When the world gets to be a bit overwhelming, I like to sit and think about when things were different. Times weren’t necessarily easier then. This day, I’m thinking about this time of the year, but in 1987. It’s been 36 years and so much has changed since then.
Reagan was still President, I was in the military and also broke. I had an infant son. Still, I was young and the world was filled with the promise of things that could yet still be. Let’s listen to what was on my radio then and remember a time when things were different.
10 Comments
Dirty Dingus McGee · November 4, 2023 at 6:13 am
1987 was a good year for me. Had a VERY well paying job with a Fortune 100 company. New cars, motorcycles, quality guns, yet still managed to save some money for the “future”. Playing the field with females, having been divorced 3 years previous I was a voracious consumer of them. Musical taste was all over the map; Metallica, Molly Hatchet, and oddly enough even Jimmy Buffett.
karl ushanka · November 4, 2023 at 10:18 am
87 was a GREAT year! Also military, also broke. But dating my future wife and working my way through college. My top three bands at the time: Van Halen, Yes, and Scorpions. Good times!
exile1981 · November 4, 2023 at 12:48 pm
That was the year i had my 1st car, 1st job outside the family, was still in highschool and first serious girl friend.
Bean Dip Tray · November 4, 2023 at 2:26 pm
Checking out some Huey Lewis & The News on a Patrick Bateman playlist.
Golden times where family owned an Irish themed bar and we had several vehicles.
Reagan, Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, this is why we had nice things.
Behind Enemy Lines · November 4, 2023 at 3:15 pm
What an interesting coincidence – I did the exact same thing (looked up the popular music charts) at almost the same time you posted. Back to 1989, in my case. The Annus Mirabilis.
So much hope and promise.
Perhaps we’ll both see another year like that.
Big Ruckus D · November 4, 2023 at 6:09 pm
You have a few years on me. In 87 I was in 8th grade. I won’t say it was a great time of my life due to various prepubescent difficulties, but The world was in a much better state then, something I appreciate much more now in hindsight.
Both my parents and all my grandparents were still alive, we still had big family get togethers with aunts, uncles and cousins at holidays and birthdays, and despite the personal difficulties I was dealing with then (stemming from a neurological disorder, and problems in school) I knew I had it pretty damned good.
If I could go back there as the adult I am now, I’d do so in an heartbeat. Even with settling into a career that I enjoy and has provided well for me, the 21st century has otherwise generally been one giant shit sandwich of disappointment and rage inducing stupidity after another. And to think, as an 80’s kid, I really believed (naively, in retrospect) that the future was bright. Now with current events, it seems that song by Timbuk 3 was more prophetic than we ever realized. They were just 40 years early. I’ll admit I don’t really have it too bad even in 2023. But there is little enjoyment left in life, seeing all the problems bearing down on us. Everyday is just a tough slog now. What’s worse is seeing how screwed up it all is for my nieces and nephews who are all under 13 still. I absolutely hate what the future portends for them. And even the present constantly seeks to damage them.
EN2 SS · November 4, 2023 at 8:00 pm
1987, to someone that grew of age in the 60’s, the country was already headed to where we are now. This Evil started accelerating in the late 60’s, grew worse in the 70’s and started running for the cliff in the 80’s. And here we are, in free fall toward the dissolution of America.
Be ready, it ain’t going to be fun or pretty.
Big Ruckus D · November 5, 2023 at 4:18 pm
You certainly are correct in observing the timeline for the failing of the US goes back further, and had already fully metastasized in some respects by 1987. The late 80’s weren’t ideal, but to someone still a pre-teen at the time, my first hand recollection of it is pretty damn good.
Compared to today’s reality, it was a virtual paradise. Could it have been better? Of course, there is always room for improvement. But the anger and disappointment of being where we are now, versus the late 1980’s, especially considering the (then perceived and widely anticipated) better future is almost incomprehensible. That we have fallen this far and so quickly (as entropy and it related failures pick up velocity as they go) is enough to drive me to a fit of rage. More so for younger members of my extended family than for myself, even.
Most of this has taken place due to lazy, unprincipled fuckers in positions of government and corporate leadership, as well as by design and intent by subversives who should have been rooted out and destroyed wherever they existed. The unwillingness to do that much earlier in the process has led us here, and now there will be no possibility of rolling back the damage done. A collapse – with all that entails – will have to be suffered, and a functional society rebuilt anew after the reckoning has taken place.
The thing I hate worst about that is many of those who had a direct part in causing the fatal damage will never receive the punishment they so truly deserve. Scores of them are already dead in fact, having passed before the cataclysmic end state of their project to wreck all that is good. And I am not in the least satisfied by the notion they are burning in hell.
SmileyFtW · November 5, 2023 at 8:27 am
1987 minus 20… now that was the beginning of what would become some of the best music and at the same time the closing of an era. Think Patty Page steps down while Crosby, Stills and Nash step in… or Dylan… or The Doors…
Stumpjumper · November 5, 2023 at 9:58 am
1987. Msgt in Air Force. Dad was still alive. Music was good. Movies better. IMO.
Granddaughter 21 only listens to music from that era.
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