Music

A lot of people say the best times of their life were back when they were growing up. I'll invoke that cliché as well. Some of the best memories and experiences in my life were back in the 80's and 90's. Life was so simple for us kids. We didn't have to worry about anything, so long as we didn't cross Main Street alone and were home by dinner time. We went outside every day, no matter what the weather was like, just so we could see our friends and go cause trouble. Every day, we got dirty, got sand in our shoes, scuffed up our knees and elbows, caught lizards and snakes and added on our fort in the vacant lot around the corner. We didn't have to worry about waking up early, though we were expected to go to bed a decent hour. We didn't have to worry about where our next meal came from, or worry about whether or not our rooms would still be there when we got back home. We couldn't wait for school lunch. We looked forward to mashed potatoes every Thursday, and we ate every bite. We had the best cartoons EVER made, new every week on Saturday morning. We would wake up at the crack of dawn, sit on the couch while eating our Fruity Pebbles and watch shows like Looney Tunes, Thunder Cats, Inspector Gadget, Duck Tales, Rescue Rangers, Ninja Turles and Transformers.

It was a damn good time to be a kid in America.

What do our children have to look forward to? Secret Mountain Fort Awesome? Cow and Chicken? Terrible, mindless crap. What about music? Justin Bieber and LMFAO? What happened to the real artists and writers that could consistently make great things over and over again? How have we lost so much passion and become so disconnected? Our attention spans are so limited that all patience for anything is gone. Art, music, food, drinks, movies, cartoons, and even cars are so intense... so over the top, so in your face, they will do anything to grab those precious seconds out of your day to get your attention and show you an irrelevant advertisment. It's like we can't see the true greats in life that are right in front of our faces. We are obsessed with "over the top", when we should be looking for the simpler things in life and try to learn to be satisfied with the elementary. Instead we soak up the crap they they want us to see, hear, and eat.

Now that I am older, I understand and appreciate the way my parents raised me. I know I have only begun to realize the wiseness and value of their advice. I had my own ideas and opinions, especially as a teenager. I thought I had the whole world figured out. I now understand my parents a little better. I used to make fun of their music, food and choices of entertainment... now that's just about the only thing I like any more. I look at some of the all-time greats like Tom Petty; the music just speaks to me. It's so powerful, so overwhelming and emotional. It's hard to imagine what it must have been like for my parents to actually live the glory days of rock and roll as they were growing up. I can only hope that my kids will get the chance to grow up the way I did... to actually look back and be able to say "the best time of my life was when I was growing up". I can't with good conscience raise a child in social complacency like so many others do today.

Tom Petty and Thunder Cats are just some of the words that will continue to be spoken in my home. They're too important to me to let die.

-Serrated