Not Of These Times

I'm not ashamed to be a child of “the 80s” because it was such a wonderful time despite being short-lived. The decade took a little while to find its voice but by 1983, the disco tunes, gaudy patterns and odd earthy colors of the 1970s had been surpassed by something truly new. Turning on the radio meant you'd hear great music usually influenced by synthesizers. Going to the movies often filled you with a sense of adventure and there was always something to watch on the small screen like cool music videos. My wardrobe reflected the spirit of G.I. Joe with army surplus camouflage but it also included corduroy and the timeless combination of bluejeans and t-shirts. At times, “the 80s” could get a bit hokey but at least this new aesthetic was original.

As early as 1986, I noticed some of the things that made the 80s great start to wane and by the time I entered high school two years later, something was really off. The cool new wave and synthpop I loved seemed to be replaced with rather bland music and it only got worse as the years rolled on.

Songs from 1988 that stand out in my mind as being pretty annoying were:

Bobby Brown "My Prerogative"

Boy Meets Girl “Waiting for a Star to Fall”

New Kids on the Block “You Got It (The Right Stuff)”

Paula Abdul “Straight Up”

Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock “It Takes Two”

Tracks from 1989 that I really disliked included:

After 7 “Can't Stop”

Donna Summer "This Time I Know It's For Real"
Lisa Stansfield “You Can't Deny It”

Milli Vanilli "Girl You Know It's True"

Taylor Dayne “Love Will Lead You Back”

Unfortunately, the 80s were suffering from an identity crisis. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry to discard many of the things that had made the decade great but nothing wonderful was being created in its stead. This could clearly be seen in the changing fashions of the late 1980s. Watch an episode of Miami Vice from the first two seasons and you'll see nicely coordinated pastels but skip ahead to the later seasons and dark colors with loud patterns seem to be the norm.

Miami Vice early on in the series.

The color palate definitely shifted in later seasons.

In high school, the dress code reflected this shift too. Some of the cool kids liked to wear parachute pants and oddly colored dress shirts with garish patterns but thankfully a mandatory Bishop Fenwick sweater covered most of it up. (The eponymous television show character Parker Lewis regularly wore these shirts too.) One male student had a black crossover tie that was held together in the center with a diamond stud pin. His outfit highlighted the terrible sense of style we had to deal with...a style that was very different from the jeans, camouflage and corduroy pants that were prevalent not too long ago.

Parker Lewis and his patterned shirt.

My school wardrobe was pretty subdued and usually consisted of khaki pants with either striped dress shirts or turtlenecks. Later on I followed in my brother's footsteps and started wearing the occasional bolo tie as a nod to that alternative 80s look.

The overuse of hair spray was also popular among many of the female students at Bishop Fenwick. The 80s might have been famous for the stereotype of “big hair” but I never noticed this until high school. It was not a good look.

After a while, I felt trapped in these times instead of being a part of them. I had loved growing up in the 80s but that distinctive era just didn't seem to exist anymore.  In 1989, the school was going to have a "remember the 80s" dance featuring much of the music I once enjoyed. This was one dance I really wanted to attend but it was canceled due to a lack of interest.

As the decade passed into history, 1990 brought more music that I just couldn't stand:

Bell Biv Devoe “Poison”

Deee-Lite “Groove Is In The Heart”

Linear “Sending All My Love”

Mariah Carey “Vision of Love”

Maxi Priest “Close to You”
Sinéad O'Connor "Nothing Compares 2 U"

Snap “I’ve Got The Power”

Soulsister “The Way to Your Heart”

Suzanne Vega and DNA “Tom's Diner”
Wilson Phillips "Hold On"

I first heard Bell Biv Devoe's “Poison” during a school talent show. As a few of the cool kids danced on stage in their parachute pants, I wondered what the hell happened to mainstream music.

Annoying songs I remember from 1991 include:

Another Bad Creation “Iesha”

Bryan Adams "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You"
Boyz II Men “End of the Road”

Color Me Badd “I Wanna Sex You Up”

Vanessa Williams “Best for Last”

Some artists would distance themselves from all this “corporately produced” music ultimately giving rise to the genre known as grunge. I was not a fan of this either.

Being an outcast at Bishop Fenwick was bad enough but feeling very disconnected from society itself only added to my feelings of isolation. I found myself listening to doo-wop on the oldies station and new age and smooth jazz on an easy listening station. Later on, I stumbled upon college radio and while much of what they played was just plain weird, I did enjoy a weekly Celtic music show and an oldies show that featured very obscure tracks. When it came to the mainstream, I was no longer buying what society force-fed everyone else.

The Path To A Black Sheep

After an unremarkable first year at Bishop Fenwick High School, I was eager to just be myself.  Feeling free to express my Catholic values was so important to me in addition to making friends and feeling accepted.  Unfortunately, the environment I encountered in high school was fraught with pitfalls. 

It struck me how un-Catholic the school could be at times.  During my biology class, the teacher decided to blurt out her own personal views on abortion which ran counter to what the Church taught about the sanctity of life.  The odd thing was, abortion had nothing to do with the day's lesson.  If one of Bishop Fenwick's goals was to impart Catholic values, it was clear not all of its teachers were on board.

During my Catholic Morality class of all places I got teased for defending the Church's stance against premarital sex.  Some of the bullies who made fun of me that day were so good at navigating the different roles for students, they came out smelling like roses.  At times they appeared to be nothing more than enthusiastic jocks brimming with school spirit.  Some were even Eucharistic ministers during our school Masses.  What faculty member would doubt such squeaky-clean outward appearances but I saw the side of them that was anything but wholesome.  As these bullies handed out Holy Communion, I sometimes wondered what was going on in their minds.

A nun with a strict reputation named Sr. Nancy helped run the library but I found her to be very fair and reasonable with her students.  For one assignment, we had a few weeks to memorize a particular library cataloging system.  Almost all my fellow classmates blew this off and I was one of only two students to pass the exam.  As a reward, we were exempt from the extra work she handed out to the class that day.  A few of the students who had failed actually gave me a hard time for passing the test because in their eyes it was cooler to flunk the exam.  Sometimes academic success carried a stigma especially if you were male and somewhat nerdy.  I wasn’t a great student but bullies used just about anything they could to cut me down.

Friendships were often hard to nurture at Bishop Fenwick simply because the student body hailed from many different communities all along the Northshore with one classmate residing as far away as East Boston.  Since we were so spread out geographically, I never got together with many of the friends and acquaintances I wanted to know better.  When you don't have a driver's license, even relatively short distances seem like a world away.

Like some of my classmates, I came from a middle class background and my parents worked very hard to give me a Catholic school education.  It was a bit of a culture shock to encounter students who were very well-off and incapable of relating to certain economic struggles.  I was flabbergasted to learn one student had been given a brand new Saab not by her parents but by her aunt.  The most my relatives ever gave me was 20 dollars in a birthday card…when we were lucky!  Another student's parents owned a beachfront summer house in Maine.  “Toto…we're not in Kansas anymore.”

I longed for a girlfriend but many of the females at Bishop Fenwick tended to fall into two categories.  Those with strong Catholic values were so prudish, they acted like nuns in training.  Girls who rebelled against the Church's teachings seemed too sexual.  Neither group appealed to me romantically.

A motto I heard over and over again at Bishop Fenwick during orientation was, “Get involved.”  This can be a very difficult thing when you start to feel like an outcast.  All the hope and optimism I had during my freshman year was beginning to slip away.  Many other factors would place me on the path to a black sheep, though.