Played it till my fingers bled

Crap, I had an idea for a post about 30 minutes ago when I was out, but when you have anyone in your family whose age you count in weeks, youhadbettterhurryupandpost because you have about 4.3 minutes to get it down in pixels. It had something to do with the greatest 80's song ever recorded, that being, "Summer of '69," by Bryan Adams. Don't try and argue-- it's in the can. This is the best 80's song, case closed.

In this canonic hit, Bry reminisces about his erstwhile teen years (although these probably occurred somewhere around 1977, in his case, in the interest of accuracy) as a hard rawkin dude with a dime store axe who's moonin' over a heartbreakin' hometown sheila. As you may recall, the whole thing fell apart when some dude quit or got married, or something, although hey, this is confusing, since as we all know, BA became a supastah.

This peerless song got me to thinkin' about my own long lost, wistful summer-- the summer of '89. Unlike Bry, I feel accuracy is key to wispy reminiscence, and there in fact exists a diary in my own attic in which the grueling summer of eight-nine is committed to flowery journal pages in Bic. However, being that I have a family member whose age is counted in weeks, the odds that I will find the time to scale the precarious attic stairs and dig in unmarked boxes is nil. Thus my own memory will have to stand in as I recall the following events...

I'm riding shotgun in my friend's Chevy Nova on the way to Pizza Hut, store 22. We're listening to Paula Abdul on KPOP FM, because she really likes Paula Abdul. I'm sittin there in my tie dye shirt telling her how much Paula sucks, and how much I hate that song, you know, Straight up now tell me is it gonna be you and me foreva oh oh oh? I am pretty sure that when we arrived at the store, she made out with some guy in the manager's closet-sized office while I sulked in a greasy booth that smelled like spray cleaner. Later that night, we went to Lyons and played table hockey with empty, flattened half-and-half containers and split an order of fries. It was the summer of '89.