What Do You Remember About The 1980's

It was the decade of decadence. It was about glitz and glamour as well as baubles, bangles, and beads.

Elizabeth Taylor dropped in for Luke and Laura's wedding. Lady Diana became the People's Princess when she married Prince Charles. Nighttime soaps like Falcon Crest and Knots Landing ruled television. President Ronald Reagan ruled the United States. Kevin Bacon danced his way across the screen in Footloose. Gordon Gekko taught Wall Street whiz kids that greed was good. Material Girl Madonna made her musical debut.

What decade was it?

We can only be talking about that terrific time period – the awesome eighties.

Here are twenty-one ways for you to verify that you belong to (or belong in) the 1980's.
1. You tried breakdancing. Now you're trying to figure out how you didn't break any bones doing it.

2. You can still recite dialogue from any movie starring Molly Ringwald.

3. You remember paying by the minute for long distance telephone service and you can still hear the tune from the phone company commercial when they encouraged you to "reach out – reach out and touch someone."

4. You had at least one of the following: a My Little Pony, He-Man action figures, a Rubik's Cube, or something with a Pac-Man logo on it.

5. You remember a lot of headlines about the Human Genome Project, which was a complete mapping of human DNA. You also remember how this was supposed to lead to the eradication of disease.

6. You remember the day that thousands of radio stations across the world played "We Are The World" at the exact same time. (Now, you're singing it!)

7. You call CD's records or albums and you still have a diamond needle record player. You also know what a Cassingle is. Bonus points if you still have one.

8. You remember who Bernard Goetz is and why he made headlines.

9. Someone on your street or neighborhood sent his or her life savings to a phony televangelist.

10. You hung out with your friends at the mall, especially in the video arcade where you exchanged those hard-earned quarters for tokens.

11. You know that "glasnost" means openness or transparency and "perestroika" means economic restructuring.

12. You and your friends made fun of the "I've fallen and I can't get up" lady. (The fictional woman was named Mrs. Fletcher and the product was the LifeCall emergency service.)|You and your friends made fun of the "Where's the beef?" commercials for Wendy's starring Clara Peller.}}}

13. You think the word "like" in an integral part of every sentence and should be used as often as possible. Like this, "She was like, like why would I say that, that's not like me at all. Like who does she think she is, you know? Like, really!"

14. You know that "Back in St. Olaf…" was the beginning of a very convoluted story.

15. You've actually tasted New Coke. Extra points if you wrote to Coca-Cola and insisted they bring back the original formula.

16. You remember when there was no such thing as CNN, E!, or MTV.

17. Your parents were afraid you'd cut yourself putting on a snap bracelet.

18. You were inspired by
Geraldine Ferraro, the first (and as of this writing only in a major political party) female Vice Presidential candidate.

19. Going to the video store to get movies about Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and Michael Myers took up a lot of your time.

20. If someone says, "I don’t know," you automatically cringe expecting the green slime to mysteriously fall from the ceiling.

21. You wore out your thumbs playing video games on any or all of the following consoles: Atari, Intellivision, Sega, Nintendo, and Coleco.

Not nearly enough totally tubular nostalgia for you, for sure? Need more wicked rad 80's memories? See Matthew W. Grant's complete list at 1980's – 101 Ways To Tell If You're From The 1980's