We’re just past the first week of March, the best month of the year (madness, baby!) and it’s 70 outside. Last year, we couldn’t really believe it when spring came early but it did. This year, after the wonderful winter we’ve had, I think we’re all ready to take spring as it comes. Even if we get the traditional State Tournament blizzard, who cares? A foot of new snow wouldn’t last a week with the sun as high in the sky as it is and the earth below already defrosting.
We deserve two early springs in a row. Some years (2013) we skip spring entirely. I went down to Texas in May that year, leaving snow and cold behind and came home four weeks later to full summer. That’s the upper Midwest for you.
I remember spring of 1980. I was at the University of Minnesota, flirting outrageously with some Canadian kid in my Shakespeare class, wearing shorts and a cotton camp shirt through a week of 90s in April. We weren’t worried about global warming because the environmentalists were all screeching about global cooling back then. The weather made them easy to ignore.
1980 was a banner year for me. I picked Jay up at the lake in June and we were engaged by October. I also remember my younger sister Katie, who was all of 12, laughing at me and Margy for tucking our shirts into our jeans.
“It’s the eighties! Nobody tucks their shirts in anymore!” Katie guffawed.
She was right. I didn’t see another tucked in shirt for decades. Heck, it’s been 36 years and I haven’t tucked a shirt in since.
I was 20 years old, had a 23 inch waist and started dressing like a circus clown. Thanks, 80s!
Despite the silly, over the top fashions of the eighties, (mall hair! Bowling shirts! Shoulder pads!) I have nothing but fond memories of the decade. We had The Cosby Show (we didn’t know he was hitting on the young actresses playing his daughter’s friends) Alex P. Keaton, Cheers, Thriller, Purple Rain and The Breakfast Club.
Jay and I wanted to be YUPPIES. Young, Urban, Professional…Parents? I don’t remember what all the letters stood for. I just know we spent the 80s in tiny little towns making no money, some good friends and babies. We didn’t wear suits or drive BMWs but it was Morning in America and we knew anything was possible.
I’m sitting in my livingroom with all the windows in the house open. Its windy outside so all the stale air of winter has been breezed out of the house and I can smell the mud in the park. It’s the best smell there is.
Honest to goodness, the first thought in my head when I woke up this morning was “Life is grand,” quickly followed by “Love is real and beauty is everywhere.”
True dat.