The 80's

Spencer Dryden

The early 80's was one of the most magical times of my life. In April of 1981, I emerged like a butterfly from a cocoon after a terrible first marriage. It was such a relief that in the aftermath I flitted from flower to flower blissfully in love with life.

I normally embrace change with all the enthusiasm of embracing a cactus, but in the wake of an ugly divorce, Madison had suddenly become a very small town. When I was offered an opportunity to move to Minneapolis as part of a joint venture, I leaped at the chance. My part of the property split was a bed, a chair, a desk, a dresser and a television. I didn't need anything more. The first day I woke up in my new bungalow apartment, I wept for joy. In Minneapolis, all I would have to say was that I was divorced. It seemed everyone was divorced in the early '80's, so I never had to explain the circus my life had become before the move.

At age thirty-two I had my first experience of independent adulthood. I started doing things I wanted to do, when I wanted to do them. I learned to ski, I joined a tennis club, and oddly enough, I took up ball room dancing. I don't dance any more, but I loved dancing back then. All great dance music is eight beats and lots of the music then was great partner dancing music. It was a fun, non-threatening way to meet women, which was at the top of my agenda. I loved the feel of a woman following my lead. In ballroom dance, like Swing, a woman has to surrender herself if she wants to dance without falling down. Women who went dancing loved that kind of surrender. Dancing was foreplay. Sometimes, after a night of dancing the leader switched. I loved the transition from leader to follower. In many of my stories, my male MC is a slightly clueless guy who falls under the spell of a sexually assertive woman. I know it's a common male fantasy, but that was my life then. Casual sex  seemed so harmless before AIDS.  In all honesty, I might still be living in that little apartment with just a few sticks of furniture, but life happens while you are making plans.

In the 80's I became a positive motivation junkie, in control of my inner dialogue, censoring all negativity  and full of plans to achieve my lofty goals. I chased rainbows. None of my plans worked out. But sometimes miracles are measured by what doesn't happen. If my plans had succeeded I would have missed the great love of my life, which also had its origin in the 80's. My second wife and I met in the sauna of an exercise area in the building where we both worked. According to her, it was love at first sight. I wasn't the least bit interested in a serious relationship, so it took me nearly the rest of the decade to come to my senses. She waited until I was ready.   She doesn't dance, but that's okay, we've done the dance of life together for twenty-seven years now. I have no interest in changing partners. My six word biography is: Got the girl; forgot the money.

I loved the music of the 80's, MTV, the clothes, the optimism, the big hair, the promise of personal computing. In retrospect I'm a little surprised by how easily  I was seduced by "living in the material world", but as the rock philosopher, Cyndi Lauper said, "Money changes everything". It did.  I never thought of myself as selling out. It was more like buying in. My sixties idealism had become a dead end street. I more or less missed the 70's with my head in my hands trying to work my way though a toxic relationship while earning an MBA. The 80's  was a time to be alive. I traded my love beads for silk ties and grabbed for the brass ring.

The 80's are long gone. I'm not into serious goal planning any more. It's far more important to try to live in the present moment.  I try to follow my heart now. I have a positive outlook most of the time, but it's tempered by the sight of storm clouds on the horizon. I try not to give into the fear, but it's hard to imagine how we are going to avoid Armageddon with a group of people who broadcast the beheading of prisoners while spewing hate. A great dark age could easily befall us.

One of the most memorable thing about the 80's  to me was the hubris-the idea, the utter delusion, that a bunch of famous musicians could "come together as one"-and record a song that would lead to the end of hunger in Africa. We ignored entropy then, that's why the cute little meme of the butterfly effect doesn't work. "But if you just believe, there's no way we can fall."