1983

The favorite year.  Most people have one.  It usually occurs in one's late teens or early twenties, and involves some sort of coming-of-age event, like a first job, first love, first sexual encounter, first drug experimentation, first out-of-body experience, first murder, first space flight, first arrest and so on.  For some, it comes later, and centers around becoming a parent.  For a few, the favorite year comes late in life - retirement, grandchildren, enlightenment, transcendence.

I have a lot of favorite years, and I'd love to bore you with tales of 1978, 1988, 1996, and 2000 - but I won't.  Tonight, let's take a quick peek at 1983, because really, it was all downhill from there, in so many ways.

I was fifteen when the year began, and younger than my years, so my world was an amalgam of music, movies, video games, and a few TV shows... Oh, and my first job.

First, there was snow.  We don't get a lot of snow, in the DC area, but in February of '83, we got this:

Thirty Inches of White Sky-excrement

I know that by now, if you've read what I have to say about winter, you know that I am not a fan.  I hate snow - because I'm an adult, now.  In 1983, however, it was pure white fluffy frozen MAGIC.  Anyway...

Television.  I had outgrown "Little House On The Prairie," and "Automan" proved to be a giant lie - with trailers that deliberately made it look like "TRON," but a show that was beyond terrible.  I was too young to care about "Dynasty," and even at fifteen-going-on sixteen, I could not wait for "M*A*S*H" to just end, already.  Also, I really thought "Just Our Luck" and "Mr. Smith" had a chance, but they were dead on arrival.  But there were bright spots.  "Taxi" showed promise, "Cheers" was good, and "V" did not disappoint, but in early '83, we obtained our first VCR, and suddenly it was MOVIES that we wanted on our TV screen.

"Cujo" was, as almost all big-screen adaptations of Stephen King stories are, a gigantic disappointment, but "War Games," "Risky Business," "Flashdance," "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life," "The Outsiders," "Return of The Jedi," "Vacation," "Scarface," and -helLO- "A Christmas Story?"  It was not a bad year.  Not enough?  How about "Eddie and The Cruisers," "The House On Sorority Row," and "Krull?"  Yeah - top that, 1984.

Of course, at 15-16 years old, I couldn't help but be ruled by music.  Whether it was on the turntable of our first real component stereo system, on my first boom-box, or in the too-powerful headphones of my first-generation FM Walkman, it was one of the driving forces behind my adolescent psyche.

There's entirely too much music to even begin to attempt to think about doing justice to, here.  Rest assured, if Bowie said "Let's Dance," we danced.  If the Plimsouls were "A Million Miles Away," so were we.  When the Stray Cats were "Sexy and 17," and demanded that we "Rock This Town," we did.  Thomas Dolby couldn't find "One of Our Submarines," Kajagoogoo was "Too Shy," Peter Schilling hijacked "Major Tom," and Men At Work said it was all "Overkill," and we were all like, "I'll Tumble For Ya," it's just "The Politics of Dancing -" no, "Don't Change" "My Ever-changing Moods -" "Goodbye to You."

I'll be brief on the video games, too.  I mean, it's not like anyone remembers Congo Bongo, Tapper, Blaster, Mappy, or Gyruss, right?  Everyone's all about Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man, and Q*Bert, blah blah blah.  But does anyone want to join me in a rousing adventure in Mr. Do's Castle, or a round of Crossbow, or the Journey (as in, the band) video game travesty, disaster, and money-grab?  No.  You're all off playing Missile Command, or Centipede.  Harrumph.

Now, about that first job.  In the late summer of 1983, I graduated from delivering newspapers to making bad pizza, cleaning up after bad pizza-eaters, and entertaining bad pizza-eating children - at Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre, in Rockville, Maryland.  Yes, they actually spelled "theatre" that way.  Anyway - click on that link, read that story, and you'll get a feel for why 1983 was special.

That's about it, really - although I would appreciate a little credit from you sports-haters, for not mentioning the Redskins' Superbowl victory or the Orioles' World Series victory.  You're welcome.

Anyway.  This post-a-day thing is already dragging a bit, but bear with me.  There's much for which we will be THANKFUL, as well as the highly-anticipated by no one TWO-HUNDREDTH POST!  I know!  The all-caps should arouse some excitement.  No?  That's okay.  Just don't leave me.  Yet.  

Please?

The Lamb Chop Murders

Today, an old friend made the mistake of asking me if I remember the kiddie TV character "Lamb Chop."  Ha!  Do I remember Lamb Chop?  Who doesn't remember Shari Lewis' adorable and timeless Lamb Chop?  Yeah, that would be me.  At least, I don't recall the puppet itself, or the show.  But I remember the incidents.

Not many people know of the first one, because there was another, much more widely-publicized story, involving a frozen leg of lamb, from around the same time.  This story, short on details though it may be, is better, because it's true. 

There was a wife, mercilessly berated and belittled by her bully of a husband for years, who reached her rope's end one evening and cracked his head open with a stack of lamb chops that had frozen together in their icebox.  Thinking quickly, she screamed a few times, broke the window that opened onto the fire escape, threw the bloody chops into a sink full of warm water, and called the police.

By the time the deputies arrived, she had concocted a story about a break-in by a crowbar-wielding thug who had struck the fatal blow upon her husband's crown and fled when she had screamed.  She had also cooked the lamb chops - pan-seared in a little olive oil, rosemary and mint.  She was never even arrested, and always thought it pathetic that the cops hadn't bothered to ask why she had cooked eight chops, when the table had been set for two.  She had no idea that they had absolutely made that observation, but that her husband had been a monster and her actions were more than justified.  Why put her through a trial, they had decided before even knocking on her door.

The second "Lamb Chop" murder took place in a studio prop room in the 1980s, and well, we all know about that one, don't we?

The third incident, and the only one I was lucky enough to have witnessed in-person, was more about "Rambo III" than it was about Shari Lewis or her TV puppet. I was working at Erol's Video Club in late 1988 when "Rambo III" was released on VHS.  It was a Friday night, and the video had come in the day before.  All 25 copies - a lot, for our store - had all gone out Thursday, so most of them were coming back at random times throughout the evening.  We didn't have a waiting list, because they had always been more trouble than they were worth, so there was a small crowd gathered around the "returns" table, waiting for Stallone's latest Razzie Award-winning masterpiece.

I hated approaching that table under those circumstances, with a copy of the sought-after video du jour or without.  This time, I was with.  A couple of people shouted something or other about having been there first, but I just tossed the tape onto the table and ran.  NEEDLESS TO SAY, a scuffle immediately ensued.  Punches were thrown.  Our brand-new candy display carousel was toppled.  Noses were bloodied, screams and obscenities filled the air. The police were summoned. 

I didn't see anyone leave in particularly serious condition, but we learned the next day that one of the combatants had died of his injuries, having been struck in temple with a videotape.  A detective came by that afternoon to pick it up from the manager's office.  It had been the only other tape on the returns table, at the time of the fracas, and it was the only one that had turned up broken, that night. 

It was our lone copy of "Lamb Chop's Sing-along, Play-along."

Do I remember Lamb Chop?  Yeah, I do.  In my nightmares.