eighties

Pics or it didn’t happen: 1989

~ MaryG ~ 15 Comments

If you’re GenX like me, about half your life was captured on film only (if at all). Digital cameras were not a thing when we were kids. If you were the third or fourth kid in the family, there may be very few photos of you as a child. This is not the case with me. I am the oldest and my parents were diligent. There are a lot of pics of me as a kid. Later on, I liked taking photos and even took a photography class or two.

Therefore, I’ve got a huge closet full of photo albums, boxes of loose photos, and a folder of black and white negatives in my basement, most of which have not been digitized. These include photos from throughout my life from 1965 through the birth of my second child in 2000. (After that, we went digital.) The photo albums are pretty easy to leaf through as they mostly have the correct year on the spine. And the boxes aren’t too bad because they’re pretty small. Until this weekend, I had ignored the big folder of negatives.

Welp, I finally decided to have a look and it turns out that the negatives are almost entirely from the year 1989–the year I took a photography class at the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston. There are apps now for scanning negatives with your phone. I used one called FilmBox. It worked OK. There were a few surprises in those negatives. Things I had completely forgotten or only vaguely remembered were jolted back into my mind through the tiny black and white images.

My three best friends from college and me in Boston’s North End. This was about 18 months after we graduated. I had forgotten that we briefly all lived in the same city.
This was an art exhibition opening at the museum where I got my first job: The Institute of Contemporary Art. I had forgotten about those openings and the cheap white wine we always served at them. I typically invited my friends who lived in Boston.
The woman on the right, Teil, was my second boss at the museum. She taught me so much and was such a wonderful person. I think this is the only picture I have of Teil. It’s appropriate that she has a plastic cup of that cheap white wine in her hand.
I had forgotten that my 80s friend Debbie came to visit me in my first studio apartment in the Fenway. Seeing her in front of my turntable, CDs and record albums (in milk crates) reminded me of how people used to look through each others music collections as a way of sort of figuring out what they were like. At that point, I think our musical tastes were diverging, but we both liked Prince.
In that same studio apartment, I had forgotten that my very bad cat Kimba was SO bad that I had to keep the bathroom trashcan above the mirror or he’d spread it all around the apartment. He was very cute, but a real pain in the neck.
I definitely remember going to the massive March on DC for abortion rights in April 1989, but had forgotten I went with two friends from work—Ann and Bridget. Later that year, Bridget and I became roommates in the North End.
We tried. 😢

Fawn in Snow

~ MaryG ~ 14 Comments

After being a finalist (and not getting) two different paid positions earlier this year, I’m feeling more and more like I actually am retired. My 30+ year career as a fundraiser feels over. It’s not that I couldn’t get some job in the field if I really wanted or needed one, but there just aren’t very many listings that excite me. And I don’t want to work a full-time job that I’m not excited about at this point in my life. I’m going to keep my LinkedIn profile open to recruiters, just in case someone reaches out with the perfect thing, but I’m not holding my breath.

[Side note: I know I’m lucky to have the option to not work at this age. All of my friends my own age are still working. My husband is still working part-time. All I can say is, we have been pretty diligent savers for most of our marriage and we got hooked up with a professional financial advisor early on. Left to our own devices, I’m not sure we’d be in this position. Honestly, my eyes just glaze over when this guy meets with us, but I do trust him. We’ve been with him for 30 years now.]

So, the question becomes: what to do? My daughter doesn’t need much help with my granddaughter and my outdoor summer pool closes Labor Day. I’m going to have a lot of time on my hands soon. I discovered last year that serving on my church’s governing board is not my thing. And my prior level of political activism (when I still thought we could stop Trump) feels futile now.

It seems like I should take advantage of this time and my health to start something new. After considering a number of options (from learning French to getting in way better shape), I’ve landed on something old. Something I used to love as a teenager. Art. I’ve enrolled in one drawing and one painting class for the fall. We’ll see where it goes, but I am excited.

Fawn in Snow, 1980, pastels, 56”x36”

Related:

Drawing

Pink and Green

~ MaryG ~ 13 Comments

As my friends and classmates continue to hit the big SIX-OH, it’s a natural time to look back. After all, we’ve most definitely got more years behind us than in front of us now. (Although there was one lady in France that made it to 122.5 years old.)

Another friend posted about going deep into the woods (off the grid) for his big birthday weekend. No party or foreign travel for him. Just weed and contemplation I guess.

When we were all sophomores in high school, Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States. In my mind, this was when the “fringe & ponchos” 70s truly ended and materialistic preppiness became fashionable. We replaced our earth shoes with boat shoes. Brand name labels (Izod, Polo, etc) were everything.

And as every true GenXer knows, the definitive preppy color combo was and always will be: Pink & Green. It’s not a color combo I wear much anymore, but I sure do like it in a garden.

Green on its own is nice too

Next size up, please

~ MaryG ~ 10 Comments

I’ve never been one to wildly fluctuate in weight. I’m tall and naturally thin—or at least I was.

I was 5’ 8” and about 118 pounds as a senior in high school, with a tiny waist and relatively big boobs. I had the ideal 80s body. (I had no ass, but that was fine back in pre-Kardashians America.)

I remember a woman came up to me at a pool where I was lifeguarding once and said “How do you DO that? Like really, how do you have that body? Do you do aerobics or what?” She truly wanted to know my secret. (I had no secret. I did not exercise. And I ate plenty of crap. I was just young and tall.)

Over the decades my weight has crept up—about ten pounds per decade. No big leaps or losses other than during and after my two pregnancies.

Doctors now are never concerned about my weight. I’m well within the normal range for my height and age, but I’m not skinny anymore. I’m average.

Yet…I’ve been clinging to some old clothing sizes. I want to be a medium (not a large) in some basic items like t-shirts and underwear, but I’m not. I’m just not. Large is way more comfortable. I’m a size 10 now in dresses (despite many years of wearing size 6 or 8).

So, at 18 days from sixty, I’ve tossed a bunch of old bras and underwear and replaced them with the next size up. I’m never gonna be that old size again. I put a couple of size 8 dresses on a resale website and bought a new size 10 dress for a wedding I’m going to in July.

I don’t think I look bad, really. I’m just older. I don’t have it in me to exercise like crazy or take one of those new-fangled weight loss drugs. I’m just going to be the size I am now and hopefully stay healthy. And comfortable.

Cheryl Tiegs on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in 1983–the year I was a senior in high school. She was the mainstream beauty ideal at the time.

Come ON ladies

~ MaryG ~ 6 Comments

Occasionally women embarrass me by doing things that seem to play into stereotypes about us. The gold digger, the gossip, the busybody, etc.

Typically I expect better of women than men, especially ones that have been around for six decades or more. They should know what truly matters in life by our age. They should be using their outgoing personalities and superior verbal skills to bring people together, rather than bickering about nonsense.

In my role as an Executive Team member of my church (thankfully ending soon!), I have been unwillingly cc’d on waaaay too many emails this year.

One recent exchange:

Woman 1:

“overkill”

Woman 2:

“rude” “rash” “confrontational” “provocative”

Woman 1:

“Rants” “put downs” “micromanager”

Result:

Awkwardness for the EIGHT people cc’d on the conversation

Relationship effectively ended between the two women

Good GAWD ladies!

This is not how email should be used!

And if I told you what they were arguing about, you would die about how stupid and minor it is.

Honestly, it reminds me of my role as Mrs. Squires in my high school’s production of The Music Man. Here’s a professional version of our big number when all the self-important hens in the town get together to gossip and complain (aka “pick a little, talk a little”):

🤣

And just for fun, here’s me on stage in my high school’s 1983 production of The Music Man:

I’m on the left in the red dress.

Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little

CHEEP

🐓

My gay prom date

~ MaryG ~ 16 Comments

I went to my junior prom with my friend John, who was gay. He was a year older than me and we were good friends and I needed a date, so I asked him. I think I probably knew deep down that he was gay, but hoped he wasn’t. He was so cute!

Back in the early 80s, nobody was out in high school. I had lots of male friends from choir, marching band, church and plays who later came out as gay. Thinking back, John, Jonathan, Adam, Benji, Jamie and Tommy made high school way more fun. One thing they all had in common was their ability to talk to girls. There was no awkwardness. We had so much fun and so many laughs.

I remember going into Newbury Street (Boston’s fanciest shopping street) with John and pretending we were very rich kids (like the Trumps or the Hiltons) and acting like we were about to hop into all the high-end cars. Then we would use our pathetic fake IDs to get served frozen strawberry margaritas at TGI Friday’s. I remember sitting with Jamie & Adam at the local ice cream stand blasting Bruce Springsteen and singing along. Adam was an incredible singer and always got a lead role in the musicals. John was also a fantastic dancer. We had a ton of fun dancing to 80s pop hits. We all liked to dress up and go to screenings of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” in Boston. We’d dance The Time Warp in front of the screen and throw toast at the appropriate line. Benji and I played a husband and wife (Mr. and Mrs. Squires) in The Music Man and we had a lot of fun with it. We named one of our diminutive fellow cast members “Billy” and pretended he was our son throughout the show. Billy Squires—get it? (It was an 80s thing.) Tommy was less flamboyant. He was from a large Catholic family and took church very seriously. He wanted to become a priest.

These guys were some of my best pals in high school, but there was a bit of a necessary separation after graduation. I’m sure their journeys to being who they really were wasn’t easy. Benji died in some sort of unexplained accident shortly after graduation and we all saw each other at his funeral. It was awful. Sadly, I heard that Jamie died of AIDS in the later 80s.

I reconnected with Jonathan at our 20th high school reunion and went to visit him in Chicago. I still see Adam and Tommy on Facebook and they are both married to wonderful men and doing well.

Fortunately, my romantic crush on John was short-lived. I think he tried to like me back, but it quickly became apparent that making out was just not working for us. I have no idea where he is now, but I do hope he’s alive and well and still dancing. God he was a good dancer.

Class of ‘87

~ MaryG ~ 23 Comments

I have a couple of updates for you on the college class of 1987 (high school class of 1983). Most of us were born in 1965, so we are turning 60 this year. One of my best friends from college turned 60 yesterday. She broke the ice. Now the rest of us will follow…if we’re lucky. Making it to 60 is not a given. We’ve lost people—mostly to cancer, but sudden massive heart attacks have taken down a few of the men.

I appear to be the only grandparent in my college class of about 500, which is wild. A few people still have kids in high school, so I guess we tended to have kids late, but still…it’s a vivid illustration that the birthrate actually has cratered in this country.

Another observation is that people truly do age differently. Some people look 40 at 60, and some look 80. Money seems to be a factor, but not the only one. Most people are still working, but they’re either talking about retirement or saying they will never be able to retire. “Work ‘til I die” is some people’s retirement plan.

There is both a lot of concern—and a fair bit of bragging—about adult children in their 20s. “You’re only as happy as your least happy child” seems to be true. (But if you’re posting an effusive happy birthday message, with multiple pictures, for a 27-year old who doesn’t even use Facebook, you may need to let go a bit.)

Our parents, if we still have them, are very old now. I know of only one other classmate with two living parents like me. More of our mothers are still alive than our fathers.

For the first and oldest official GenXers, the Eighties was our decade. Nobody has quite so many formative memories of those years as we do. Do not challenge us to an 80s trivia quiz, because we will win. And we will also look back on it all with slightly rose-colored glasses. We’ll forget the bad stuff and laugh about that time we ate pot brownies at school and Mr. Ullman’s physics class finally made sense.

I never did see anyone get pizza delivered to a class like Jeff Spicoli, but that would have been amazing.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High came out the summer before our senior year in high school.
My 1984 look
The pizza delivery scene

Knee socks

~ MaryG ~ 14 Comments

Today’s realization from The Great Photo Digitization Project of 2025 (inspired by the tragic California wildfires) is that I was an extremely well-dressed child. (My own kids were nowhere near as well-dressed as my sister and I were.)

And this was before the era of “fast fashion,” so my mother made many of our dresses and outfits.

We always had matching accessories too. Note the headband in this shot:

With my baby cousin Steven and Aunt Betsy, 1971

In my old photo albums, one accessory is featured more than all the others and that is color-coordinated knee socks. I remember having a drawer full of them. Thinking back, they were pretty cool because they came in so many different colors and were way more comfortable than tights.

Knee socks and a matching purse for the first day of first grade
November 1972
Note the “milk box” near the front door (I am old)
Heading off to Town Day 1973

Facilitated by my mother and a Marshall’s opening up in my town in the late 70s (“Brand Names for Less”), I ended up being a major clothes horse right through high school. I embraced the Reagan era “preppy look” and had dozens of sweaters in every color of the rainbow. My closet looked like a Benetton store.

My high school preppy look

It wasn’t until I tried to fit all my clothes into a tiny freshman dorm closet that I realized how ridiculously many I had.

My 80s friend

~ MaryG ~ 11 Comments

At Christmas dinner yesterday, my father told me he had run into my old friend Debbie at the fish market. They recognized each other and exchanged some quick pleasantries.

Debbie and I were neighborhood friends who ended up becoming close friends for many years. She knew my parents well and I knew her family too. Her dad was a great guy. We took several trips to California and Florida in our late teens and twenties. We did a fair number of edgy things together including lots of underage drinking, shoplifting, dine-n-dashing, and at least one crazy 80s Spring Break trip to Fort Lauderdale. (Wet t-shirt contest anyone?) Debbie was 18 months older than me (a year ahead of me in high school) and liked to party and dance. I’m sure my first nightclub experience was with her. Even though she was a true redhead, she loved the sun like I did and we went to the beach as often as possible. We went skiing a few times too and once spun out in my mother’s car driving in a snowstorm. We did a 180 and hit the guardrail. (Debbie was driving at the time and we were fine.) In fact, we wanted to carry on with our ski trip with one headlight dangling, but when we called my parents from a gas station, they made us come home.

Debbie and I stayed friends for many years through a variety of life experiences including her being severely burned in a freak accident. (I remember visiting her in Shriner’s Burn Center where I saw the most horrifically scarred young children.) We knew each other’s deepest, darkest secrets. We attended each other’s weddings and then drifted apart as we became mothers and got busy raising kids. Still, we sent Christmas cards and occasionally saw each other in person.

Then, at some point during the second Obama administration her right-leaning political posts on Facebook caused a tiff between us. We unfriended each other and that was that. Some years later, I felt badly about it, but figured she had probably morphed into a Trump supporter, so what would be the purpose of reaching out. We were too different by then.

You know that expression about some friends being for a reason, some for a season, and some for a lifetime? Well, at one point I might’ve thought we’d be friends for a lifetime, but it turns out we were friends for a season. And our season was the 1980s. Big time.

Christmas 1989 (towards the end of our close friendship)

If I had to pick one song that tends to trigger a Debbie memory, it would be Kool & the Gang’s Celebration. I picture us dancing around in front of a mirror, sipping some alcohol, while we made our hair as big & fluffy as possible for whatever came next.

Charm Bracelet

~ MaryG ~ 18 Comments

Back in the 70s, charm bracelets were a common gift for girls. Typically girls got the bracelet with one or two “charms” as a first gift and then additional charms for birthdays and Christmases ever after.

Charms were little silver representations of some hobby or activity that the girl liked to do.

I loved my charm bracelet. I have kept it in a box in my closet for decades now. It lives with a bunch of other sentimental jewelry that I no longer wear, but cannot part with.

I recently bought some of those tiny silver polishing cloths to shine up some old jewelry and decided to clean my charm bracelet.

As we very eagerly await the birth of my granddaughter sometime within the next two weeks, I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to show it to her and tell her about the meaning of all the charms.

There are 17 charms on my bracelet. Most represent things that were important to me as a child and teenager.

Counterclockwise from 1 o’clock:

  1. Santa’s sleigh (I loved Christmas!)
  2. An upright piano, just like the one I played
  3. A Camp Fire Girls 5-years charm (I had forgotten how important the CFG were to me)
  4. A set of silver bells (not sure why I had those, but I’m assuming they were Christmas-related)
  5. A Camp Fire Girls 6-years charm
  6. The B-1 Bomber (Unusual, yes, but my Dad was an engineer and a pilot and his company made some navigational components for the B-1. He was always going to California on business and he must have brought this charm back from one of his trips.)
  7. An ice skate – I loved figure skating.
  8. A tall ship, probably the USS Constitution. The bicentennial in 1976 was a very big deal in Massachusetts. The tall ships visit to Boston was a part of it.
  9. A baton (I loved twirling and being a majorette in high school)
  10. A tennis racket and ball (I had forgotten, but I was quite serious about tennis for several years. I made it to the club finals in singles one summer. I played on the high school team for a year or two.)
  11. A starfish – I loved the beach. (I ill-advisedly took a starfish home with me one time and that thing reeked like hell for months. It was probably still alive and I didn’t realize it. Poor starfish.)
  12. Mickey Mouse – I was one of those very lucky kids in the 70s whose parents took them to Disneyland.
  13. A heart with my birthstone in it
  14. Another Camp Fire Girls charm – my mom was a leader of our group
  15. The Eiffel Tower (I hadn’t been to Paris back then, but I must’ve liked the idea. I sure did love it later on in life.)
  16. A saguaro 🌵 cactus that says Tucson. I had an aunt and six cousins that lived out West. My grandmother would periodically move out there to help them.
  17. The last one is a bit of a mystery. Maybe it’s supposed to be a bicycle. I loved riding my bike. But it looks a bit more like a moped. I remember seeing mopeds a lot on our visits to Nantucket and Block Island, but people were constantly getting seriously injured on them. I don’t think my parents ever let us ride them, so let’s just go with bicycle for that one.