Small rodents and curious sparrows could have easily become tragically impaled on the sky-high Aqua Net bangs that I proudly wore in the 80s…yes, they were that gravity-defying. The notoriously cheap extra hold hairspray that I favored, so alluring in its pastel aerosol container and oftentimes just 99 cents a can, was my main weapon of choice and (sadly) the precise brand that all of my bang-competing-peers bought up in mass quantities with their seemingly limitless allowances. I was of modest circumstances, and therefore the ongoing deficit of this most essential resource in my community would prompt me to raid the kitchen and cook up my own cockamamie sugar-water-hair-preparations, guaranteed to resist hurricane-force winds of up to 67 miles per hour. Despite keeping up with the Joneses, any self-respecting teen who had been around the mall a few times knew that Aqua Net brand aspirations were de rigueur – they were the golden standard to which all wall-‘o-bang-standards were held.

 In order to achieve such supremely-high styling heights, one had to become highly skilled in the art of back-combing, and for this very task, I turned to none other than my grandmother’s gnarly-looking, metal-tailed comb. Why it didn’t occur to me to scrub off the accumulated hair mouse and Dippity-do caked at the base of the teeth, I’ll never know, but it was quite sight to behold. I never quite mastered the foof-and-spray technique (despite hanging my head upside down, creating a voluminous thatch in my bangs, swinging back and forth, and spraying until the cows came home), so I learned to do the next best thing – cheat with my curling iron. To this day, that memory summons the distinctive burned-chemical-hair-scent that surely made common houseflies keel over and die in my path. Even when I swallowed, I could ‘taste’ the chemically goodness in my throat.
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Back when I was teetering on the edge of teenage-dom, I distinctly recall kooky yet sage relatives regaling me with their fond tales of the olden days as their twinkley eyes and animated voices projected forth an aural Fantasia-like confabulation of magic and wonderment. In spite of whatever impulsive “Good-GOD-Not-THIS-Story-AGAIN!” protestations may have been percolating within my tender young mind, I was raised to be respectful.  That meant that I was expected to reel in all inappropriate thoughts and instead demonstrate interest, patience and a sense of appreciation for the pearls of wisdom that my elders hoped to bestow upon me. So, while uncles, aunts and grandparents expounded ad nauseam upon their positively joyful yet downright Spartan childhood circumstances, I smiled good-naturedly in spite of my increasing skepticism of their feigned jubilance in a world BMTV (before MTV). 

I listened attentively, processed silently, and wondered incessantly how on earth they could have had such happy lives with so few of the comforts that were commonplace in my young life. I was absolutely certain that somewhere along the line a few of their cerebral screws dropped out of their heads. With animated chatter about 3 mile wintry treks to school on foot, gifts of mended socks for Christmas, and the blissful taste of a single piece of candy (reserved for holidays only), I knew that in comparison, my family was living high on the hog. Unlike my sadly misguided, slightly loopy, admittedly antiquated kinfolk who knew not what they were saying, I felt downright giddy to be living in the high-tech-free-flowing-80s.

The world was my oyster, and I was never left wanting.  As a product of working class parents, my sister and I benefited from a somewhat strict but loving upbringing that was imbued with countless creature comforts, including heat, food and clothing. While my grandparents huddled around a burning stick of wood in their teens, winters were never a concern in my childhood home thanks to a mysterious heating source that emanated throughout the vents and hallways.

Our pantry was occasionally stocked with a diverse selection of No-Frills-brand products (including our favorite ‘sugary-cereal,’ flakes of bran with irregularly sized raisins), and we became giddy when our household budget afforded us the luxury of drinking milk and orange juice to our heart’s content. My father dubbed me the Juice Queen upon witnessing my exuberant chugging skills and soon began surreptitiously watering down the liquid gold of my affection, but I was none the wiser and still sufficiently tickled pink. The culinary sun smiled down upon us to such an extent that on special weeks when my mother desired to break our hot dog rut and dazzle our affable palates in the process, she would craft “porcupine” Rice-R-Roni-studded meatballs that would stick to our ribs for an entire lunar cycle.

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