Where were you in '82? (reposted from alt.poly)

[firecat]

In 1982 I was 20-21, in my junior & senior years of college, I had one of the prime time slots at the university radio station; I lived in three different group houses; I pined and obsessed over the boy I loved who only liked me as a friend; I didn't go home for the summer for the first time; I worked on the university's summer paint crew; I endured the worst heat wave of my life; and I stole a lot of milk crates which I still have.

Comments

1982

[iceblink.livejournal.com]

I was entering the 8th grade and life was blissfully innocent. I hadn't even kissed a boy (or a girl for that matter).

1982? Just moving to Brazil

[laurabel.livejournal.com]

My family had moved to Brazil and I was entering the 10th grade. I was terribly angst ridden, missing life in the United States and trying to learn Portuguese.

1982 was a rough year for me.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Um, let's see... I graduated in '89, so in '82 I was in... math has never been a strong subject for me... okay, I guess I was in 5th grade, my last year of private school before being exposed to the multi-leveled hell that was (and by most accounts still is) the public school system. I would have been... ten, I think.

I may have kissed at that age, but that's counting "play kisses" with my best friend or the school "loverboy." I wasn't yet experiencing true preteen angst, but I was familiar with depression, even at that tender age. My favorite things to do were climb trees, read, and play intricate make-believe games with my vast collection of tiny animals and scenery on my desktop.

Three square feet of my desk had been co-opted into a miniature city, complete with public statues and fountains, gardens, a "forest" (which migrated depending on where I needed it to be - I had a very limited number of trees, three IIRC), and furnishings for each house. These weren't dollhouse furniture, though; one "bed" was a hinged ring case, another was a tiny coil pot lined with cotton. I made most of the settings myself, or assembled them from diverse sources, and spent literally hours making up strange and intricate dramas between them. I ardently wish that I'd written some of that stuff down, or that somebody had recorded me as I played.

One of the most traumatic events of my later life was when I sold off the remainder of my collection of miniature animals, at a time when I was in dire need of cash. I cried when I walked away from the store. There were twenty or thirty of them, cats, pigs, horses, camels, and many others that I can't remember now.

Today, I can look back at the toys and the games I played without tears. I still miss them, but... I have other games now, other toys. It's not the same, but it never could be anyway, even if I had the old collection back. I don't truly feel that I've lost anything. I've learned, I've changed, and nothing that I can remmber is ever truly gone.

And it makes me smile to think that somebody bought those little figures, and put them in zir collection, or gave them to zir children, who then made up more elaborate stories for them to enact.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I don't think I remember 1982 at all.

Oh hang on - I have some badges in my collection from the (football) World Cup which was held in Spain that year. They came from Wimpy, which was a burger chain that were prevalent in the UK before McDonalds and Burger King really got a hold. [The good thing about Wimpy is that you sit at a table and someone takes your order, and you get given a knife and fork to eat it with. There are still some Wimpys around, but they're much fewer in number these days.]

I remember 1983 because of the Falklands War and Prince William being born on my birthday, also because I was 7 so I could join the Brownies. And we went to Scotland in the autumn, which I remember very well.

But I don't remember 1982 at all really.