I Love the 80s…

Remember that post where I told you all about all of the wonderful things I wanted to get for my birthday? Well, I have some bittersweet news:  I didn’t get the hybrid SUV. Nor did I get a gift-wrapped three-way involving media goddess Alison Stewart.

socKs, however, was wonderful enough to get a co-worker to lend me the box-set of the first season of the Israeli version of In Treatment. And we purchased the entire season of Sports Night — only to discover, weeks later, that they are about to release a 10th anniversary edition this coming fall.

About six weeks after my birthday, however, something came in the mail in a yellow, full-sized clasp envelope.  And in it was the issue of 3-2-1 Contact magazine I had discussed in that post! Wow! She really came through on this one…

I quickly turned to page 22…

There it was! The survey I had remembered from nearly three decades ago!  I don’t recall if the magazine published ever the results of the survey, but it gave me a lot to think about…

I also tried to determine what my answers would have been to each of these questions (or what they actually were — as a 7 year old living life in the USA in 1979). How would I predict these events with the following answers:

* It will happen between 1980 and 1989.
* It will happen after 1989.
* It will never happen.

Here’s what I came up with:

1. The price of gasoline reaches two dollars. It will happen between 1980 and 1989.

I don’t remember the gas crisis (crises?) of the 70s. I do remember certain odd and even numbered days for which we could get gas, however. And I do remember my parents panicking about gasoline being a hefty dollar per gallon. And with the rapid shift in power in Iran at the time? It was something which gave my parents quite the pessimistic view  (Our next door neighbors had taken in Iranian refugees who were in high school at the time.  Two hot looking girls. The 7-year old me was in heaven.) So — they assumed that gas would  simply keep going up. What would they do if gas became so prohibitively expensive? Not sure.

What we didn’t expect was that, a few years later, gas would fall back below 70 cents a gallon. I wonder if it will ever reach two dollars a gallon…




2. The first American woman flies in outer space. It will happen between 1980 and 1989.

I knew that this would happen sooner rather than later. And it’s all because I had seen an episode of CHiPs where John and Ponch were teaching these women police officers to ride motorcycles.  Of course they had the cliche opening — these crazy dirt-bikers were speeding along a track, doing magnificent things! And they were both wearing visored helmets. And everyone watched in amazement: Who are these bikers, who are obviously men because the notion of girl bikers is preposterous? And when they stopped, they both took off their helmets, shook out they long, flowing beautiful manes of 70s hair, and Gadzooks! Women driving motorbikes!  If women could ride motorcycles, they could certainly fly in a rocket ship!

Sally Ride proved this one out less than three years later, earning her a place next to “Wheel of Fortune” and “Heavy Metal” in that annoying Billy Joel song about history beginning in the late ’40s.




3. A new planet is discovered in our solar system. It will happen after 1989.

In February of 1979, science as I knew it was turned on its head. While I had always learned that Pluto was the furthest planet from the sun in the solar system, I was informed that its orbit was so out of whack that it was actually closer in than Neptune and would remain that way for 20 years.  This was a radical change. And I assumed that another radical change in the solar system wouldn’t occur until at least this mess was straightened out.

And it didn’t.  I would have never guessed, however, that the number of planets in our solar system would decrease…




4. Thanks to a new scientific discovery, no one gets cavities anymore. It will never happen.

That was just a pipe dream. The magazine was geared towards kids; why not give them what they want? If I had predicted that tooth bleaching would become so popular, however, I’d be a rich boy…




5. Someone presents proof that the Loch Ness monster exists. It will never happen.

I also predicted that nobody would give a rat’s ass about it. Go me!




6. The original Beatles – John, Paul, George and RIngo – get together for a performance. It will happen between 1980 and 1989.

This is just too sad to think about. Who would have ever dreamt that John Lennon would get shot less than a year later?




7. The California Condor is officially declared “extinct.” It will happen after 1989.

I’m ignorant enough that I had to Wikipedia this — and I found that the condor population has risen since the ’90s — mostly because they trained the birds not to crash into power lines.




8. Your family buys its first car that runs on electricity instead of gasoline. It will happen between 1980 and 1989.

I really thought this was imminent. I mean, there were prototypes on the road! (Well, on TV, at least.) And gas was going to be $2 a gallon!  If it meant having to drive topping out at 35 miles per hour, I suppose I could live with that. I was seven.  Where was I going to go which would be prohibitive at that speed?

A few decades later I watched Who Killed the Electric Car. Those bastards…




9. Color TV is so popular that no more black and white sets are being made. It will happen between 1980 and 1989.

At that time, our downstairs TV was a black and white 12 inch screen from the late ’60s. We couldn’t watch any UHF channels on it, which sucked for me because The Electric Company was my viewing fodder at the time, and that was only available on the DC and Annapolis PBS stations, channels 22 and 26 respectively.  My theory was that there wasn’t much of a difference between black and white and color technologies; why make both?

I would have never predicted that America would be so dumbed down that Deal or No Deal would be such a popular hit 27 years later…




10 . The population of the world (3 billion in 1979) increases to 4 billion. It will happen after 1989.

I mean, really. Four billion? That’s a lot. Hopefully we’ll colonize the moon by then so overcrowding Soylent Green-style won’t occur… (No, my parents were rational and reasonable and didn’t allow me to watch Soylent Green at that age.  But I did watch Quark. Space colonization wasn’t too far off…)




11. The first tourists fly to the moon. It will happen after 1989.

For whatever reason, I imagined tourists going to eat at a Burger Chef on  the moon. And Burger Chef and Jeff wearing space helmets over their chef hats.  I was a weird kid. And a husky one at that…




12. Your family buys its first home robot. It will never happen.

I just thought that, however cool it would be to have a slave to clean up my room and delegate tasks forced upon me (I was the youngest child and had nobody else lower on the totem pole), the wretched monotone would get tiring.  And I know my mom wouldn’t go for it. We were the last of my peer group to get a microwave oven…




13. Because of the Measles vaccine, there are no more cases of measles in the world. It will happen between 1980 and 1989.

This was another case of my seven-year old definition of the world around me affecting my prediction.  I knew what Measles was (were?), but I didn’t know anyone who had it.  I knew that my brother and I were vaccinated against it, and I assumed the rest of the world was as well. Social factors such as the availability of the vaccine worldwide (and my world was only limited to middle-class Americans like myself), the possibility of a vaccine-resistant strand of the disease, parents who opted not to vaccinate, etc. weren’t a factor for me.

Then again — I don’t remember the debacle that was the swine flu vaccine. I did, however, read about that several pages earlier in the same issue of 3-2-1 Contact.




14. The age at which you can vote for president (18 in 1979) is lowered to 12. It will happen after 1989.

I was 7.  Twelve was still quite far away for me — although my brother was already 10 in 1979, and for him it was just a couple of years. And as much as I looked up to my brother at the time (still do), I couldn’t imagine him voting for president. Ironically, I felt differently when he was actually 12.

I really thought that the world would change significantly where the legal age to make specific decisions about one’s representation would go down soon after, though. It would be a world where I wouldn’t have to wait until I was 18 to be an adult — and I was looking forward to it.  I also didn’t see any reason why a legal age of majority should be over 12 or 13 tops.

However, I didn’t know much about sex, alcohol or cigarettes. Frankly, I just wanted to get a driver’s license sooner.




If anybody has access to the actual survey results and can get them to me to post — I’d be very grateful.

Although I’m now a vegetarian, I now have a hankering for Burger Chef. Odd…