would turn into a 1 v 1 football game in our side yard for 30 mins. We would play football as soon as our school bus would drop us off after school. I would put on my Dallas Cowboys jersey and my brother would get his John Riggins jersey on and off we would go. We would play in our side yard or in the street. Of course, “car coming” was a quick timeout.
We played a lot of sports outside growing up. We had slam dunk contests, home run derby’s, Olympics, obstacle courses and anything else we could come up with.
We did get a computer (Commodore 64) and an Atari which we would play. Nothing like the game’s my boys have and play now. When I was in high school Madden football just came out and it was a lot of fun. (The graphics and details in Madden today are much better and more realistic then in 1990, but in 1990 they were way better than the three blurry fuzzy guys on our football game for the Atari. We played a lot of role-playing games with neighborhood friends on the picnic table. Great way to use your imagination. We played Dungeon and Dragons, Gang Busters, Star Frontier (or something like that), and even a dice wrestling game we made up.
My parents raised us to be kind to everyone and treat everyone equally. This was my dad’s lesson that every person was equal and never treat anyone better than anyone else for any reason. I try to instill this in my boys everyday. Be kind, say thank you, be appreciative, and do something nice for someone every day. My Grandma Belter must have taught my dad this growing up-
Her saying was if you do not have anything nice to say then do not say anything at all. I never heard my grandma say anything bad or mean.
We went to church every weekend. At the time I did not like getting up and going but I appreciate it so much more now and understand why it was so important to my parents. We went every Christmas Eve to the 11pm service and it would end right after midnight on Christmas. A great memory I have. The minister would say it is 12:01 Merry Christmas.
Other quick memories:
We had a dog, Nicki, growing up. We tried getting a second puppy. I thought it was so cool to have a puppy, but my parents got rid of it because it did not get along with Nicki. I was so mad. Nicki was a great dog and lived to be over Sixteen years old. Thankful we had her for so long.
I remember going to my grandpa’s house and playing with his trains. I would get them going so fast and they would crash. It would make my grandpa very angry.
Going to the beach was a must in Michigan. (Lots of state parks.) The water was so clean and blue- (I remember my mom being so disappointed when we moved to Ohio and going to the beach here for the first time (We stopped going to the beach).
My grandpa made us, or I guess my brother a big tox box. Said Jeff’s Toy Box. We had that for a long time before selling it in a garage sale. We had lots of garage sales.
We had a bad storm in Michigan and our roof was lifting off the house. We had to call the fire department. The Fire Department ended up putting ropes over the house and staking it down. I remember my grandpa being there. I was scared and crying.
I remember answering our phone when my dad called from hospital telling us our sister was born.
Moving to Ohio I do not remember leaving Michigan so must have been ok with leaving and moving. I guess I had my family and that was what I was used to. We lived for one year in a home on Birch St in North Ridgeville then moved to Dorchester Ave in North Ridgeville and that is where we stayed for all of us kids through high school.
We had a great home and great neighbors and neighborhood. I remember driving to my new school the first day and choking on a jaw breaker. I remember getting in trouble in 2nd grade a lot- I do not remember specifically what I did but my teacher would write notes home to my parents daily. My dad finally said he was going to come to school with me and sit with me all
day and hold my hand. That must have worked and scared me, so I started to behave better. After my 2 nd grade year my mom requested certain teachers, she felt could deal with me!
Those were my memories growing up in the 80’s!! I would not change it for
anything, it was great. We go into some old antique stores, and it is fun to see
our kids look at all the stuff we had growing up. You see old telephones,
kitchen appliances, tools, signs, and toys we all grew up with. A fun trip down
memory lane!!
