Pigskin ad pries loose curing tide

Sunday, February 9, 2014

It’s amazing how a few seconds of a Super Bowl commercial can be such therapy.

One of the highlights of the Super Bowl XLVIII ads was for the near-forgotten chain retailer Radio Shack, which decided to make fun of its old-school persona. The scene: an outdated store. One of the workers gets a phone call, says “OK,” then lowers the receiver, looking dazed, and tells the other worker, “The ’80s called. They want their store back.”

Except for maybe the absence of a “Thriller” zombie and a Rubik’s Cube, that commercial worked in a lot of 1980s icons … the guys from the New Wave band Devo in their red planter pot hats; Olympic gold medal gymnast Mary Lou Retton; Erik Estrada of CHiPs TV show fame; the singing California raisins; professional wrestler Hulk Hogan; Christopher Reid and Christopher Martin of hip-dip duo Kid ’n Play; that awful Jason of the Friday the 13th slasher films and that wretched Chucky doll from the horror movie Child’s Play (films whose real horror was the zillion sequels each spawned); the mail carrier dude from the sitcom Cheers; the Teen Wolf of the same-named movie (I originally mistook him for Chewbacca); a Village People character or two. And was that an ’80s Jane Fonda fitness knockoff? Anyway, these characters invade the store, loot and gut the place. And then the coup de grace: they take off with the stuff piled in/atop a DeLorean, making room for an updated “Radio Shack of the future.”

My husband and I laughed. I did a little more than that. I smiled. And remembered.

And then I officially forgave the 1980s.

This is much more than just my having gotten old and looking at the past through soft-focus glasses. You see, I’d been mad at the ’80s for a long time. Held a cold, hard grudge, declaring to anybody who’d listen that it was the worst decade of my life.

Those who have read me for a long time will be familiar with my whines and moans about the 1980s, the decade I hit my 20s. Yes, that dastardly decade in which my naive, youthful dreams and expectations of adulthood had a rude collision with reality.

Reality won.

Too many bad decisions. Too many heartbreaks, romantically and otherwise. A college graduation that didn’t happen, not for another 16 years. Too many relationships with family members that hit the toilet as they saw me in a new light - a nerd who’d grown up too sheltered and sequestered and had learned no “mother wit” or people skills. I somehow had the idea that adulthood would bring “rewards” for a childhood spent as a bullied, misfit Little Match Girl. But no, Prince Charming wasn’t around the corner ready to rescue me. No, I wouldn’t miraculously get rich.No, pledging a sorority wouldn’t bring me popularity and close, lifelong comrades. No, I wouldn’t be thin. The ’80s found me as the goo in the cocoon, goo that’s no longer a caterpillar, but a long way from butterfly status. For years I couldn’t think of anything I went through during that decade that didn’t bring back feelings of shame and embarrassment.

I first began to soften toward the ’80s via forays to YouTube and realizing that the era did have some good music, including Loverboy’s 1981 hit “Working for the Weekend,” which was used in the Radio Shack commercial.

I’d thrown away the decade, but regretted having thrown away the music. (Yes, some may poohpooh “West End Girls” by Pet Shop Boys or “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins. But compared to such more recent Grammy winners as “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” or songs whose title and catch line is “(Bleep) You,” I’ll take Devo’s “Whip It” any day.)

But my heart was still pretty much hardened … until last Sunday. Wait, I liked Mary Lou. Wait, I loved Erik, like so many young women did then. And oh, those raisins. And Hulk was the first pro wrestler I noticed that didn’t look like those old couch-potato-built dudes from the Midsouth Wrestling circuit of the 1970s, Lord love ’em.

I realized the ’80s maybe represented a particularly rough coming-of-age period, but there were some redeeming qualities … in pop culture and in real life. The bad stuff became valuable tools of maturation.

I was forgiven. I forgave others. And I forgave myself. Good to know I’ve finally come to forgive a decade. To err is human, to email, divine:

[email protected]

Style, Pages 45 on 02/09/2014