My Girl Scout Camping Stuff

I was reorganizing stuff in my basement and in the totes down there and seeing these things brought back the memories of my Girl Scout camping days. I was in the Scouts for about 6 years - 1977- 1982. I really preferred it when we would stay in cabins instead of the tents. Camp Hoover in north New Jersey was the one that we went to. Our 4th grade trip was also there. I am pretty sure that we went to one called Camp Kettle Run which I think is in south Jersey once. We stayed at a couple of camps during our trip to Virginia in 1982 and one outside of Washington D.C. in 1981. I loved my Tupperware bowl/plate and the mug with the coaster/top. The 3 utensils held together as one are neat.I found a pair of undies in the blue bag that must've been in there since the early 80's because I haven't used that bag since then. Maybe that's too much information and I shouldn't have included them in the picture - they did look clean!

My K-tel Albums

I had the K-tel album Wings of Sound which I got as a gift in 1980. I played it on my record player alot. I remember some of the songs on it - Rock With You - Michael Jackson, This Is It - Kenny Loggins, Escape (The Pina Colada Song) and Gold. I should've kept it despite the fact that it started skipping eventually. I got these 3 albums and the 2 tapes in the late 80's and early 90's at flea markets and a record exchange store. I actually had the Soundwaves one on an 8 Track that my friend got me for Christmas in 1980 or 1981. I like these and a few other songs on it - Upside Down - Diana Ross, Steal Away - Robbie Dupree and Let Me Love You Tonight - Pure Prarie League.

I went to the Wikipedia site to find out some info on this company. Their first album was 25 Great Country Artists Sing Their Original Hits in 1966. They were started in Winnepeg, Manitoba and then in the U.S. in Plymouth, MN and also in the UK and Germany. In 1984 the US division filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. They had compilation series such as Super Hits, The Number One Hits and Dynamic Hits. I can't help laughing at the titles of some of their albums. One called Power Hits had a Carpenters song Yesterday Once More on it. I used to like that song. Summer Crusin' had 1950s music.

My favourite songs on Hit Express are Do You Believe in Love - Huey Lewis and the News and Don't You Want Me - Human League ; from Blast Off - Hurts So Good - John Cougar. I used to like more of the songs on each of these albums and tapes but I guess I kind of lost interest in them after a while. I'd love to see which other albums that this company had. A disco one called Night Moves from 1979 was mentioned. Maybe I can look into that somewhere on the internet.

6th Grade - 1980 - 1981

The photo at the very bottom is of my 6th grade class. The one above that is 5th grade. For class photos we usually got to dress up. I'm not sure why they made us wear our uniforms that year. I went to St. John the Apostle school for 9 years. I have some good memories of that place. It was much better than the Catholic high school that I went to. I was thinking about 6th grade as I was watching the very last launch of the space shuttle today because that's when I saw the first one. Our history teacher Miss Mead had it on in her classroom. The top photo is of the hankie that I painted an apple on during Apple Day in her class. I forget what other crafts that we did but I'm pretty sure that we made shrunken heads out of apples too. Our class trip was to Sandy Hook for that grade. I'll be doing a post on that in the future.

8th Grade Dance - 1983

The theme for our 8th grade dance at St. John's in 1983 was the television show M*A*S*H. I can't remember what month this took place in but I'm pretty sure it was after the big series finale episode of that programme. I was into M*A*S*H back then but really don't care for it anymore. My brother does though - he has the DVDs of all the seasons. All of our parents did a very good job of decorating the gym/auditorium for this dance. My main memory of it is not a nice one. A boy did ask me to dance but that was only because his friends dared him to. I overheard this and told that boy no. I am glad that my mom did take pictures of this event despite that upsetting memory.

My Holiday Shirt

I'll be wearing this shirt today. I got it in Kohl's about 3 years ago. I forgot to wear it last July 4th. My brother mentioned the holiday shirts with the bear on them that my aunt made for him, mom and I. I know that mom still has hers but we don't have ours. I usually keep everything that she made for me and feel bad that I got rid of that.

Books About The 1980s

I ordered both of these books from the amazon.com site a couple of years ago. I first saw the Totally Awesome 80's one at a bookstore back in the mid 1990s and kind of regretted not getting it then. My library actually had The Best of Smash Hits and a few weeks after I took this out I decided to look into purchasing it. I never did buy that magazine back in the 1980s but I did get some issues of it from ebay shortly after getting this book. I guess that I was making up for the fact that I was never like my classmates going ga-ga over Duran Duran and other performers back then. I was too busy studying and reading to care about teen idols, MTV and all that. It's kind of embarrassing that I didn't go through my boy crazy phase until my mid 30's. I did have little crushes on Tom Selleck and the baseball player Don Mattingly but it seemed tame compared to how crazy the girls were going over guys like Rick Springfield and all those other idols that were in Tiger Beat and those other teenie-bopper mags.

Patriotic Pooch

I was going to add this better, closer up photo of Mookie yesterday but decided against it because of Mom's foot being in it but today I figured why not do so since Mookie looks so darn cute in it. Another 4th of July memory came to mind also that wasn't a very happy one. My dad was mad at my brother for spending alot of money on fireworks down in either Virginia or Maryland and my mom left the car and started walking and when we did get her to come back my parents didn't talk during the entire ride back to Jersey. That was in 1986. I'm pretty sure that was the same year that our neighbor called the police when Mark was setting off the fireworks and he got in trouble for having them. He was so annoyed about that. We had sparklers and little tanks but I don't remember which other kinds that he got. I was kind of scared of all of these though. I didn't want anyone getting injured.