Summer of '88

Endless volumes of prose have been expended over the Summer of 1967 (the so-called "Summer of Love"), and Bryan Adams sang eloquently about the "Summer of '69," but these days, I've got another, less heralded, summer on my mind. From a socio-historical standpoint, I wouldn't say that any events of great magnitude occurred during this particular summer, other than what must have been, in retrospect, a laughably tame U.S. presidential election, and the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, which I consumed with a ferocity I would never match during any subsequent Olympic period. The Dodgers were on their way to winning the World Series, which, it pleases me to say, is still, as of November 2017, the last time they won the World Series.

No, the Summer of '88 was memorable for me because I was eight years old, I was between 2nd and 3rd grade, I sat around and relished the fact that I did not have to go to school for three months and, most critically for our purposes, I listened to the radio every waking moment of my life.

Of course, I had been listening to '80s Top 40 radio throughout my youth, and I remember hearing specific songs and learning specific artist names long before the Summer of 1988. But that summer was, I suppose, the first time I really began to step back and soak in the full pop music landscape of a particular era. It was the first time I began evaluating the merits of each work, ranking my preferences, picking favorites and not-so-favorites. I remember telling my father one week, with admirable decisiveness, that my absolute favorite song at that time was Huey Lewis and the News' "Perfect World." I loved "Perfect World." For about three weeks, I thought it was the greatest song I'd ever heard. Certain Huey Lewis hits became perennials on radio playlists for decades, but "Perfect World" really came and went. I haven't heard it on the radio since. It was like the world wasn't perfect enough for that song. I finally heard it again about eight years ago, and I thought to myself, "What the hell was so great about this?"

Here's the thing. Top 40 radio, at that time, didn't just play the same forty songs over and over again. On the contrary. They played the same twenty songs over and over again. The hits were the hits, and that was it. I don't even remember them playing too many songs from the previous couple of years, but they did play a few. In a way, late '80s top 40 radio had achieved a kind of accidental nirvana: it always existed in a perpetual present.

One odd, and little commented-upon, aspect of a cluster of hit singles from that summer was what I would like to dub "The Egyptian Thing." Perhaps the influence of "Walk Like An Egyptian" was partially to blame, but according to my eight-year-old brain, it seemed like several artists were trying explore some sort of vaguely "middle eastern" sound on certain singles. I would listen to these hits and imagine pyramids and camels and snake charmers and all sorts of cool stuff. There were about four or five of these songs, and they all seemed to come out at the exact same time. I don't know what was in the air. A particularly exotic batch of hashish? Perhaps you'll agree with me, or perhaps you'll think I've been smoking something a little middle eastern myself.

What else do I remember? I remember taking swimming lessons in the pool of my home town's high school (a school which I would eventually attend six years later). Without revealing this town's name, let me just say that it is located in one of the few regions of North America where the typical summer climate is not very warm, and in fact tends to be noticeably colder than, say, the climate in April or October. In other words, my hometown fell prey to what is generally described as "fog." As a result of this summertime fog, when one went swimming, it was not, as one might hope, on a scorching hot day, but on a cloudy, windy day with an average temperature of about 56 degrees. To further exacerbate matters, I was an extremely skinny child (curiously enough, I'm still an extremely skinny adult), and I became cold with tremendous ease. What I'm trying to say is that during these supposedly enjoyable swimming lessons, I was always freezing my ass off. I shivered in the water, and out of it. The actual act of swimming seemed to temporarily warm me, but not for long. The worst part was the end of the lesson, where I had to walk back to the family car, a Chevy Chevette, driven by my mother, who was completely oblivious to my difficulties and was convinced that I absolutely loved the swimming lessons. The car was something of a piece of junk, even though it somehow managed to run for another six years. It had a heating system, but this was not the most effective apparatus. I remember there was one little vent that shot up from the floor, and I would hold my feet over that one lousy vent, hoping that the warmth would spread. It took a little time to warm up too, so for the first minute or so it would just blast cold air at my already cold feet. Sometimes my mother would go shopping while I was still in my swim suit (I guess I wasn't supposed change into dry clothes until I got home?), and I remember her leaving the car on in the parking lot so that I could benefit from the heat. As I shivered, I listened to the radio. Almost every song from the Summer of '88 reminds me of shivering in the car after a swimming lesson, huddling up to the heating vent, and waiting to get the hell home.

I also remember spending a lot of time at the library. There was this fairly young librarian there who was very sweet, but she always wore this perfume that kind of smelled like poo to me. I have no idea why she covered herself with what literally smelled like crap. I had mixed emotions every time I saw her: she was friendly and helpful, but she smelled so ... weird. At any rate, I can't remember if the Summer of '88 was when I went on my Roald Dahl binge, or if that was the Summer of '89, but during one of those two summers, I read every Roald Dahl book I could get my hands on. I know I'd read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory during the actual 2nd grade school year because I recall reading it on a school bus (but perhaps I'm wrong). After The Twits, George's Marvelous Medicine, and Matilda, I got around to Danny the Champion of the World. That was one of the first experiences I've ever had of not being able to put a book down. I think I read it in two days. And for an eight-year-old, that was a pretty long book! I barely even remember what the plot was. Maybe it's time to re-read it? Hey, I could probably read it in two days. But I often remember sitting in the parking lot of the library, possibly after my swimming lessons, and possibly not, listening to good ol' Top 40 radio.

Let's see ... what else? My movie-going experience that summer consisted of towering works of cinema such as Big, Die Hard, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and Short Circuit 2. I think my brother saw Coming To America and A Fish Called Wanda and told me how funny they were, but they seemed like "adult" movies to me. I wasn't interested.

Mainly, the Summer of '88 was the tail end of a fairly happy period in my youth. For whatever reason, in 3rd grade and 4th grade, I became more anti-social and depressed. I stopped making friends, I acted out. I said embarrassing things just to get attention, but, as one of my teachers pointed out to me, I was generating the wrong kind of attention. A phase of picking on other kids in 3rd grade gave way to a phase where I was picked on by other kids in 4th grade. Only around the start of 5th grade in the fall of 1990 did my life begin to improve again, for reasons almost equally as mysterious. In the spring of 1991, the twin whammies of discovering '60s pop music and joining the Boy Scouts made the grimness of 3rd and 4th grade seem a distant memory. But the point is, the spirit of each of these personal mini-epochs implanted themselves on the pop music of the moment in my recollections. For instance, I associate an entirely different vibe with songs from the Fall of '88. Whole different scene.

Anyway. I feel like the Summer of '88 was the last time that pop music was really ... innocent. Kind of inane and mindless, but not without a certain PG charm. Right around 1989, I feel like things got a bit raunchier - or maybe I just became more aware of the raunchiness. What I'm trying to say is that the Summer of '88 seems to me almost like the true, "proper" end of the '80s.

With this next series, I would now like to take you back. Back to a place where R&B singers barely sang about actual sex. A place where Tommy James managed to make millions of dollars, without having to lift a finger. A place where Patrick Swayze could release a hit single, and not sound like a joke. A place where washed up '70s legends could go toe to toe with one hit wonders, and come out about even. A place where black lesbian folk singers could be followed on the dial by wholesome Catholic 17-year-old teen idols, and no one would even bat an eye. And of course, all your old favorites will be along for the ride: George, Belinda ... even Stock Aiken Waterman.

One clarification: Because the radio would, as I mentioned, play a few songs that had come out a year or so earlier, I do associate certain hits with the Summer of '88 even though they were actually released in, say, 1986 or 1987. In fact, one might as well consider my earlier posts on "When I Think Of You," "Walk Like An Egyptian," and "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You" to be part of this series. In other words, I don't want to hear anyone saying to me, "But Little Earl, don't you know that song actually came out in May 1987, not the Summer of '88?" Yes, I do know that song came out in May 1987, but I'm including it in my Summer of '88 series anyway, because I feel like it, OK? You see, the Summer of '88 isn't merely a finite period of time on the calendar.

The Summer of '88 ... is a state of mind.