June 10- Crushes

I remember playing Truth or Dare at Nancy’s birthday/slumber party in 6^th grade and instead of admitting who I had a crush on I drank out of the dog’s dish for the dare.

    Dad took a picture of me with 2 of my crushes after 8^th grade graduation. Obviously, Mike told him about them but I’m not quite sure how he found out. Did I write about this in my diary and he read it or did he overhear me telling Kim or mom about them?  I don’t remember ever doing either. I would not have admitted this to him, would I? Whatever- it’s so embarrassing that Dad did that.

   My other crush told me not to stare at him anymore sometime in the 7^th grade. This has often been on my mind when I have looked at cute guys since then. I realize that this sounds ridiculous but I can’t help it. Amy and Sharon always tell me that it is perfectly fine for me to be doing so but I don’t know if I can make myself believe this. 

    Mike told me that in the mid-90s a neighborhood boy, Stephen, who used to hang out with him sometimes at our house, had a crush on me which I found hard to believe. But then in about 2000 when I was walking around town with my boyfriend we saw Stephen in his yard and while we were talking to him he told me so himself.

   Shouldn’t I have been flattered? I was thinking how strange it was to hear this. He’s 4 or 5 younger than me. That was in the mid-80s; I looked so dorky then- bad hairdos and big glasses. I’ve been wearing glasses since the 3^rd grade.

 

80s TV Shows and Crushes

Mike and I were recently talking about the 1980’s NBC Tuesday night’s line up of “The A-Team”, “Riptide”, and “Remington Steele” that we used to enjoy watching.

   I had a little crush on the stars of two of those shows, Pierce Brosnan and Perry King. I wrote a fan letter to the latter once. I got a postcard with his picture on it and a stamped signature in return. He and Tracey Gold are the only stars that I’ve ever done this for.

    Thursday night’s CBS lineup was my other favorite –“Magnum P.I.” and “Simon & Simon”. I liked Tom Selleck a lot in the 1980s. I still have the two posters of him from back then.

    The 1984 Team Volleyball Captain one is messed up though because I foolishly cut across the top part of it. There was a rip in one corner from when I tried taking that sticky stuff that we used to use to hang stuff up off of it.

   I wish that I hadn’t taken apart the” Magnum P.I.” 1984 calendar. Mike lost the one page that I let him have. I might still have the “Riptide” poster. It’s kind of strange that I kept that.

    I definitely have the Don Mattingly one and the scrapbook that has 8x10’s, articles and his cards in it. I wish that I had kept the 6 Yankees yearbooks from the 80s too. My brother used to tease me so much about that crush, esp. when we were listening to or watching the games. This was so embarrassing.

Souvenirs and Photos

I still have my souvenir patches from my trips. They are in my travel scrapbook. I originally was going to ask mom to sew them onto cloth to make a wall hanging out of them.

   We used to collect pennants during our vacations and put them on the paneled cabinet doors and elsewhere in the basement; at one point they were hanging in the small sky blue room.

   I remember that my cousin Missy used to collect spoons from her trips. Her father made her a nice holder for them in his woodshop. I can’t remember the souvenir that my brother would usually get though- maybe key chains.

   My brother foolishly threw out most of his family photos. Mom would always let Mike and I pick out the best shots for our albums. Dad stole many of our negatives, mostly those of pre 1976 but also others like my Switzerland trip and 8^th grade dance.

   I did ask for them back in the mid-90s a couple of times but he made excuses like I’ll get around to looking for them soon. He also has the home movies of our 1976 Disney trip and my 110 Kodak camera.

   I was able to get copies of some of the pictures when I was doing that big picture project back then. I really should have gotten the pre 1984 ones done in matte finish though so that they would look more like the originals. I was always worrying that some of my negatives would get lost during this which thank goodness never happened. I put these in the fireproof safe in the basement.

   I wonder if my brother ever regrets trashing those photos; he might’ve mentioned that he does once. Mom was pretty upset about this too.

   I also wonder if Dad still has that Polaroid camera that he got in the late 70s. I always liked those commercials for it with James Garner and Mariette Hartley. We watched him in “The Rockford Files” sometimes. I liked his car, a Firebird, in that. I had a little crush on him too.

      James Garner           

                                                    
                               2 Internet photos-

 

Magazines and Papers  

Mike and I would read the Highlights magazines at the dentist’s office; Dad had such a good dental and eye plan at GM. Aunt Ann and Uncle Joe got Mike and me a two year subscription to Ranger Rick as a Christmas gift.

   We got the TV Guide in the 1980s but I can’t remember for how long. I had subscriptions to Seventeen and Young Miss for a couple of years. 

   Mom received Biography for 2 or 3 years. That was a very nice mag. That was sometime in the 90s as was the Walford Gazette, the paper that I got for being in the “EastEnders” fan club for a few years. 

   Dad used to buy the Star and Enquirer. Sometimes, he and grandma would complain about the celebrities in them, as they did when watching “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”. Mike and I used to read them too.  

   Mike and I delivered a local paper called the Atom Tabloid for a year or two. I think that was in the early 80s.

                                              

                                                                          My Photo

 

 

Below- all are internet photos

 

More Books

Here are other favorites that I still have-

We used to have these too. I found these photos on the internet-

Books

I still remember the names of two books that we read in first grade- Helicopters and Gingerbread and A Duck is a Duck.

   I loved the Scholastic Book Club in grade school. I still have a few of these books – On Top of the Pizzas, Stories from a Snowy Meadow and Mystery in the Night Woods. I remember a couple of others – The Ghosts on Saturday Night and one about a Giant.

   I also kept the The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Charlotte’s Web. I enjoyed the cartoon special of both books. I have the videotape of the latter. I wish that I could find the former on either VHS or DVD.

   I read a lot when I was a kid. The Little House on The Prairie books were my favorites. I still have these. I never really got into Nancy Drew; I preferred Trixie Belden. I don’t remember who wrote those.

   Grandma at the farm bought me Bobbsey Twins books for my birthday and Christmas for 4 or 5 years. I must have had about 25 of them. Sometimes I wish that I had kept these too.

   I am mad at myself for selling them for next to nothing- $5.00 (including the tote that they were in). The guy who bought them was a vendor who obviously sold them for a big profit. I would have been better off donating them to a library.

   Aunt Ann gave Mike and me stickers with our names and “This Book Belongs To” on them. I might still have some of mine. I have most of the bookmarks that I got in the 70s and 80s.

   My parents bought a Colliers Encyclopedia set in 1975. Mike and used them for our schoolwork sometimes. Annually up until 1989, we would receive a yearbook. We found a 1990 one at a flea market. We got rid of the encyclopedias in the early 1990s but kept these. Mike wants to throw them away but I won’t let him.

  

 

               

                              These 5 photos are from the internet- photo search- I wish that I actually
                                       had the books!