I remember being pretty little when my cousin Cathy came to live with us for a while. She had a room in the basement, and took care of Amy and me at times when my older brothers and my parents weren't home.
She went to a different HS than Tommy and Mike, and I remember she took me to high school one day. It was Appleton East High School. I remember guys in her class smiling at me and saying "gimme 5!" and I would happily oblige. They treated me like I was cool. (for a 6 year old, haha) And I remember seeing rows and rows of lockers.
There were times when I remember Cathy showing us her record collection. I wasn't sure if I liked music as much as I do now, but it was a fun idea, and listening to music with my cousin made me feel like a grown up. I remember her saying "ok, pick one record out, and then we will play a song on it." After sorting through what was probably over a dozen records, I chose Ozzy Osbourne's Ultimate Sin.
The cover's illustration made it an attractive choice for the typical fan of He-Man.
Her reaction was a little abrupt: "Ozzy!?" She exclaimed.. "he's a mad man!"
From an Ozzy timeline, this was the second or so album with guitarist Jake E Lee. He was a guitar player to replace Randy Rhoads.
Randy Rhoads, who I just happen to share a birthday with, and probably one of the best guitar players of all time: classical, electric - you name it. Rhoads died young in a plane accident while trying to "buzz" Ozzy's tour bus in 1982.
Jake E Lee, who somehow figures into the story later at about 1996... When AOL was huge, I met JakeELee95 in an AOL reptile chatroom, and it sure was him. He was out of the band by then. Back when chat rooms were safe! I chatted with him for a bit, I made fun of his choice in guitars "Charvel" and "Kramer" haha... he said the ones they made him were better than the ones in the store.
1986 was also a time when there was a lot going on with Africa. There were TONS of commercials about the Ethiopian kids starving and charity TV telethons. It was the stereotypical dinner table jargon that "eat your dinner, there's kids in Ethiopia starving to death." There were tons of commercials and "just pennies a day" extended telethons for them.
I got a lot of stomach aches as a kid, and Pepto Bismol was my friend. One night watching these telethons, I had a really bad one. I remember this particular night my brother Mike was home, and he might have already graduated from High School, I'm not sure... they put me in my parent's bed (probably to get my whining out of the family room) and put the TV on in that bedroom.
Later, Mike came in and asked me if my stomach still hurt, and it did. So proceeded to tell me he was "a doctor" and could see what was wrong. He felt my stomach and asked me where it hurt, does it hurt here? here? and ended up saying. "Well, go to sleep, and it will be better when you wake up. Just don't move." I took those words to heart, and made sure I didn't move a muscle. Of course, he was right, the next day it was gone.
The pop stations were playing stuff like this... I think this was when I was starting to be more conscious of what was on the radio.
The first big birthday party I went to had to be around 1986... we drove to Showbiz Pizza, which is now known as Chuckie Cheese's. In my hometown, there was one in the same building as Kmart. It only lasted a few years. When it closed down, the closest Showbiz Pizza was in Green Bay. My memory doesn't serve me whether it was closed down or not by this time.
I do remember sharing seatbelts with my classmates, only boys were at this party... and of course the law wasn't out yet about child seats.
If you've been to Chuckie's you know what you're in for at Showbiz Pizza: tons of games, pizza, and animals playing music. But you need to remember, this is the 80's. So if you think it looks fake now, wait until you get a load of what it used to look like! No matter the decade, it was entertaining for kids. My personal favorite was the pool of balls you could basically swim in.
MUSIC! LIVE MUSIC
The band looked like this, and they played a variety of songs.
If it was your birthday, this is what you got:
Of course, adults had to sit through this stuff, so of course they played some "oldies"... DO you remember?
These videos look frightening today, but children at the time really ate it up. I'm not sure if I remember any kids being afraid of this environment. 2:20 really start to pick up when they do "Wooly bully." It's totally cabaret, and there's some humor in it. Enjoy!
What I remember most about this particular trip (aside from sharing seatbelts) is finding a pen in the parking lot. I was wearing jeans, and when I picked up the pen (that had been cooking all day in the parking lot), I got ink all over my pants. The mom who was driving us around was less than amused, and it made a good blue stain on my jeans. I might have gotten yelled at for picking up a pen off the ground. But as a 6 or 7 year-old I thought "hey! FREE PEN!"
This band called The Outfield was all over the radio. I remember hearing it in the car on 101.1 WIXX, GreenBay/FoxCities. It was a cool song for being a ballad. Their big hit was "Your Love." It was and is still a great song. It was only years later I found out they were British! With a name like The Outfield, you'd think they were baseball playing Americans. Not the case. I came to find out later on in college (via VH1's popup video) that they named their band the Outfield on purpose to appeal to the American audience.
Why the Outfield you ask? There were three guys in the band, and there's three outfielders in baseball (unless you're in Pee-wee league, like I was in 1986). So I guess it made sense to a certain extent.
Here is where it gets weird. Music videos and Mtv was big in the 80's and band were still sort of trying to figure out how to maximize their popularity with music videos. The Outfield, again took a trail of pesky deception! The video for your love included two musicians that were actors. I'm not talking about two replacements to the original three, we are talking about five - yes - FIVE Outfielders. An extra guitar player, and a keyboard player were just tossed into the video. Looking back, they stick out like sore thumbs.
How could it be? How does this make sense? Again it was a ploy to fit in with the American market. Apparently, many bands at that time had five members. So if the Outfield made it look like they had five members in the band, perhaps they could better fit in. If you ask me, between the name of the band and having fake members in their videos - they were trying a little too hard to be cool. I still like more than a couple songs of theirs.
This is one of those songs that sounds really good when played acoustically on guitar. Since 2012, I've been performing this song as open mic nights and acoustic gigs that I'm offered to play. It's slowed down, and the Outfield do a version of it this way, and it's just as good if not better than the original.
The Outfield had another big hit that I really liked. All My Love in the World. "Your Love" peaked at #6 on the Billboard charts. "All My Love in the World" peaked at #13.
They smiled, kicked, jumped and shredded their way into our souls from speakers through our ears. Eddie VanHalen changed the way guitar was played. He changed the musical instrument industry by inspiring guitar players to desire crazy guitar designs with whammy bars. Eddie also has a guitar called FrankenStein. It's a guitar they he has
heavily modified. Most of him being seen in the early 80's is with this
guitar, which sparked a mass exodus from Fender and Gibson vintage style
guitars. This lowered the value of older guitars because nobody wanted
them anymore. Eddie's playing was so big it changed everything in rock n
roll.
"Diamond" David Lee Roth left the band in 1985. This was HUGE news. People heard whispers of DLR wanting a solo career... but we never thought it would come. It was a shock to all of us fans. It seemed that life as we knew it was changing. I couldn't imagine a VanHalen without Diamond Dave! Their story was so cool. Alex and Eddie came to America poor. Their dad was a musician, and Alex & Eddie learned at early ages. The first version of VanHalen as we know it used to play weddings. Can you believe it? I thought that was hilarious when I heard that. How would you like to have VH play your wedding? I always admired bands that had brothers in them, because at this time, my brothers still had their band... Defiance.
They were a family being torn apart.
I have heard other stories about VanHalen, like how tight they were with
roadies. It's popular to hear about the "crazy contracts and riders"
rock bands force venues to sign with all of these ridiculous demands.
David Lee Roth mentioned there was a perfectly good reason for all of
it. Rock shows demand a lot of electricity, and a LOT of safety
precautions. When a band travels to a new venue, a stage must be setup,
and safety is always an issue. In the band contract, all of the safety
precautions, energy requirements, etc. were clearly defined... along
with crazy things in it (like a bowl of no brown M&M's in the
dressing room for example). According to David Lee Roth, if there were
(going on the analogy) a bowl of no brown M&M's in the dressing
room, they were confident the venue read the entire contract, and the
band could be confident all of the safety and energy needs for a good
show were being met. I thought it was pretty clever...
A new band?
Sadly, with Diamond Dave gone, the future of VH was uncertain. Enter Sammy Hagar. I always loved his albums. His energy seemed to match DLR's, but Sammy could also shred on guitar almost as good Eddie! Word is, Sammy was tired of being a solo act, and auditioned with VH to be an additional guitar player. Their first song they auditioned, "Summer Nights" was played, and Sammy decided to sing it. At that moment, Sammy became the lead singer and part-time rhythm guitarist for VanHalen 2.0 or some would call ethem VanHagar.
News of this traveled. Not only could one not imagine VH without Dave, but now one could never imagine how much cooler VH will be with Sammy! This rollercoaster of emotions was settled with the bands first album with Sammy Hagar, entitled 5150. Eddie's secret recording studio was called 5150, which I believe is the California police code for "intoxicated." (Similarly, gangster rappers would commonly say 187, the police code for "murder," for example).
You can view the entire "Live Without a Net" Van Halen concert below in its entirety. It's one of the first concerts Sammy Hagar played with Van Halen. Warning: this it TOTAL arena rock. The energy is SUPER high... they are running all over the place and having a blast. The opening song is Sammy Hagar's I Can't Drive 55... and the place is going crazy. Michael Anthony's bass solo is complete with slamming a bottle of Jack Daniels while playing his Jack Daniels bass guitar. Rocks.
The Rivalry began.
David Lee Roth sparked a solo career. He found guitar virtuoso Steve Vai and a backing band to embark on a mission to "out-VanHalen" VanHalen. It was great for rock n roll because we effectively we seemingly had two VanHalens. It got ugly. VanHalen was doing most of the talking and bad-mouthing, leaving Diamond Dave to "scribbity-bop" prove them wrong. While Eddie and Alex didn't pull any punches, Sammy talked about how good it was to be in a band and how good VH was doing.
It's reputed that Eddie has an ego. I've heard rumors that he likes to be the only guitar player in a room, and he wasn't always comfortable with Sammy on guitar because it took some spotlight off Eddie. Yet, I heard from Jerry Cantrell (of Alice in Chains) that when his large tour ever (with Van Halen) was finished, Cantrell came home to a garage full of musical equipment as a gift from Eddie. So I've heard both sides. I can imagine that Eddie has a button that could be pushed like everyone else.
Not "better," just different. We never forgot the old Van Halen.
Little did we know Diamond Dave would eventually come back, and bad blood would be in the future between Sammy and the guys... but for now, we can enjoy the newness of all the great music that is Van Hagar. David Lee Roth says it best in this MTV News Interview...
Album Sales
5150 was so big, it was Billboard's #1 album of 1986. It had eight top 40 hits, and sold over 6 million albums in the United States... x6 platinum. In contrast, David Lee Roth's Eat 'Em and Smile album ended at #4 on Billboard's top 200 charts, with two top 40 hits. The previous year, David Le Roth released an EP featuring lounge style songs like California Girls with an album titled Crazy from the Heat... but Eat 'Em and Smile was his big return to Hard Rock...
In the second grade, I had this dual cassette player boom box. It was short and slim and black.. unlike the huge gray/chrome ones you'd expect from the 1980's. This thing took a TON of batteries. I feel sorry for the thing, because it took a lot of abuse. Between my sister and I, we busted buttons off of it, ruined the telescoping antenna, busted the long handle off of it, etc.
It was great to have a boom box, because I could always be ready with a blank tape. Listening to the radio, if I ever heard a song that I wanted to hear, I'd run over to the boom box and hit the play and red record button at the same time. It took some extra "oomph" to get those buttons down compared to the others. And, of course, you'd likely miss the first 4-6 seconds of a song if it was the first song on side A or side B.
I became pretty proud of my radio-recorded mixed tapes. Parts that made me cringe was when the DJ sang the last 5 seconds of the song, or started to chime in before the song was over. For the most part, it was one of my earliest moments of creation and expression.
In second grade, we had a single speaker tape recorder. For holidays, or those old crappy sideshows with film (and the tape would beep so you could go to the next slide), we had the tape recorder in our class room. For Halloween, our teacher Ms. Stone (a catholic nun who's name ironically was Sharon Stone), would play tapes for our little class parties. I had the idea we could play one of my tapes during art class.
I didn't really want to play the entire tape. I just really wanted to play "My Future's so bright, I Gotta Wear Shades" by Timbuk3. The words were easy to understand, and as a kid I really liked the song because it had to do with school. I gave Ms. Stone the tape. I remember to this day, the track was the second song on Side A. So I got it all ready so when you put the tape in, it would just play the song I wanted. That's something you cannot do with a CD that sort of makes you appreciate tapes vs. vinyl records, compact discs, or even mp3s. Ms. Stone said we could play it during art class.
The time came to put the tape in. It played without a hitch. Ms. Stone wanted to play it again. She rewound the tape all the way. Embarrassingly, the first track on the side was "Head to Toe" by Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam. The lyrics "I love you from head to toe" was pretty mushy and I remember trying to hold face so my friends wouldn't call me a girl. Luckily the rest of the songs on the tape were all top 40 hits and my perceived reputation as "one of the cool kids" was preserved. Little did I know other kids in my class recorded tapes too. This even inspired others in my class to bring in their tapes to play during art class.
Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam - Head to Toe
There was a song on the tape by Boston called Amanda. There was a girl in my class named Amanda, and since she was the only Amanda I knew... it was like Boston wrote her the song. I asked her if she'd ever heard it before it came on... she asked "the country version or the rock version?" I was thinking "country?" Haha I still have that reaction to this day. So, lookout... there's probably a country version floating around. I was never a big fan of country music.
Boston - Amanda
Here are some other songs I remember having on the tape:
Why Commercials?I gotta give some love to commercials. I watched a LOT of TV when I was a kid, and probably had a bunch of them memorized. You know those commercials that just get stuck in your head. I'd watch TV in the family room, especially in the morning with a cereal bowl on the fireplace. I liked eating breakfast right in front of the TV.
Here is a list of commercials that I believe were relevant on or around 1986.
Max Headroom - Coke vs. Pepsi: Max Headroom had his own TV show around this time, and it's a classic totally 80's commercial. The "Cola Wars" of the 1980's were HUGE. The polarization of people for Coke or Pepsi tore families apart. That might be an overstatement, but I distinctly remember my brother Tommy liking Coke and Mike liking Pepsi. Me? would suck down any pop or soda... even if it was warm. This led my sister to "stash" cans in her room, so when we had pizza or something, she would be guaranteed something good to drink. Smart move if you ask me, but I'd drink them even faster if I kept them in my bedroom.
Juicy Fruit Gum:The lyrics, listening to this commercial are hilarious. "Take a sniff, pull it out... the taste is going to move you when you pop it in your mouth." I remember watching this commercial thinking it was the coolest. Pack of Juicy Fruit was twenty five cents.
The California RasinsThe California Raisins were cool too. I think it might have been Hardee's that had little figurines you could collect. I remember having a couple of these and playing with them.
Close Up ToothpasteClose UP toothpaste, looking at the commercial for the first time since I was a kid, appear to be targeting the promiscuous people in society, or the sexually active. I never realized how much public display of affection was in this commercial. It's pretty provocative for it's time without being offensive.
Pepsi and Michael JacksonEveryone knows Santa Claus is red... and that means Coke. But what about Pepsi? Michael Jackson was the biggest thing in the 1980's. I mean bigger than Santa. Since Coke has the monopoly on Santa (see the Coke Santa 1986 commercial here), Pepsi went out and bought the Michael Jackson endorsement. It might be shocking to see all these children around Michael Jackson looking back, does it look fishy?
Tootsie Roll PopsNow this is a much older commercial, but it was still on TV growing up. Everyone has had to see this, and I remember thinking this owl was a smartass. No jingle here, but still a big commercial.
Kawasaki CommercialsKawasaki's commercials had a jingle that said "Let the good times roll." The song, in our family morphed into "Kawasakis make the junkyards grow..." I thought this was hilarious and loved singing our alternative lyrics growing up! These commercials came up in conversation any time we were around a motorcycle, dirtbike, snowmobile, boat, or three-wheeler. Little did I know my first motorcycle would end up being a Kawasaki.
Six Flags - Great America This commercial was pretty popular... and the jingle sticks in your head. When my family went here, they dropped me off with family in Kentucky. Oh well, I was only 6, I couldn't have enjoyed it!
It's time to go to Kentucky. I have relatives in Lexington, Kentucky. We normally visited them around 4th of July. This was a big deal for my dad because he owned a business and rarely got time off. When he did get time off, it was spent up north in WI. Coming from a small city in WI, driving south was an adventure. People had a southern accent. I didn't really see the Kentucky blue grass though... it was green.
Jack and Charlene Parker had two houses. Charlene's family farm (miles outside of Lexington) had tobacco and Limousin cattle... a competitor breed to Angus beef. The stairs up to the bedrooms in this old house were so steep, it was difficult to climb, and easy to fall down if you went downstairs too fast. When I was at the farm, I got to drive this gigantic tractor, and made a sword out of a tobacco stick. Apparently, tobacco sticks were used in barns to hang tobacco.
My dad would spend half the week at the farm and help Jack, while my mom, brothers, sister and I spent the week shopping with Charlene and stayed at the house in Lexington. Lexington had great shopping mall... and other relatives owned a cool antique store.
Jack also owned and ran a barbershop down the street from the University of Kentucky.CHEVY Barber shop I used to go there to receive a "flat top"... complete with a bottle of Vavoom! hair gel. My dad used to admire the thought of owning a barbershop... "you can work in cash, and everyone's hair that you cut you would do business with... your stockbroker, your mechanic, your doctor, you'd cut all their hair." It made sense that the people that gave you business you'd give business back to. After Jack passed away in early 2008, his daughter Leigh-Ann took over the family barbershop.
Brian Parker and Compact Discs
Brian Parker was very close in age to Tommy and Mike. His bedroom was in the basement. There was a living room down there, and billiard area that had a pool table different than any I've ever seen. I believe it was a bumper pool table. It was in Brian's bedroom where I saw the first compact discs. Smaller than records, and went into a home stereo component cd player. He had an entire wall of cds... seemingly enough be be a DJ.
When I recently asked about his cd collection, he said: "My first CD player I bought was in 1984, it was a Magnavox (stylish and cost just over $400). My first CD's were Shiela E', Prince, Thompson Twins, Duran Duran, Psychedelic Furs (MTV had a huge impact on my musical taste, especially anything on 120 minutes because you weren't hearing that music on the radio in Kentucky- it was all top 40 crap.)"
Brian and I would play basketball on his hot blacktop driveway and he would do play by play as if we were each on the UK basketball team and the timer was counting down to zero. My first ever ride in a convertible was in his 1968 VW Karmann Ghia convertible... WAY cooler than the station wagon!
I remember watching Mtv in the basement. We didn't have cable TV in Appleton, so it was a real technological experience with cable TV, CD's etc. SO MANY CHANNELS! Plus it was awesome to see all the creative music videos. I took a special liking to Genesis and Phil Collins for some reason. Listening to "Invisible Touch" takes me back to KY.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show:
It was from Leigh-Ann the I learned the clever art of talk-back and mockery. I didn't realize that's what it was at the time, but it was hilarious. She sat us down and put in the VHS tape of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Little did I know there is an "audience participation" aspect of this movie... there's only so much you can understand as a six yearold. But I do remember the part when they got married at the beginning. There's a line when someone at the wedding says "I always cry at weddings." Charlene promptly responded "and laugh at funerals." At the time I thought this little wise crack was 100% original. I think I fell asleep after that. Now that the internet exists, I found a comprehensive list of all the talk-back moments in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Dr. Ruth
When we weren't watching Mtv, or movies I do recall watching Dr. Ruth. This was a TV show about sex, and 100% of it went over my head (of course)... but I do remember it being on, and also "COOL" to watch. This old lady preaches about sex... watching it now is rather comical and I cannot believe this was so accepted in the conservative Reagan years of the 80's! Alas, if you were "in the know" in the 80's you watched Mtv, Saturday Night Live and Dr. Ruth! Here is an awesome video of Dr. Ruth with Ozzy Osbourne.
Saturday morning was usually cleaning time. I'd get up extra early to eat four bowls of cereal at the fireplace and watch cartoons in the family room. I always poured a ton of milk in the bowl, enough to cover all the cereal. Often, I'd leave the bowl on the fireplace, and after some time it would be stuck to the fireplace. For some reason, the "family room" was our main hang out spot in the house. The living room, in contrast, was only a "formal" room that we only used at Christmas time.
Cartoons were usually done with around 11 or 11:30am, and WWF Superstars was on after that. Usually by that time, my mom was planting the seed that cleaning would start taking place. I have vivid memories of cleaning the house and watching Spider Man.
"Dancing on the Ceiling" was one of the first songs I ever recorded on my "dual-cassette" boom box. It was all over the radio, so I just taped it off the radio. The song made my 6 year old self hyperactive. I remember having to clean my room, and after I was finished I would jump on the bed. I wonder where the parental control of not allowing kids to jump on the bed came about because my mom didn't seem to mind.
My sister had the room right next to mine, but around the corner. We had a clothes chute right in front of my door. The thing to yell was "bombs away" while dropping clothes down the shoot. The saying eventually evolved to "bombs your clothes."
Cleaning my room most always coincided with my sister cleaning hers as well. Her big collection at the time was Cabbage Patch Kids. They were all the rage in the 80's, and moms literally fought for them during Christmas shopping rushes. I don't remember how many she had, but it was enough to span at least one row of them across her full-sized bed. Amy would clean her room, and put all of her Cabbage Patch Kids in a row on her bed, and stop by my room. We would pretend she owned an orphanage, and I was a customer. So she would escort me into her room and introduce me to all the babies. I would get their names and how long they were in the orphanage. Based on all that criteria, I would pick one to keep. Looking back I'm not sure what I did with it after I chose one. If it went to my room, I can't image too much time passed before she took it back. Not "back to the orphanage," but back to her room (play concluded).
When we started to get older, it would be a little bit more devious. For example, Amy would design a menu for lunch. Lots of layout and design went into this sheet (she will grow up to become a graphic designer/photographer). I got to pick from four or five different sandwiches to eat for lunch. Keep in mind this was something like 1. jelly, 2. peanut butter, 3. peanut butter and jelly, etc. The very last time we played that game she spiked my sandwich with Mrs. Dash seasoning. I was pretty mad. Even when she made it over again, I had to check the sandwich by peeling apart the halves of bread.
My dad grew up with homing pigeons. In 1976, he moved my brothers an my mom out of Appleton, and built a house in the "sticks" of Darboy. In the back yard, he built a pigeon coop. There was a local pigeon racing club he became a part of. The pigeon club was pretty cool. They had a big party every year, with kids my age. They also had a spot in the newspaper to say who won the races.
Essentially you would drive your team of racing pigeons to a location on the map all at the same time, and a timer started. Once (and I'm not sure) the first or all of your pigeons make it back to your coop, time is compensated in some way... and it's scored. Winning such races brings money and your name in the local newspaper.
Mike worked at this huge bird store, and built a bird room in the basement, where he would attempt to breed finches and ring neck doves and all kinds of birds. The coolest one was a Blue front Amazon parrot named "Sonny." The parrot was cool because it could talk and repeat words. I got the biggest kick out of it. His white Moloucan Cockatoo named Princess. It ended up getting sick, losing all its feathers. Princess died of a disease that's like that bird's version of AIDS called "beak and feather syndrome." The bird caught it from temporarily living with a mate that Mike owned only briefly and sold off. We had a parakeet named Oscar that we kept in the dining room. My dad taught Oscar to say "bullshit" and "fuck you." My mom used to (in a small fit of rage) yell to God that she was "so sick and tired of that frickin' bird." As a kid, that brought quite a chuckle. We thought it was hilarious... any opportunity to laugh my butt off as a kid was taken full advantage of.
Both Tommy and Mike worked at my dad's dental lab. Sometimes I'd find myself there too, doing small stuff like taking out garbage. Mike would find plaster models of people's teeth, and taught me how to drill a hole through it so he could wire into the birdcages. I'm not sure if they scratched their claws on them or what. All I knew was that it was fun.
The song"Just Died in your arms tonight" was a pretty big radio song. It was all over the radio, and more often then not, you'd hear it in the car. I think about riding in the station wagon with Mike and one particular story:
Mike was involved with my Dad's hobby a little bit. We all had responsibilities around the house, and one of Mike's, especially in high school, was feeding the pigeons, and exercising them. On this occasion, Mike drove the pigeons far away to have them fly back. We drove a few hours southwest of our house. I remember seeing a water tower with an indian head painted on it, which I now realize was Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
We were driving all over for some reason. I'm not sure if we were lost or what. almost ran out of gas looking for diesel. Mike was sort of freaking out. We'd pull into a gas station, they wouldn't have diesel, and we'd have to find a different gas station. When we let the birds out, Amy lost jelly shoe and we were driving back before she said anything... and we had to go back for it. I don't remember stopping at any exact place to let the birds out, so how we found the place again to look for her shoe was impossible in my young mind. I think we ended up finding the shoe, and it would have been way too long a drive home to not have found it.
I always considered my family a singing family. I grew up thinking this was normal... breaking into song in the car, at the dinner table, whenever a song came on that we know. My mom encouraged it, when I think most others might have been annoyed. Until high school, I always had trouble hearing the actual lyrics. Many times I'd just make up what sounded good.
I spent many summers at a cottage in the Wisconsin Northwoods. We would pack up the wooden sided Oldsmobile diesel station wagon and spend weekends or even weeks at a time up north. At the age of 5 this was bliss. I brought clothes and some He-Man guys and I was set. He-Man got to fight Skeletor in all sorts of new places up there... on the dock, on a tree stump - sky was the limit.
The closest town that had good shopping was about 45 minutes away in a town called Rhinelander. I vividly remember hearing Paul Young's "Every Time You Go Away" while sitting in the station wagon going up the driveway. The end of the driveway went uphill a bit, where in the fall I could pick blackberries. When the song came on, we started singing, this was a song I could not decipher lyrics. My lyrics became singing, "You Take a Piece of meat with you."
To me, that was like "packing a lunch." The real words are "take a piece of ME with you." At the age of five, I'm not sure I would have understood that... sounds in a food perspective slightly cannibalistic! But the lyrics, to my mother, prompted a serious "birds and the bees for five year olds" pep talk. I seem to remember her talking about how fast I was growing up and how I would "someday meet a girl from up north yada yada."
Once we got to the store, I picked out some shoes that looked like a car from the side and bottom profile. I remember these shoes being expensive, and I could wear the tread off shoes in two weeks. My parents and siblings were always in awe of the sight of how fast I could wear out a pair of shoes. So from talking about growing up to picking out car-looking shoes, I still had a lot of growing up to do. My mom would be right about fourteen years later, I'd go on to meet a girl in college from WAY up north in Wisconsin, and ended up being the person I dated pretty much throughout college. Moms are always right, or they at least know what's going on.
Whenever I hear Every Time You Go Away... I think about putting meat in a ziplock bag, and riding in that station wagon up north with my car shoes on.
I grew up with nothing around my house but cornfields. This area of the boondocks was called Darboy USA, a "suburb" of the city of Appleton. Appleton was a city of 66,000 at the time. One thing I could see from my yard was the radio antenna for 105.7 WAPL, The Rockin' Apple. "The best classic rock, the best new rock." When you are a child, you see this long radio antenna with flashing red lights. Being on the gullible side, I didn't have a frame of reference for size... it could have been an antenna or a tower! I had just assumed that EVERY song on the radio was being played LIVE inside that tower somewhere, hence the flashing lights - that's where the bands play! I don't know if I imagined the radio antenna was like a big elevator shaft, with rooms to perform going all the way up or what.
For example, if "Walk This Way" by Aerosmith was playing on the radio, I assumed Aerosmith was in town playing it live inside that radio antenna. It's funny because I don't remember anyone ever telling me this... it was just one of those early creative theories I had as a five year old that couldn't be further from the truth.
As I grew up, 105.7 WAPL wasn't as cool as I thought it was. It was just the coolest available. My gripe is this... they played a TON of Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Beatles, Grateful Dead and The Eagles constantly. Nothing against these bands, but I grew an distaste to them over time. Tommy and Mike even helped coin a saying "if Bruce is 'the Boss,' then I QUIT." Haha.
Nowadays, the only one I can really stomach of the bands I mentioned above is the Rolling Stones and some Springsteen. This overplaying of music was the first sign that radio stations can RUIN good bands for you. In these days of the mid 80's, they wouldn't play "heavy" music, even if it was popular. They wouldn't play Metallica during the day. If you called in to request it, they wouldn't even take that as a request until after 10:00pm. It was considered way too heavy for daytime airplay. The heaviest you could get during the day was probably Hendrix. Thank God for Jimi. To their credit, they played a lot of other good stuff too. This is where my musical tastes started to develop.
I was just really lucky to have an older sister and two older brothers. Being the youngest came with all sorts of perks. I wasn't "up to me" to seek and find what was cool. I was able to soak up what my siblings liked and usually that's what I liked to. I had my own identity since all kids a certain age like certain things... like He-Man and Star Wars and such. But when I was little, my older brothers had a rock cover band when they were in HighSchool. It was called Defiance.
Defiance
Their shows were often really elaborate with lots of speakers, pro sound, and stage lights... just crazy. They practiced in my basement and my mom & dad would buy Darboy Fried Chicken (not to be confused with KFC) and they'd stay for dinner. My dad helped out with a Keyboard, PA and other essential equipment... and supported them with funds to get started. The next thing you know they are playing bars all over... even opened for Ratt and Lita Ford at Green Bay's Brown Country Arena! My oldest Brother Tommy wielded this white Gibson Explorer, while Mike did lead vocals and played keyboards. That's the music.. how about the dress? We are talking about leather pants, bandanas, 80's sunglasses... the works. They covered all sorts of Bon Jovi, Ozzy, Judas Priest, Van Halen, Rush, Loverboy, Prince, etc. A great party band indeed.
Their guitar player was this kid named Michael Boyle from Appleton. I looked up to Michael Boyle quite a bit... all of them really. But I always wanted to play the guitar. He was a flashy player... had really puffy hair, and my brothers would jokingly call him Buckwheat after the Little Rascals. So that's what Tommy and Mike called him all the time. After HS, Defiance fizzled out... and I wouldn't see Boyle again for about ten or so years. So let's fast forward to 1994. He was working at my favorite guitar store when I was a teenager, Henri's Music in Appleton. I recognized him and said "Buckwheat!" You should have seen the look on his face. Saying that meant I was old school, but I looked too young to know him from that time. I'm Tommy & Mike Bongers' little brother. Being known as one of my "siblings' little brother" was usually a good thing, so it never bothered me one bit.
Dire Straits was a cassette my dad had in his truck. On our way up north, my grandpa, dad, and I would play both sides the entire two hour ride. I was too little to see over the hood, so I sat on this big fluffy pillow in between my grandpa and my dad. We wore Dire Straits tape out... his tape player in the truck might have eaten it, but I like to think we wore it out. Instead of simply replacing it, we mailed it to my brother Tommy when he went to college in Daytona to see if he could fix it. After highschool, Tommy went to American Motorcycle Institute (AMI) to get a certified Harley Mechanic degree.
I went to Holy Angels, which was a catholic school in Darboy Wisconsin. It was called Darboy USA, because Darboy (unincorporated) didn't show up on a Wisconsin state map. Ironically, it did show up on a map of the entire United States. Darboy was sort of an "in between" area in the midst of many cities. It's very near Appleton, Kimberly, Comined Locks, Kaukauna and Menasha. So other than "the boon docks," it was always hard to describe exactly where I went to school. Most people had never heard of it... unless of course they were an adult.
I don't remember if it was pre-school or kindergarten, but my first two friends in Holy Angels were Eric and Nick. Nick was somehow related to me through his mom and my grandma... so I was his fourth cousin or something. Eric's grandparents owned the "Dairyland's Best" local dairy: Lamers Dairy, which made the best milk (especially chocolate milk) around.
My first ever sleep over was at Nick's house. Eric and I went over there with our sleeping bags. We were read a story by Nick's cousin Sara I think... who would end up being a summer park leader in coming years. Other than that I remember Nick had the biggest toy rooms I'd ever seen. It was like an empty bedroom just FULL of toys. I couldn't believe it.
The next morning, we went outside on his porch. Eric and Nick had a couple toys that made noise... I think one of them was a He-Man vehicle that rattled when it moved. They started "practicing" between each other. I asked "what are you guys doing?" They said they were practicing their song. They had a band. All excited, I wanted to be in the band. They responded "you probably don't know the song we do." So they started playing it... and it was Money For Nothing by Dire Straits! I was through the roof at that point. "I know that song! Can I be in the band?" Between all three of us, none of us knew the entire song. We were pretty much just singing the chorus and making noise with toys. The band didn't even have a name. But for those 5 minutes... we were the coolest band ever.
Money For Nothing had an awesome video too. Lots of animation, seemed like it was made with kids in mind. I do remember the words a little differently. The current radio version is edited! There was a politically incorrect line in the song about "that little faggot, he's a millionaire." In the early to mid-80's, it was very common in our town for teens to make fun of somebody by calling them a faggot or queer. Today however, that's not the case. The song on the radio and video has been edited and the offensive language removed.
The next morning, we went to this two-story Burger King on College Avenue in Appleton to get kids meals. The "kid's cup" was a He-Man cup with a comic printed around the outside. I still have it.
Eric lived much closer to me. I remember he was over and we were outside on my swingset. We were talking about best friends and who they were. I had never really thought about "best" friend much, but I said a little too quickly that Nick was my best friend. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was because we were related in some small way, or that we had the same name, maybe cause of his room full of toys... who knows? I knew right away that it was the wrong answer. Who was I on my swingset with? Eric said his best friend was ME. The right answer. And I thought that was the coolest thing anyone ever said to me. I'm not sure if he remembers this, but my answer to the "best friend" question was one of the first things I ever said that I totally regretted and never verbally took back. As time progressed, thankfully, it was as if I had never said that.
We were not the 3 amigos forever. Nick would end up going to a different grade school. In fact, that sleep over I think was the only time I really hung out with Nick outside of school. Eric, on the other hand, would stay my best friend. We both went to the same school until 1998 when we left for different colleges. In time, Eric would end up being the first phone number I memorized, the first kid's house I ever biked to, and the only kid I ever biked to school with. I can guarantee you'll see Eric's name throughout my autobiography. Good friends, especially ones you can say you've had since 1985, are pretty rare.
