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What can I honestly say? The 80's was the best decade ever that I have experienced! You know you were a part of it when you and your friends would meet up on Friday night and go roller skating. You had your shiny lip gloss made by Maybellene and they came in so many flavors. You wore the best of designer jeans, which were either Jordache, Sasson, Gloria Vanderbilt or Sergio Valente'. If you owned a Camero, I-Roc Z, Trans AM or any older Chevelle or Mustang, you were in there like swim wear. We were introduced to the Commodore 64 computer and the Sony Walk man.

Don Johnson graced us with his role as Sonny Crockett on the famous Miami Vice and even started a trend with sporty trousers with matching jackets. You knew all the words to Michael Jacksons Thriller and even could do the dance to the video. You knew who said "I pity the fool" and you wanted to be part of the A-Team.

If you were a teenager in the 80's, then you knew all about the big hair! The higher and longer your hair was, the more hairspray you had to invest in. The higher was always the better! You were either a "Metal Head" or a "Preppy", slouch socks were the thing to wear and you had to color coordinate the layers of socks you wore, by the outfit you had on. Then there were friendship bracelets, you and your best friend forever swore you would never take them off.

You remember the Presidents were Jimmy Carter and Ronald Regan. You can remember watching Television and seeing that a new epidemic called "AIDS" was swiftly infecting thousands of people and the CDC (Center for Disease Control) couldn't figure out what was causing it. Everyone was in a sudden panic about this new disease and your parents told you not to drink after anyone or use public water fountains.

On January 28th, you either saw on TV or heard about it on the radio that the Space Shuttle blew up after taking off. Killing everyone aboard. Such a sad and tragic moment in our history.

The coolest toys to own were of course Barbie, but the greatest was the Rubik's cube, which took the nation by storm. You were the cool kid on the block if you owned an Atari and we developed something called "Cable" television. MTV aired and the first music video ever played was "Video killed the Radio Star". You made a pact with your friends that as soon as you were old enough, you all were going to New York to hit the Studio 54 club owned by Steve Rubelle

You thought Ricky Schroder was hot as Rick Stratton on Silver Spoons and you always laughed at Arnold Jackson, aka Gary Coleman, of Different Strokes as he would always say in every episode "whacha talking bout Willis?" You stayed up late on Saturday evenings to watch Creature Feature, in which Gorde De Vaul would introduce the evenings horror movie. He creeped you out and you sometimes hid under your own blanket.

The 1980's also brought to us some serial slashers named Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers. People would bombard the local theaters to see them rip through people with their abilities to be a little "psychotic". Also 80's videos had meaning, unlike todays videos that only show women hanging out of their clothes and booty shaking.

Ah, yes the 80's were so cool and if I could turn back time, that would be the decade I would want to relive.

Learn more about this author, Kim Latham.
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