Sheils Writes

I had to do some far back thinking for this piece.  I wanted to capture just what it felt like to be 20 years old in 1985 on a weeknight.  My weeknights now revolve around a cell phone, scrolling through Facebook & Instagram, scrolling again through Facebook & Instagram.  This was not what life was like for me on a typical weeknight in 1985, 40 years ago – close your eyes and imagine along with me, here we go —-

I lived in my childhood home still, wasn’t anxious to ‘launch’ and was planning to marry a ‘rockstar’ at the time (more on that some other time).  There was no urgency for me to make big bucks or have a Dynasty type ‘career’ complete with shoulder pads and office suits.  I worked at a soundproof room company about 1 mile from my house as a word processor.  I kept track of my time on a paper timesheet.  Most likely walked upstairs to the 2^nd floor to hand it in to Carol who ran payroll on some sort of a computer every 2 weeks.  I received a paper paycheck, went to the Barney machine – yes, I still, to this day, call the ATM, the Barney machine – in the Caldor shopping plaza.  Any bills I paid, I would write a check and I kept a handwritten check register that I learned how to maintain by watching my Mom do the family check register.

I would end my work day, walk to my Mercury Topaz and put in one of my homemade cassette tapes where songs were usually cut off at the end, flipped to Side B and continued (I never claimed to be an expert at making cassettes) or my Cyndi Lauper, Girls Just Want To Have Fun cassette, for my 4 minute drive home.

It’s now about 5:15 pm – what next?  Go inside, put my pocketbook away in my room – head back downstairs to see what was going on for supper – I’m 20, I live at home, Mom’s cooking for me and I’m pretty happy.  We’d have dinner in the kitchen, me, Dad, Mom.  I cleared the dishes from the table and Dad went to watch the evening news with Dan Rather.  I’d head in the den to usually find him with his eyes closed.  He worked a long day as a mail carrier, his day usually started at 5:30 am.  If he wasn’t working in the yard or garden, this is where you’d find him.  A daily newspaper, called The Norwalk Hour, also in his lap.  We read real newspapers back then.  I usually read the comics or did the word jumble.  Mom picked up her needlepoint.

OK, what next?  I’m trying to recreate an evening in 1985, not 1955 although it’s sounding a little 1950s.  I had a pretty solid Mom/Dad vibe going on, I was very lucky.  Anyways, I was not going to pick up a cell phone at this point in the night, that’s for sure.  Well, there was a soap opera on at 1 pm every day that we would all miss, so you know what we did?  Very cutting edge of us — we video recorded it on our VHS machine!  The next thing we all would do was rewind the VHS tape and watch the daily episode of ‘All My Children’ – so much fun!  Loved getting caught up on Erica, Tad, Opal and the gang.

Now we are up to about 8 pm and I’m either watching Family Ties or Growing Pains.  Most likely in pajamas already.  But then, guess what??  A sudden ring of a phone – yes, you guessed it, a wall phone, way off in the distance, all the way in the kitchen!  No matter what part of the show you were on, you’d run to the kitchen to pick up the loud ringing phone – if it was for me (my ‘rockstar’ boyfriend), I’d usually say “hey Mom, can you hang this up, once I get to the upstairs phone”?  We’d talk about our day, what we had for lunch, dinner, what record company was he going to sign with someday, what we were (well ‘not’) watching anymore now that we were talking on the phone – and – if someone else was trying to get through – nope – busy signal.  Sorry, Aunt Phyllis!

After hanging up, I’d wash up with Noxzema — if it was good enough for supermodel Carol Alt who was splashed all over my Mademoiselle magazines, then it was definitely good enough for me!  Grab an actual book, a Time to Kill by John Grisham, and climb into my comfy bed.  I got through many a weeknights without a cell phone and I’d like to get through more this same way.

So, there you have it, a random weeknight in 1985.  Somehow it all seemed simpler.  I can’t quite put my finger on just what one thing was different back then.  I just want to go back there for one night and know about life now, to really live in those moments and appreciate them more.  Although I might opt for Spotify instead of one of those cut-off homemade cassette tapes of mine…or not!  Tough call.