I often connect songs I hear to various moments in my life.  Casey Kasem, an all-time radio great, recently passed away.  If you were a child of the 80s like me, you might remember sitting by your radio on the weekend listening to Casey count down the Top 40 hits of the week, with a few ‘Long Distance Dedications’ (and their accompanying stories) mixed in along the way.  I would sometimes waste an hour or so on a Saturday afternoon listening to the show just to see which song ended up #1.  To educate all you young’ens out there, back in the old days, you used to actually have to wait sometimes to get information.  None of this new-fangled internet clicking’ & googlin’ stuff!

Nowadays, on my 10-minute drive to church every Sunday morning, I get to re-live those memories on the radio. 105.7 FM out of Cleveland replays an actual Casey Kasem count down from a week in the 1970s, while 98.9 out of Youngstown does the same for the 80s.  My kids tend to complain about me cutting into their hip new music time, but they do appreciate Mr. Kasem since he was also the voice of this famous cartoon character:

Ironically, a few weeks ago I was listening to a countdown from 1987 or so when Casey read a long distance dedication from some daughters to their parents that were married in Dover, Ohio!!!  WOW!!  CASEY SAID DOVER ON THE RADIO!  I was the only one in the car that day, so you are gonna have to trust me on this.

Let’s turn back that radio dial to exactly 30 summers ago.  Some of the hot tunes were ‘Oh Sherrie’ by that Journey guy, the ‘Footloose’ soundtrack, ‘The Reflex’ by Duran Duran, ‘Panama’ by Van Halen, and ‘Borderline’ by Madonna.

And if If I ask, ‘Who you gonna call’, you would answer…

Those songs remind me of one of the last summers of my childhood.  In June of 1984, I was between 7^th and 8^th grades, which is exactly where my oldest son, Drew, is right now.  My junior high days (did they even have middle schools back then?) were not my favorite years of school, but summers were still a blast.  It was one of the last summers where I could still be a kid.  High school brought more responsibilities, along with the ‘I am too old and cool to do kid stuff’ mentality that stole some of the joy out of summer.

June of that year also brought my one shining moment in the world of golf.  That was my first year in which I really started playing.  I was in a Friday morning youth league, and immediately fell in love with the game.  I would often barely sleep the night before visualizing the round in front of me.

To further fan my golf flames, my dad got an old rotary golf green mower off a relative, so he put a green in our side yard for us to play on.  We had 18 different tee-offs from our yard as well as a few neighbors (my belated apologies for all of the divots), so we would play ‘Aljansga National Golf Course’ almost daily.

On one of those sunny June golf league mornings, I was playing the back nine at Pleasant View Golf Course and was playing pretty well heading to the par-3 15^th hole (now hole #6).   I teed up my orange Top-Flite XL golf ball, grabbed my vintage Northwestern 5-wood (made of wood, of course) and let it rip.  178 yards later, the sunny little sphere rolled into the cup.  A HOLE IN ONE!!!!  One of my best buds, Eric Pugh, was playing in my foursome, and I remember that we just started laughing.

That was likely the pinnacle to my golfing career.  Looking at the old scorecard that my mom kept in a photo album, I triple-bogeyed the next hole, and haven’t come close to another ace or any other golf greatness in the 30 years since.

To be honest, I share this story strictly to brag.  Not about my golf skills, though.  Its more about my fashion skills from that day.

Lets break it down.

First off, I am owning a retro-Beatles bowl cut for a hairdo, compliments of my wonderful mother.    I am blessed with a truly awesome mother that is still a rock star after 40 years of teaching.  She has many talents.  I can 100% honestly say that hair cutting is not one of them.

 

Moving down the picture, I am sporting the standard-issue Little Leopard T-shirt that every youth football player in Louisville has gotten since forever, I believe.  My current 8^th grade students still get the exact same logo on their shirts.  One interesting fashion point to notice is the tight short sleeves.  That early 80s look is back!!

Another early 80s fad that hasn’t quite fully arrived yet is represented by the choice of pants I wore that day.  There is a reason that they are called SHORTS!  I guess I was working on getting some tan thighs that day.  My son looked at this pic and mentioned the word ‘huggers’ or something like that.

I don’t know what he is talking about.

Just give it a few years Drew.  By the time you are in high school, I bet your hoops team will be rocking this Magic Johnson-Charles Barkley shorts look:

And to complete this fashion ensemble, let’s allow 1984 Mac to sum it up:  “Hey 2014, who needs you and your $14 Nike elite socks!  Mom spent $2 for these sweet knee high tube socks.  With ‘LEOPARDS’ down the side, no less!”

Too bad I didn’t use those $12 I saved on socks for a trip to the barbershop!  My hairdo kinda reminds me of a picture I included in a recent blog of mine:

Although this was more of my shaggy winter look!