The Boys of the 80s
I show several 80s movies in my classes every semester. If you think you can’t work Fast Times at Ridgemont High into a Literature class, then you are much mistaken, my friend!
I always have fun, sharing this part of myself with my students, but I’m always saddened too. My students, these young pups and children of the 90s, are wildly amused by the movies and enjoy watching them, but they see them as delightfully weird oddities. They see the fun and quirkiness in them, but they don’t often catch the magic.
Those movies are so much a part of my growing self, the self that longed for a first kiss and a chance to feel grown up, that I can’t separate them from endless summer nights and dreams of the future.
To gals of the 80s, the image of John Cusack holding up a boombox will always be the heart-wrenching ideal of true love, while the teens of today are all, “Why’s that dude’s CD player so big?”
But anyway, this got me thinking about my Very First Boyfriends, those intrepid souls with sweaty palms and floppy hair that dared to fight for my heart. I’d like to share the story of one here, and I’d like to hear your stories, too.
I suppose I’m lucky, as I saw an example of true love at age eight. There were swains a-plenty, there were. Tyler Taylor (yes that’s his real name) used to leave me little cups of ice cream outside my front door. Jeff Martin (later named Fartin’ Martin in an unfortunate schoolyard incident) would jump off the roof of his house to impress me. Too bad his house was a 7-foot trailer. Not very impressive. But it was Steven, the older, world-wise, 9-year-old Steven Coontz who showed how fiercely true love can rage. Why did I have three suitors at the age of eight, you may be asking? No, it wasn’t because I was the only girl-child who lived in that neighborhood (even though I was.) Obviously, I was sex-ay. Look, here’s a pic of me from that year so you can see what a hot little dish I was.
It’s true…that chest is 100% natural!
Sounds simple, but of course, what is more simple…or more complicated…than true love? He faced man’s greatest fear–dying in a really stupid way–and kicked its ass.He started small, with little balls of rolled-up paper. Then it was coins. And marbles. They all went down, they all came back up, perfectly formed, not even covered in spit. Once, in a moment 1980s kids would whisper about for years, Steven numbered three pennies 1, 2, and 3, swallowed them, and coughed them back up, one at a time, in order.
But a girl gets bored, and Steven felt like he had to outperform himself. Down went small rocks. Then some of his mother’s cigarettes. (He was so talented he was able to put those cigarettes back in the pack afterwards and she never knew.)
And, in a moment that truly made history, three pieces of chalk and an entire eraser when the teacher was out of the room.
That little snit Ronda Cummings blabbed to the teacher, though, and I had to go to the principal’s office and sign a form promising never to ‘encourage’ Steven to swallow anything again. Which in retrospect I guess was good, since Dwayne Morgan had brought his tackle box and its full contents for Show-and-Tell that day.
But it was a bitter pill for both me and Steven to (haha) swallow. He lost the most special thing about him, and my boyfriend wasn’t cool anymore. I dumped him later that year after he gave me a love note with too many spelling mistakes in it.
I wonder whatever happened to good ol’ Steven Coontz? I think he’s in prison now. Or else (if the rumors are true) in porno movies. Luckily, he has a skill that will serve him equally well in both places.
So what did your lover do for you tonight? Bring you roses? Chocolates? Wine? Ha. If s/he’s willing to swallow the cork and cough it back up whole, then maybe, maybe you have a keeper.
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