Soundtrack of youth fading away

My formative years happened in the 80s.
Don’t do the math, that’s just rude.
But I’m speaking to a specific group of readers this week. The rest of you can Google it - those of you that are too young to remember Jefferson Starship’s We Built This City on Rock and Roll.
Now that anthem of an 80s hair band is a jingle for toilet paper. Is there a bigger metaphor for society’s – let’s just say ‘dumping’ - on my youth?
Maybe that genre is in the rear-view window, but most things are now. Not everything.
But the 80s was the decade where I learned things. Good and bad. Some of those things are obsolete now. Some are as relevant today as they were back then.
Music brings memories. We all have music we listened to growing up and how it helped define some of the best times of our lives. When we hear that music today it can, depending on the day and what we’re doing, take us back to better times.
If my wife and I were having a rough patch, she would go into a room, typically the office, and blast music from her youth, before me. Megadeth was her favorite cast back to days of fishnet and leather. Lol. I almost got in a fight one day over a guy looking at what she was wearing. That got me in the doghouse for bit. I mean, I was standing right beside her.
“What the hell are you looking at?” I said looking down on him.
“Plenty,” he said.
Looking back, it was a great response and makes me laugh. But several people broke that scuffle up and I think he was escorted from the premises by a bouncer that happened to be my brother.
It was the music that we put on the radio or in the cassette tape player when the weather first warmed up in the spring. Whether it was high school or college, the music and the warming breeze of spring brought energy to a night where there wasn’t work at the Burlington KFC in high school, or the Western Courier on campus at WIU in the early 90s.
I remember sitting on a flight of steps leading up to a friend’s apartment in Macomb during college. I was drinking something and just staring off into the sunset to the west thinking nothing needed to change.
Not just the music. But life. How could it get much better than roaming a campus, studying between the plans that four roommates could conjure up with some spare time on their hands?
Living on your own, with moderate means, but doing what you want, when you want, how you want, and with whomever you want.
College wasn’t nearly as expensive then as it is now, but it was still tight between a student loan and a Pell Grant. Mom contributed food from the pantry at the house, but no money. I borrowed and have since paid it back.
So we didn’t think a whole lot about finances back then. It wasn’t the music that distracted us, but the fun we were having without a clue that those tunes in the background was the soundtrack of our lives at the time.
I still play some of that music when I golf if I’m with people that don’t mind it. Typically large golf fundraiser outings is when it’s most appropriate. Four guys on a Sunday morning just playing for friendly double-or-nothings is more social time and catching up on things since the last round.
When my brother’s family and I road trip to Iowa City or Oskaloosa to see my favorite non-adults, sometimes we just put on the XM Radio to the Hairband channel and sing quietly along. I sing very quietly because that’s not good for anyone. Music teachers will tell you any singing is beautiful. I’m the outlier, the anomaly. It’s not even funny. It sounds good in the shower with Alexa blaring in the background because I only hear it in my brain, where it’s filtered and autotuned and shrouded in the noise of water spray around my ears.
But even there – it happened this week – sometimes the right song comes on and your metabolism kicks in from the reminiscence of days gone by.  But if it kickstarts the day, it kickstarts the day.
Ask Alexa to play some of the favorite music from your childhood today and see what happens. Don’t tell her, ask her nicely because some day that AI is gonna lock you in your bathroom and your toilet paper will be the only connection you have to peace – But that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.