The '80s

It was a wild place, man.

I was brought home from the hospital in a 1967 baby blue Volkswagen Beetle. I think somehow that Bug and I morphed souls, because I have never been quite like anyone else I know my age. In fact, I haven’t spent a whole lot of time with people my age.

I had a pretty cool childhood, although a lot of people might say otherwise. I didn’t go to vacation Bible school. I didn’t have play dates with friends. I think I only spent the night away from home twice, and that was when I was much older. When my baby sister was born in ‘91 and my family became quite domesticated.

But this story is about growing up in the 1980s. Before the internet. Before cell phones. Back when you waited until after 7pm on Friday to make a long-distance call.

My parents took me everywhere with them. Everything they did, I went right along with them.

I did have a babysitter one time. I was two years old, and I’m guessing teenager/college‑girl Christy did not anticipate my parents coming home a little early to find two‑year‑old me sitting on the floor watching Christy and her boyfriend in a rated‑X scene on the couch.

So from then on—unless I explicitly asked to stay with my grandparents—I always went everywhere with my mama and daddy.

I loved talking to adults. I had some sweet friends from preschool and then elementary school, but I also had a hard time in social settings with my own peers. Kids were boring. They didn’t talk about anything interesting or important, like the economy or politics or music.

Also, they ate glue. And boogers. We didn’t have a whole lot in common.

I was born into a family of entrepreneurs. My super‑power‑in‑real‑life‑hero aunt was working to earn her doctoral degree in Law during my toddler and early childhood years. I was exposed to quite a bit of interesting conversation—economics, history, law, the Constitution, the branches of government, you name it.

Which brings me to a memory at Mercer School of Law.

Did you know that if your mom misses her little sister so very much—and also probably wants to go to the sorority house for a gathering—that even at three years old, back in the 80s, you could be snuck into a dorm room? No, I didn’t attend Mercer, but I can tell you how to be very, very quiet sneaking in to stay the night in a dorm room with your super‑cool mom and aunt.

Fast forward a couple of years, and my super‑cool aunt would come to live in a wonderfully magical historical home in Macon, Georgia, where my parents toted me right along every time my aunt and her sorority sisters threw a gathering.

Everybody loved me. I’m sure I’m being biased—I’m sure I could be very annoying at times—but man, I had so much fun, and I had zero awareness that any adult around me was intoxicated or that I, by any other standards, probably shouldn’t be at a sorority party. I got to sit and talk with students of law, and it was all very normal to me. I loved every minute of it.

I really didn’t think of them as anything different than my friends. I felt like I was their friend just as much as my aunt was their friend. Plus, I had the most amazing conversations, listened to the best music, and became center‑stage entertainment when I was breaking it down on the makeshift dance floor to anything from Michael Jackson to Marvin Gaye, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers, to Guns N’ Roses.

I had no idea that children were not allowed in speakeasies. Was I in a bikini contest at the then‑famous Spinnaker at four years old? Why yes I was, and I “won.” And I had zero clue why the lady in front of me had a real bad wedgie problem with her bikini bottom.

I had no idea that other four‑ and five‑year‑olds didn’t learn to salt the napkin from the bartender or get to order Shirley Temples and Roy Rogers with extra, extra, extra cherries. (I feel like I need to make it clear that these were completely non‑alcoholic drinks.) But we were in fancy places with fancy bars.

As I look back, thinking about how the various bartenders loved to talk to me, I wonder if maybe I was a bit of light in their night as they were endlessly serving people who were stumbling all over the room. They were a light in mine, because I had another mind with a wealth of knowledge to have good conversation with.

I’ll never forget the night I held an electric guitar for the first time. New Year’s Eve, live band. I can’t even tell you the name of the band, but I can tell you that year it had been 88 degrees on Christmas Day, and it was still warm on New Year’s.

I vividly remember wearing this gorgeous tiered dress that my parents brought back from a trip to Hawaii. I was enjoying my filet mignon dinner and taking tips up to the stage, requesting songs from people donned in fingerless gloves, pumps, and probably a case of Aqua Net.

We were probably one of three tables left in the Club as the midnight hour passed, and looking back, I bet the band members were exhausted and just wanted to leave. Somewhere in a box long lost are photos capturing the moment of me with the band, holding a gorgeous white electric guitar.

I saved up quarters for the jukebox instead of the pinky‑dinky (if you’re not from the Deep South, pinky‑dinky is the ice cream truck). I ate dinner with adults at adult restaurants, a folded white linen over my lap, instead of happy meals. I never had a child restraint seat or even used a safety belt.

It was the 80s.

And the 80s was a wild place, man.