Remember the Times?

 “Remember the Times?”

I hope during this eyewitness account I can point a vivd, nostalgic picture of the past. I was born in 1978 so I was a valid participant as the youth of the 80’s and 90’s. We didn’t have the technological advances that exist today beyond television and telephones. In retrospect, I believe it produced a more hands-on culture that doesn’t and probably will never exist again in America.. pop music and stars were a dominant force of influence at the time. There were the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna, George Michael, Prince and Mariah Carey that monopolized the radio and the MTV generation during the 80’s & 90’s.

Now letting you into the heart and mind of “Dante Blanks” here is my personal account and memoir. A prominent memory of the past was the family like I enjoyed. It causes great discomfort to conjure the former memories of my life with my mother that were loving, robust and jubilant. She was a nonchalant, influential factor in my musical prowess and reference. She turned me on to the Motown sound and my first record was Michael Jackson – “Thriller”. I had the jerry curl, glove, socks and jacket to match. There was Rick James, Tina Turner, Marvin Gaye, Teddy Pendergrass, Prince, Tina Marte, and New Edition and the countless others that my young ears were harkened to.

I can remember countless hours listening to the old vinyl records with mom, hearing her horrible renditions. I was an only child for four years, until my sister’s birth, and I enjoyed all the spoils and pleasures contained within. My mom let me watch ‘R’-rated movies, see all her girlfriends naked and endure endless flirting, I feel a major contribution to my overt desire for a females’ affection. Lord knows, as a very hyper child, I probably got on her nerves and received my fair share of ass-whoopings but for the most part I endured far less discipline than kids my age who’s parents were older than my mother. I had the G.I. Joes, Transformers, Garbage Pail Kids cards, candy and Voltron toys even though we were very poor. I was so spoiled beyond my means, that is I believe a catalyst now at my adult age, why I still exist and crave beyond lukewarm ranges of contentment. My mom took me to the YMCA at a young age and it’s a service and way of life I continue to this day and have passed on to my own kids.

During the 80’s and 90’s I also experienced the greatest of family times with all my relatives close and near. My mom’s sisters and brother treated me like their own son and their children, my cousins, we like brother and sisters. We had the big Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings at my uncle’s or grandfathers, two of the most successful men in our family.

We had a lot of genuine love and unity without Facebook, cellphones or the internet. Even when I went to foster care for a few years, living with an interracial family, I enjoyed some of the most profoundly impacting years of my life. We traveled a lot and Madonna would be blaring through the radio or Phil Collins, to name a few musical choices of my white foster mom. I experienced a brevity of, seemingly genuine, love, affection and acceptance from my foster mom’s white family and that so positively impacted and shaped my perception of interracial ties and formats. I judged people on a per diem basis, as a young black kid from a poor financially and educationally background home, it was easy to accept the prevalent philosophy of the time, that the “white man” was the main culprit in our oppression. This may have been true, but ony by God’s grace not for me.

Fast forward to 2013 and social media and technological and communicating advances have desensitized the importance of being up close and personal, a factor we had no choice in manipulating in the former days. I could fill the Library of Congress if I penned all the memories that are so fond and dear to me stemming from that era. In the meantime I hope I have enchanted and positively distracted my friends, family and audience to “Remember the Times.” -Poetic Marcus Spartacus  “Remember the Times?”